A number of book festivals are looking at how they can take their festivals on-line.
The Big Book Weekend is a 3-day virtual festival running from 8th– 10th May that brings together the best of cancelled British Book festivals. It features the biggest names in books alongside unknown debut authors and rising talents . This event, supported by the BBC and the Arts Council , kicks-off at 10am on the 8th with Maggie O’Farrell in conversation with Damian Barr. Other speakers include Marian Keyes, Michael Morpurgo, Bernardine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other) and Alexander McCall Smith. See: https://bigbookweekend.com/
The Hay Digital Festival is running from 18th to 31st May. The free to view programme is up on their website:
https://www.hayfestival.com/home
This is a very impressive programme with some great speakers including Stephen Fry, Maggie O’Farrell, Philippe Sands, Jessie Burton, Simon Schama, Tim Harford, Rhidian Brook and Sandi Toksvig.
We recommend that you book the sessions you are interested in as they are limiting the number of viewers for each session.