Hay Festival announces key dates for expanded Winter Weekend

The Hay Festival has offered a preview of what to expect at its expanded Winter Weekend later this year.

The festive celebration of literature and culture will see writers, artists and world-changers mark the year’s end from 26–30 November.

Taking place in the grounds of Hay Castle in the heart of “the world’s first booktown” Hay-on-Wye, the event will run over five days with more than 70 artists taking part.

The full programme will be released at noon on Tuesday 23 September with three days’ exclusive booking for Hay Festival Members.

Storytelling

Launching the best new fiction and non-fiction, the programme will see participants engage with some of the biggest questions of our times, while spreading festive joy in candle-lit storytelling, workshops, and evening music and comedy.

The Festival weekend sees the Welsh booktown’s independent shops, cafés and markets offer a warm welcome to visitors within the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park.

The festival will coincide with the town’s Christmas light switch-on on Friday 28 November.

For the first time, a free schools programme will open Hay Festival Winter Weekend thanks to new funding from the Hodge Foundation.

Events will offer Primary School pupils from state schools in Wales access to festival events as part of a wider outreach project running throughout the autumn.

‘New chapter’

Hay Festival Global CEO Julie Finch said: “A new chapter starts now! As the dust settles on our record-breaking spring edition in

“Hay-on-Wye, we are excited to look ahead to Hay Festival Winter Weekend with fresh vision and purpose.

“The addition of a free Schools Programme thanks to new funding from the Hodge Foundation will mean even more young people can enjoy Festival inspiration as we continue to broaden our reach. Join us!”

The festival will also draw on public nominations to crown the Hay Festival Book of the Year following past wins for Chloe Dalton’s Raising Hare; Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry, Deborah Levy’s Real Estate, Dara McAnulty’s Diary of a Young Naturalist, Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s Inventing Ourselves and Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane’s The Lost Words.