Martyn Bedford - Writer

It’s taken twenty years but I’ve finally made it on to the programme for one of the big three UK literary festivals. I’ve appeared at plenty of the small, medium and large festivals but the mighty triumvirate – Cheltenham, Edinburgh and Hay – have always eluded me . . . until now! So, I am delighted to announce that I’ll be appearing at this year’s Hay Festival to promote my new young-adult novel, Twenty Questions for Gloria.

I’ll be sharing a stage with three other YA authors – Juno Dawson (Mind Your Head), Eve Ainsworth (Crush) and Patrice Lawrence (Orange Boy) – as part of Hay’s Haydays programme for families, children and teenagers. I saw Juno (then James) at last year’s Ilkley Literature Festival and am very much looking forward to being on the panel with her and Patrice and to renewing my acquaintance with Eve, with whom I share an agent (Stephanie Thwaites, at Curtis Brown) and who I met for the first time just last week at a get-together with other authors in London.

Haydays is billing our event as an opportunity to “meet the authors of four of the most talked about YA books . . . and hear how their books explore the complex and high-octane dramas of adolescence – including aspects of love, hate and psychological pressure”. We’ll be on the Starlight Stage at 11.30am on Saturday May 28th and tickets are priced £5.00.

We’re in exalted company – among the other authors appearing at Haydays are Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Morpurgo, Julia Donaldson, Patrick Ness, Malorie Blackman, Frances Hardinge, Francesca Simon, Cressida Cowell, Nick Sharratt, Melvin Burgess and the Children’s Laureate, Chris Riddell. Haydays runs from May 25th to June 6th.

Click here for full details of the Hay and Haydays programmes.