Queer short stories from Wales, the everyday voices of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the winning title of this year’s Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize were among the subjects that delighted audiences at the 35th Hay Festival between 26 May - 5 June.
The world famous festival returned for its first in-person spring event since 2019. It featured more than 600 award-winning writers, global policy makers, pioneers and innovators in conversations, performances and debates, while HAYDAYS events for families gave young readers the opportunity to meet their heroes and get creative.
Several Swansea University academics featured in the programme for this year’s festival, as part of the University’s ongoing partnership with the prestigious cultural and literary event.
In his lunchtime lecture, Dr Michael Ward discussed how the CoronaDiaries project was launched to record people’s everyday experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic and showed how the pandemic has been experienced in very different ways across society.
Professor Kirsti Bohata, Co-Director of CREW, the Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales at Swansea University, joined Dylan Huw, Crystal Jeans and David Llewellyn in Queer Square Mile – Queer Short Stories from Wales as they mapped the importance of the short story form in the development and portrayal of queer culture to mark the publication of a groundbreaking anthology of queer writing from Wales.
The winner of this year’s Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, Patricia Lockwood, was in conversation with author and member of the Prize’s 2022 judging panel, Alan Bilton. Patricia appeared via a live link from her home in Savannah, USA. Awarded for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under, the Prize celebrates the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories, and drama. The prize is named after the Swansea-born writer and celebrates his 39 years of creativity and productivity – one of the most influential, internationally renowned writers of the mid-20th century.
On Thursday 2 June, former US Secretary of State and Swansea University honorary fellow Hillary Clinton joined Baroness Helena Kennedy, a strident advocate for civil liberties and human rights, and together they discussed Clinton’s enduring public appeal, how we can collectively process the challenges of the present historical moment, and by extension, Clinton’s hopes for the future.
In an interactive event, Swansea graduate Eric Ngalle Charles shared stories on place, memory and language inspired by his debut poetry collection Homelands, and his fellow alumna and Costa Prize-shortlisted author Rebecca F John took to the Starlight Stage on 3 June to explore how historical fiction illuminates the world.
