OT: Hay Festival 2021

The Hay Festival is an annual literature festival held in Hay-on-Wye in Wales for 10 days. They usually host lots of talks, book fairs, readings, and signings by contemporary authors.

Since it’s being held online this year because of Covid, instead of signings they’re selling a load of books online, some with signed bookplates. Most aren’t fine press, or good quality, but you could put the bookplates in nicer editions and they do have the ‘Hay Festival Press’, which consists of 11 nicely bound short stories by contemporary authors.



They’re ‘Designed and typeset at Five Seasons Press by Glenn Storhaug’ and ‘Printed by Cambridge University Press on Simili Japon 130gsm, a de luxe imitation Japanese paper, in a full-cased sewn binding with a different colour cloth for each title. Blind-blocked front board with pasted label. Foil-blocked title on flat-backed spine.'

They cost £10 unsigned, £90 signed. Hay Festival Press

The Short Stories are:
• Bottle, by Margaret Atwood
• Two Stories, by Jeanette Winterson (including The Night Sea Voyage, & The White Room)
• A Night Off for Prudente de Moraes, by Louis de Moraes
• Security, by Ariel Dorfman
• Long Ago Yesterday, by Hanif Kureishi
• Tangled Web, by Doris Lessing
• Meeting Cezanne, by Michael Morpurgo
• Suddenly Doctor Cox, by DBC Pierre
• The Happiness of Blond People, by Elif Shafak
• Safari, by Owen Sheers
• The Jester of Astapovo, by Rose Tremain

And then there are also these:
• Hay Festival Conversations (anthology of conversations of 36 authors at past Hay Festivals)
• Poems for RS (to celebrate the centenary of the birth of RS Thomas – has 11 poems by modern poets)
• The Echoes Last So Long (ebook with poems commemorating the Armistice of 1918)

The festival itself is running from 26th May - 6th June, and the events are free to register for I think!

I've been trying to get in ever since I received the email but it is stalling. I'll try again later. It was so good last year.

An annual purchase for a minimal amount gains you the archived talks using their "Hay Player." The talks are usually made available about 24 hours after they originally aired if you are unable to see the live cast. With the many time zones, the Hay Player may be a convenient way to access the recorded talks at a time more suitable.

Also, note that you need to register for each live talk individually at no charge.

Thanks for all the information!

I had such a hard time navigating the site yesterday that I couldn't order any books by the Hay Festival Press, and today they are nearly all gone. Oh well, I signed up for lots of events.

>5 overthemoon:
If it's any consolation at least some of them were sold out long before yesterday (I know the Margaret Atwood one has been sold out for a good couple of years), though I couldn't say for sure whether or not any may have happened to sell out yesterday. There still seem to be a good few titles left in stock though.

>3 Forthwith:
As a longish-time subscriber, I can thoroughly recommend the Hay Player subscription, for anyone with an interest in books or even just curiosity about the world in general, it's probably the best £10 you can spend. It doesn't just give you access to this year's events after broadcast, but to the whole archive of events from the past several years (and from the various festivals held around the world, not just the main one at Hay itself). And it all plays in a web browser, no need to worry about having a compatible device to use with an app, etc. (I promise I'm not on commission, just a long-time enthusiastic Hay festival attendee / supporter.)

Edit: scratch the above - I notice the Hay Player annual subscription fee has gone up from £10 to £15 since I last purchased a subscription! Oh well, I still think it's well worth it :)

>6 agitationalporcelain: oh, and here I was thinking they were all new publications. However, the ones I would like to buy are all unavailable.

>7 overthemoon:
Depending on which ones you're after, it might be worth checking on Abebooks. There are quite a few on there including some of the sold out ones (of which, copies that seem to be in good condition are around the £15 - £20 mark - there are cheaper ones e.g. of the Michael Morpurgo one but I'm wary of the condition of those). I notice at least one being sold by one of the Hay bookshops too, so almost like buying from the festival! ;)

Some of the listed titles e.g. the Atwood are a lot more expensive though (but then, they appear to be the signed versions which were more expensive to start with).