Hay Festival's Writers at Work is now for working writers?

The Hay Festival Writers at Work programme takes a turn.

The Hay Festival’s “Writers at Work” programme used to be a thing from where the next big thing might emerge. It was a scheme for emerging writers with scant publications and the future ahead of them bright and getting brighter. First time I encountered them many many years ago all participants were shy and young and excitable and cool and full of the energy of the big adventure. This year, the Hay Festival seems to have broadened its definition of what the programme was originally set out to serve. Or as someone said to me, “all writers are always emerging nowadays.”

For what we have this year is not a parade of unsure, self-conscious, wannabes, full of raw talent and glorious naiveté. No, this year we have prize-winning authors, best-sellers, writers who have already decorated the shortlists of major international literary prizes. I always thought one carrot of the Writers of Work programme was for those lucky enough to be on it, to look at the writers being interviewed on the Hay Festival stage and say to themselves, one day I’ll be up there talking about my book. This year the programme is full of writers who probably could make a case for being up there already. Some of them probably have been. It seems uneven.

But the organisers of the programme are perfectly allowed to change the focus of Writers at Work, of course. No complaints from me. My question is whether it relates to that change in the industry as a whole. For a writer - someone who wishes to simply write, not to also have a podcast or a TV show or an academic career or even a radio show or a newsletter - there is no longer the reality of “making it”. There is only looking up from the foot of the mountain, no matter how many books you’ve had published or prizes you’d won.

The Writers at Work programme, though, is a thing to envy when it’s been at its lushest. Cosy little seminars with writers like Margaret Atwood or Jonathan Coe, little clippers of win with top London agents, and free tickets to everything at the festival. Plus, the most valuable commodity at Hay during the festival: accommodation. Maybe in the end the organisers just felt these riches were wasted on the promising and would be better spent on the proven.

Okay, sorry, that is cheeky of me. In truth, I know how difficult it has been for the programme to sustain the success of its early years. The criteria for applying for a place on it was, rightly, narrow. You had to be “on the verge” of a publishing career. Maybe a few poems or stories here and there, maybe, at a push, a book. But it was about giving a leg-up to the next literary names. But it’s hard to find a different 14-15 writers at that stage of their career every year. And so there were repeated participants. Things got a bit fuzzy about who qualified and who didn’t. Emerging writers became emerged. And now, this year, it is a roster of established Welsh and Wales-based talent.

And that begs another question, doesn’t it? Does this approach overtly claim that Welsh and Wales-based writers are of a lesser standing than compatriots from other the border? Yes, it is a good thing Welsh writers can take advantage of a programme like Writers at Work. But does the privilege of its existence suggest the playing fields of publishing are not level?

Of course, I know what I think on the subject. But what do you think?

Here’s the list of this year’s cohort, with their glittering biographies aside them.

Gary Raymond is a novelist, author, playwright, critic, and broadcaster. In 2012, he co-founded Wales Arts Review, was its editor for ten years. His latest book, Abandon All Hope: A Personal Journey Through the History of Welsh Literature is available for pre-order and is out in May 2024 with Calon Books.