Hay Festival expands year-round events with online book club and city pop-ups

Hay Festival is expanding its year-round events with an online book club and "After Hours" city pop-ups, supported by a new multi-year funding agreement with the Unwin Charitable Trust.

Free monthly events tied to the relaunched Hay Festival book club will begin this month, with Wendy Cope’s The Orange and other poems (Faber) featured in the first of the online events on Thursday 18th January.

Further titles to be explored through the first half of this year include James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (Penguin Classics) in February, Rachel Trezise’s Fresh Apples (Parthian Books) in March, Salman Rushdie’s Knife (Jonathan Cape) in May and Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings (Oneworld) in June.

Three "After Hours" events will also take place in Cardiff, Bristol and Birmingham, introducing new audiences to the Hay Festival and creating opportunities for regional collaborations among writers, publishers and cultural institutions. The first of these event will take place on Wednesday 13th March in Wales Millennium Centre’s Cabaret Bar, with an evening of readings and performances, tickets to which will go on sale later this month.

Both new projects are supported by a three-year funding agreement with the Unwin Charitable Trust, which supports causes that "benefit and promote publishing and the distribution of the printed word, and the improvement of literacy and the enjoyment of reading across the UK".

Hay Festival c.e.o. Julie Finch said: “As a charity, we want to continue widening access to the important conversations and performances that take place on our stages. With this new support from Unwin Charitable Trust, we can ramp up our mission even further.”

Unwin Charitable Trust chair Merlin Unwin added on the new initiatives: “I am confident that these will enable Hay Festival to expand its global audience still further using all the tools of social media and the modern online world, thereby introducing the charity to the next generation of readers, writers and performers."

At the end of last year, Hay Festival announced 30 "early bird" events for its next UK edition, held between 23rd May and 2nd June 2024. Confirmed speakers include Rory Stewart, Colm Tóibín, Jeanette Winterson and Andrey Kurkov, among others.