My interviews at Hay Festival 2026 ∞
I chaired four events at this year’s Hay Festival and all are now available to listen to on the Hay Festival Anytime Player.
My first interview was with Welsh poet Bethany Handley about her memoir ‘My Body is a Meadow’. Handley is a full-time wheelchair user campaigning for better access to nature. Her book opens with a poem called ‘Life Day’, which is about the day she became disabled and was given a new chance at life. It begins, ‘How will I survive this?’ and then draws inspiration from other creatures and life forms to answer the question; such as, “like a common blue damselfly who knows her twelve days on Earth are a privilege”. I found so much beauty, wisdom and hope in this conversation which was a paean to our interconnectedness with the rest of the living world.
I chatted to the author, broadcaster and geographer Nicholas Crane about his latest book ‘The Path More Travelled’, which is an expansive history of Britain’s footpaths, beginning with the first humans that walked into Britain over 11,000 years ago. Crane is a great raconteur and explorer. I was surprised to discover that he doesn’t support a Right to Roam in England, but thinks a ‘right to routes’ is more important.
I had a challenging conversation with Lionel Shriver about her provocative new novel ‘A Better Life’, which tells the story of a well-meaning New Yorker who takes in a migrant from Honduras and soon finds things spiralling out of control. The house serves as a metaphor for the country and Shriver herself has strong restrictionist views on immigration. I asked if she’d met any Honduran migrants as part of her research for the novel. She hadn’t.
Finally I spoke to author Ben Rawlence about his new book ‘Think Like A Forest’, which takes the form of a series of letters to his daughters and explores how to raise children during a climate emergency. How do we best prepare the next generation for an uncertain future? We discussed climate anxiety (and how it’s a rational and healthy response to be worried), the trauma of watching David Attenborough documentaries and how to build resilience in our communities. The most important takeaway being: don’t be afraid to talk about this stuff!