HAY Festival’s much-anticipated and always popular series of children’s workshops offer a fun-packed week of adventure and discovery.

There’s something for everyone on offer, from acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company to cookery with the Kitchen Academy, environmental challenges and map reading with Ordnance Survey and terrific music workshops from Cool Fossil Music Foundation, and pop vocal coaching with David and Carrie Grant.

Places are limited and some events have already sold out, so time is of the essence.

For a slightly older audience, there’s a daily HF2 event for teens, featuring some of the top YA writers around, including, on Thursday, May 30, Melvin Burgess, whose new book The Hit is set in a future Manchester, a city plagued by riots and gangland crime. A new drug is on the streets – if you take it you have only a week to live.

The Hit is attracting rave reviews and was described as “nearly a masterpiece”

by The Guardian.

Graphic novelist Cathy Brett will be in Hay on June 1 to talk about graphic novels and why she loves this particular form of storytelling.

Her latest book is the witty and stylish Everything Will Be Fine (And Other Lies I Tell Myself). Pick up some tips on how to do it on June 1 at 5.30pm.

If you like your comedy dark, C J Skuse and Matt Whyman on zombies and cannibals is one event you can’t miss on May 29.

C J Skuse has written a modern zom-rom-com inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, while Matt Whyman’s new novel introduces The Savage family who, as cannibals, are unlikely to welcome a vegetarian boyfriend into the clan.

You’ll also find Will Hill and Richard Kurti talking about their pulse-pounding thrillers, both of which, in different ways, explore power, politics and darkness, more zombie horror from Charlie Higson – the fourth in his nail-biting series described as ‘Lord Of The Flies with Zombies’ is every bit as tense, bloody and action-packed as fans could wish – or write your own killer fiction at Gemma Malley’s thriller writing workshop.

For full programme details and to book, call 01497 822629.

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