Hay Festival brings five exceptional Young Adult (YA) writers direct to thousands of Year 7-10 school pupils across Wales next year with the free Scribblers Tour, 6-10 February and 13-17 February 2023.
Now in its twelfth year, Hay Festival’s Scribblers Tour aims to engage and encourage the next generation in storytelling and conversation, inspiring empathy and creativity.
Compèred by YA novelist Jenny Valentine, sessions for Year 7-8 pupils will feature interactive activities with novelist Maz Evans and prize-winning poet Matt Goodfellow, while sessions for Year 9-10 pupils will feature sci-fi writer Femi Fadugba and New York Timesbestselling author Caroline O’Donoghue.
Events will be hosted at five Welsh universities – University of South Wales, Swansea University, Aberystwyth University, Cardiff Metropolitan University and Glyndwr University – offering pupils a chance to visit their nearest university and experience a taste of life on campus.
In addition, on Friday 17 February a special Hay Festival Scribblers Tour event will take place for adult learners at University of South Wales with programming details to be announced soon.
Julie Finch, Hay Festival CEO, said: “Hay Festival Scribblers Tour gives thousands of young people a chance to meet their writing heroes and get creative, bringing the Hay Festival experience direct to them. These free Festival days bring together partner universities, Hay Festival’s creative network and young people, to embark on an imaginative journey sharing stories through the power of writing, reading and listening, developing dialogue and celebrating talent, both established and new. We’re delighted to welcome this inspiring line-up of writers to our 2023 programme. Jenny Valentine, Maz Evans, Matt Goodfellow, Femi Fadugba and Caroline O’Donoghue make for a bold new team to guide pupils on their creative journeys.”
Hay Festival Scribblers Tour and Scribblers Cymraeg are funded by the Welsh Government and are part of Hay Festival’s wider outreach and education work that includes the free Programme for Schools, Hay Academy and the Beacons Project in the UK, and Hay Joven, Hay Communitario and Hay Festivalito internationally.
The Minister for Education and Welsh Language, Jeremy Miles, said: “It’s great to see Hay Festival Scribblers Tour inspiring pupils with workshops by writers and poets, and offering them an opportunity to visit local universities. I hope to see lots of young people getting involved and discovering a passion for storytelling, reading and writing.”
Hay Festival is one of the world’s leading literary charities, running Festivals to inspire, examine and entertain globally, featuring Nobel Prizewinners and novelists, scientists and politicians, historians, environmentalists and musicians. Over the past year, the Festival earned 1.5 million web visits and passed one million event views online, while its social media following climbed to 328,000, making it one of the most impactful literary events in the world.
