New Partnership: Wales’ Hay Festival and the USA’s National Public Radio

In News by Porter Anderson

The long-running NPR Latin American storytelling program ‘Radio Ambulante’ will go with the Hay Festival to Latin America this year.

At Hay Festival Arequipa in Peru, where the new Hay-NPR ‘Radio Ambulante’ partnership will be part of the program this year. Image: Hay Festival

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Fuentes La Roche: ‘Free, Open Conversations’
Today (July 5), the Hay Festival and NPR’s Radio Ambulante (Walking Radio) have announced a new international media partnership to “showcase the evolving world of storytelling.”

NPR is the United States’ public radio network, National Public Radio, and the distributor of Radio Ambulante.

Radio Ambulante is produced by its own studios of the same name as a nonprofit organization. It has created more than 200 episodes of Latin American stories in Spanish since its founding in 2011 by Carolina Guerrero and Daniel Alarcón. Having worked with content from at least 20 nations, the program now calls itself “Latin America’s most ambitious narrative journalism podcast.”

The new partnership is to see the Hay and Radio Ambulante operate as media partners in three upcoming iterations of the Hay’s internationalized events:

  • Hay Festival Querétaro, September 1 to 4
  • Hay Festival Arequipa, November 3 to 6
  • Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias, January 26 to 29

In these events, the Radio Ambulante program will appear onstage in “a multimedia format,” and those events are then to be used as part of the Spanish-language show in the podcast.

Cristina Fuentes La Roche

In a prepared statement, the Hay’s international director, Cristina Fuentes La Roche, is quoted, saying, “Hay Festival offers a unique space for writers, thinkers, and audiences from across the world to share ideas in free, open conversations.

“From our book-town in Wales, the festival has now traveled to more than 30 locations, including a trio of editions in Latin America. In matching our ambition to share essential stories from across the continent, we’re delighted to be working with the team at NPR’s Radio Ambulante.

Meanwhile, the “Hay Player” on-demand subscription collection of Hay content includes sessions in Spanish and English. Its subscription runs £15 (US$17.93) per year.

Upcoming international Hay festival dates, in addition to those Latin American dates above are:

  • Hay Festival Forum Dallas, Texas, September 1 to 4
  • Hay Festival Segovia, September 15 to 18
  • Hay Festival Winter Weekend, Wales, November 23 to 27
  • Hay Festival Medellín, Colombia, January
  • Hay Festival Jericó, Colombia, January

At the Hay Festival Querétaro, which this year will be the first stop for the Hay-NPR ‘Radio Ambulante’ partnership. Image: Hay Festival, Daniel Mordzinski


 More from Publishing Perspectives on the Hay Festival is here, more on the Latin American publishing industries is here, and more on the world publishing industry’s book fairs, festivals, more on podcasting is here, and other events is here.

More from us on the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on international book publishing is here

About the Author

Porter Anderson

Facebook Twitter Google+

Porter Anderson is a non-resident fellow of Trends Research & Advisory, and he has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.