The effect of Israel's attack on the aid flotilla heading for Palestine in the early hours of yesterday morning was felt as far away as the Hay festival. Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell, who was on one of the boats, had already cancelled a planned live video-linked interview; when news of the attack broke, radical...
Poster poems: the Guardian Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts | Billy Mills
The genre of 'poems about literary festivals' is a narrow one, so get writing – even a haiku about portable toilets will do
My first real connection with the book-encumbered village of Hay-on-Wye was via the Poetry Bookshop, when it was under the management of the poet
Confessions of a first-time festival-goer
Decca Aitkenhead approached Hay with trepidation. But despite the terrible puns and overriding niceness of it all, she was smitten almost immediately
A woman I know has a word for the tiresomely fashionable crowd in her part of east London who go about in absurdist creations assembled out...
Hay festival video: ‘It breaks my heart that we can still out anyone as gay’ | Jeanette Winterson
Video: Jeanette Winterson on identity, secrecy, David Laws – and why she hates being labelled as a 'lesbian author'
Who’s who at Hay?
In a snapshot from Hay, we ask a group of visitors for their festival highlights and literary guilty pleasures
1 Anne Johnson, "wrong side of 70", retired radiographer, "near Hay"
Hay highlight: Jenny Uglow. Literary guilty pleasure: Alan Bennett.
2 Margaret Schofield, "wrong side of 70", retired radiographer, Kenilworth
Hay highlight: Andrew...
William Boot: Evelyn Waugh’s legendary journalist
Tina Brown, editor of the Daily Beast, agreed to be interviewed by William Boot (as played by James Naughtie). Why has the character survived in the public consciousness?
It was billed as "Tina Brown meets William Boot" – the legendary magazine editor turned founder of the Daily Beast website...
Hay highs and lows
What was on the way up, and crashing down to the bargain bin, at the Hay festival
Up
Thinkers on the dancefloor
AC Grayling saw off Alain de Botton, with Niall Ferguson a late challenger after-hours at the festival.
Fickle security
One day ex-president Musharraf has none, the next day the whole...
The Hay Q&A
We asked some of the leading authors at this year's Guardian Hay festival a series of questions. Here are their answers
Q1: Who, other than yourself, would you pay to see at Hay?
Philip Pullman
"I'd rather see performers perform than writers talk. I like what writers do when they...
The Hay festival: a refuge from the World Cup?
When Nadine Gordimer asked: 'Who cares about the World Cup?' she appeared to speak for the whole of the Hay festival
Just 10 days to go and not an Ingerlund shirt in sight. Nor is there an Ingerlund flag to be seen wedged into the side windows of the...
Michael Gove has no ‘ideological objection’ to firms making profits by running academy schools
Education secretary tells teachers of academy plan and says that if schools want profit option, he will discuss it
The government has "no ideological objection" to businesses seeking profits from the new generation of academy schools and free schools, Michael Gove has said.
But the education secretary said his preference...
Welcome to the #FakeHay festival
Twitter users who couldn't make it to Hay (and a few who did) were encouraged to suggest their fantasy events at the festival
@Threadworm Ian McEwan arrives by hot air balloon and uses Chesil Beach pebble to bang in tentpegs
@thespyglass Someone, not me, has Islamic...
Hay festival: ‘Climate change is a long struggle’ | John Harris
Global warming has always energised Hay audiences – but this year the mood is much more sober
For the past four or five years, one theme burned through discussions at Hay more than most: climate change, and the large and small things human beings might do to tackle...
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