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Monday 5 June 2017

Hay Festival Day One

So last week we got to go to Hay Festival as part of the Beacons project. We stayed there from the 29th of May to the 1st of June. It was overall a fun experience and now we would like to share our experience from Day one of the festival.

We started the day with the interview between feminist writer Laura Bates and Harriet Harman. They talked about feminism and Harriet's experience and her knowledge of feminism as well as answering questions from the audience. The talk was very inspiring and even inspired our writing. We also got to have a one to one Q and A with Laura Bates later in the day which allowed us to pick her brains on how to get into the world of writing as well as her own inspirations for writing.

However, before our one to one Q and A with Laura Bates we also went to a talk with Meg Rosoff who was talking about the book she had finished for Mel P, who unfortunately died before he could finish the book. This talk was also very interesting as she talked about not wanting to copy Mel and not second guess what Mel would do and instead the book became her own and she was proud of what she had written. It was insightful as she explained that with her own experience of writing she prefers to have a resolution and develop each character and therefore she gave an insight into different ways to write like many other novelists did at Hay Festival.

We also went to see Tracy Chevalier who talked about her book 'New Boy'. We have since bought the book and read it and found it to be a brilliant novel. She talked about the inspiration from Shakespeare's play 'Ophelia' and how she put it into a different setting so it was relatable. She interpreted it and set it in a school yard in a time period where she would have been at school and therefore she felt confident with writing at this time period.

We also had a one to one talk with Karla Brading, who is one of the nicest people you could meet. She talked to us about how she got into writing and all the professional details of getting published and how she did it. She gave many anecdotes that we could relate to and was overall a lovely and bubbly person that we hope to meet again.

In the afternoon, we went to see Philip Reeve talk about his book Rail Head and found it to be interesting as he would read from his book accompanied by music which helped with the mood of the story as well as make you feel like you were involved with the story. He was very interesting to watch and listen to and his creativity of Rail Head is intriguing.

We also went to see Roman Krznaric talk about Carpe Diem and were hooked on every word he said. it was interesting to hear the research that he had done into the subject as well as relate it to todays society and question whether we are really seizing the day anymore. He also cleared up the five types of Carpe Diem and provided a very interesting debate on todays society in general.

Our last talk of the day before our entertainment in the evening was with Ifor Ap Glynn who talked about Hedd Wyn. This topic deeply intrigued us as we come from Wales and have studied Hedd Wyn before. Although, it also made us feel bad as we don't know Welsh and therefore found it very intriguing that his work has been translated and interpreted into English and Dutch. Learning the history of Hedd Wyn and the importance of it to other countries put into perspective what it meant to be Welsh and gave us a very patriotic feeling.

Finally in the evening we went to see 'Fat Freddie's Drop' which was an interesting experience. Although. not to ur taste it was still a fun night as we spent the time laughing at all the other people who were drunk as well as just letting go and having fun even if the music wasn't to our taste.

Overall the first day at Hay Festival was long and intense but definitely amazing. Especially as we have never been to Hay Festival before we definitely recommend you go to it next year as well as their winter Festivals.
If you want to know more about our time at Hay Festival read our other blog posts. Please follow us on Social media at the bottom and leave a comment with any questions you have for us.
Thanks,
ThePolkaDotDaffodil x

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