Hay Festival Day Three

This is the final edition to the Hay Festival blog posts as it as our final day at Hay festival as part of the Beacons Project. We didn't want to leave as it was so good and gave us a lot of inspiration. Similar to the day before we had to get up very early to be at the festival but we were used to it by now. Our day was packed with different events as well as different workshops.

We started with breakfast with Peter Florence, the founder of Hay Festival. He sat and ate breakfast with us and talked to us about our aspirations for the future as well as giving us advice and talked about how he started the festival and how it has grown. It was a very interesting breakfast and very different but it was amazing to talk to him and get advice from him.

We then went to see a performance of 3000 chairs, which  was based off of the poem by Nicola Davies 'The Day War Came'. It was a very interesting performance and really did intrigue us and inspire us.

We followed this with a one on one workshop with Oliver Balch who talked to us about his experiences of writing and working as well as giving us advice on writing and getting published. He was happy to answer any of the questions we had and was very easy to talk to.

After our workshop we went to a talk about 'Utopias' which was very interesting and gave us an idea of things to write about and how to fictionalise them. It also helped with gaining a wider knowledge of different things and therefore improved our knowledge of different topics like many other events that we wouldn't have necessarily chosen to gone to ourselves but found them very interesting.

We then went to a talk about 'The Cyber Effect' which in todays society is a very big topic as it talked about the internet and how dangerous it is and how it is consuming our lives as well as the positives of the internet and therefore it linked back to the discussion of utopias and therefore gave us an epiphany moment as we were very intrigued by how some of our talks over lapped and flowed into each other as if they were having a debate and therefore we found this very interesting.

Our last talk was Alex Wheatle who started talking about his life and how it related to his novels and although they were fiction you could see aspects of his life that had influenced him in his writing and therefore showed where he got his inspiration from. It was very interesting to see this as well as listening to him read as he was very passionate about it and also very happy to answer the audiences questions at the end of his talk.

Our last event of the day before our entertainment was a workshop with Tom Bullough. Although, we had little time with him to do the workshop we still managed to have one foot in England and one foot in Wales at the same time as we were on the Black Mountain where the cover of his book of 'ADDlands' is taken. He got us to do a bit of writing about our surroundings using our senses and we even got to make friends with a horse as it came closer and closer and tried to eat out notepads but it was very interesting. We even got to have a chat with him about our interests at the bottom before leaving and he gave us some great advice. We also got many pictures from the mountain:

 

 

 

 

Later in the evening we went to see Will Young perform and he was amazing it was the perfect way to end our time at Hay Festival even if we didn't want to leave. We can't wait until next years Hay Festival and hope to go to their festival in the winter, If you have any questions or advice or want to know more leave a comment, Don't forget to follow our social media linked at the bottom of the page and we will see you soon with another blog post.

ThePolkaDotDaffodil x

Hay Festival Day Two

This is the second edition to our blog about our time at Hay Festival. Read our last blog post about our first day at Hay Festival as well and be sure to follow us on social media. So our second day was long and tiring just like our first day but it was definitely amazing. We started off with a morning walk from where we were staying to the Festival to be there for eight where we either wrote our reflections of the previous day or did yoga. Having done yoga before we decided to take the time to do some writing instead even though yoga is quite a good way to relax.

Our first talk of the day was Owen Sheers who is amazing as he is so down to earth as well as being an amazing writer. We highly recommend that if you don't know who Owen Sheers is you go and read his poetry or novels or plays as he is very talented and like us started with the Beacons project. His talk was about the reform of males and was very interesting to listen to as he addressed it as a poem to his daughters and therefore gave a meaningful and sentimental tone to what he was talking about. In the afternoon we were able to have a private Q and A with Owen Sheers who is so lovely and very humble. He was very helpful when answering questions on how he started writing and his advice for us as well as being very cheerful and happy to sit and have a chat.

We also went to a talk about how to write a novel with the BBC's 'The Essay' where they had two novelists, a historian and fictional, talk about how to write a book by reading out Essays that they had done. Both gave great advice and were very helpful for aspiring writers. We also went to see Luciano Floridi who talked about the internet and our society as well as getting into political issues and answering questions about economy problems. Although it doesn't seem interesting to very many people as a writer it was very interesting and gave ideas for fictional writing as well as giving someone's perspective and thoughts of the research that they did.

We also went to Matthew Francis who talked about the Mabinogi and how he translated the stories and wrote them as a poem in English. This was very interesting to us as being Welsh and not being able to speak the language we were able to look at the Mabinogi without needing our teacher to help us understand what was actually happening. It was also interesting as it showed how Welsh culture was important to people outside of Wales as well.

We also went to the BBC live sessions in the afternoon where we got to see performances by aspiring singers as they worked with people like Ed Sheeran in the past. We followed this with the comedy store players, which we were very eager to see as after such a long and intense day we were in the mood for a good laugh which is exactly what they allowed us to have.

The second day was just as good as the first and the last day was also amazing. Read our next blog to find out about our last day at Hay Festival and also follow our social medias at the bottom.

Thanks,

ThePolkaDotDaffodil x

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