Jessie Thompson

Hear from up-and-coming stars of the literary world before they rocket up the bestseller lists, and make sure you don’t miss some of the eclectic treats on Hay Festival’s vast programme, writes Jessie Thompson

Judi Dench talking Shakespeare, conversations with bestsellers Marian Keyes and David Nicholls, and a deep dive into the day’s news with Independent journalists and leading thinkers – this year’s Hay Festival programme is fit to burst with unmissable events. Jessie Thompson picks the highlights

Speaking at Hay Festival, the Everyday Sexism founder said that postnatal care in Britain is ‘absolutely dire’

The King finds his rift with his youngest son ‘unsettling’, royal biographer Robert Hardman told Hay Festival audiences

The National Gallery’s summer blockbuster-in-waiting has the enticing premise of bringing Henry VIII’s six wives out of his shadow – but 500 years of erasure is a difficult thing to overcome in one exhibition

After writing a bestselling mystery novel, Kate Weinberg found herself in a plotless place with no neat, obvious ending: suffering the torturous, confusing ordeal of long Covid. Now she’s turned the experience into a funny, philosophical novel – one that, as Jessie Thompson knows from experience, perfectly captures the surreal state of invisible illness

From the novels everyone will be talking about to the starriest West End productions, here’s your guide to the coming season’s cultural highlights, as picked by our writers

Photographer Lee Miller, the subject of a major new film starring Kate Winslet, used her camera lens to pioneer a new way of seeing conflict. Later, broken by what she saw during the Second World War, she found respite in a Sussex farmhouse called Farleys, where she would begin her surreal next act and her son Antony Penrose would discover her secrets, writes Jessie Thompson

Jessie Thompson checks in

Heartburn, insomnia, unsolicited advice from strangers about your unborn child: pregnancy is a rollercoaster ride. But no one told Jessie Thompson about the real struggle: what to wear