Hay Festival Tales: Wild Ideas

David Olusoga is Professor of Public History at Manchester University and a BAFTA award-winning documentary maker, broadcaster and writer. A regular contributor to the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman and BBC History Magazine, his books include Black and British, which won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize and the Longman-History Today Trustees Award.

Natalie Haynes is a broadcaster and author of six books, most recently Pandora’s Jar: Women and the Greek Myths (2020) and A Thousand Ships, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020.

Laura Dockrill is an award winning author and illustrator. She has written thirteen books for children and young adults and has been shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of The Year Prize, long listed for the Carnegie Medal and shortlisted for the YA Book Prize.

Allie Esiri read Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge and is an award-winning curator, described by The Sunday Times as a ‘poetry powerhouse’. Her anthology A Poem for Every Day of the Year was in the best books of the year list in The Times and the Observer. Her anthology, A Poem for Every Night of the Year was a best book of the year in The Times and the New Statesman and won the IBW book award. She hosts an annual poetry show at the National Theatre and regular events at major festivals including Hay, Cheltenham and Edinburgh.

Xiaolu Guo is a novelist, essayist, screenwriter and film maker. Born in south China, published six books before moving to Britain in 2002. Her new memoir, Radical: A Life of My Own is playful, provocative and original.

Jordan Stephens is best known as one half of hip hop duo Rizzle Kicks. An accomplished actor (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Tucked, Been So Long), he is now an author, creating the award-winning children's book The Missing with illustrator Beth Suzanna.

Andria Zafirakou won the Global Teacher Prize in 2018, using the $1 million prize to set up Artists in Residence, a charity that brings professional artists into disadvantaged schools across the UK. In 2019, she was appointed an MBE for her services to education.

Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at SOAS University of London, and is one of the world's leading economists. His latest myth-busting book, Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World, was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.