Alt-pop Grumpy State

American Exchange publishes the top 500 Auction Results for 2009. And the Brontës appear in no less than six sales:

207. Christie's. Wuthering Heights. A Novel. By Ellis Bell. -- Agnes Grey. A Novel. By Acton Bell. $86,500
320. Christie's Autograph manuscript of two poems, $62,500
324. Sotheby`s Regency Mahogany Artist's Box and Geometry Set Formerly Belonging to Emily Brontë, $62,052
375. Christie's Autograph letter signed, $57,250
429. Christie's Poetry Past and Present, $50,000
484. Bloomsbury Auctions. Jane Eyre. An Autobiography, $45,600

The Daily Breeze talks to Syrie James, author of The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë (whose movie rights have been recently sold as we informed before):

Talks are underway to turn her most recent work, "The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte," into a movie.
Given those developments, it would be hard to dispute that the Mar Vista author is a literary success. (...)
Next, James tackled the subject of Charlotte Bronte, author of "Jane Eyre."
James said she knew little about Bronte going in, but after reading an extensive Bronte family biography, she said, "I fell in love with their story and I knew I had to tell it."
James spent almost two years researching and writing "The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte," including repetitively perusing a volume of Brontë's more than 500 correspondences.
During her research, James discovered it was unnecessary to create a love affair for Bronte, as her turbulent romance with neighbor Arthur Bell
Nicholls provided plenty of material to work with.
After seeing each other daily for more than seven years, Nicholls proposed to Bronte. In a letter to her best friend, Bront recounted the drama of hearing Nicholls reveal his feelings to her.
"That had to be an incredible moment," James said. "When I got to the place in my book where I had to write it and put the words in Mr. Nicholls' mouth - finally getting to pour forth in anguish how much he adores her - that was fun."
Now that she's enmeshed in it, James said she enjoys the process of writing period novels - from the research, to the story outline, to ensuring the language is appropriate for the era. She said she especially enjoys creating dialogue between characters.
"It's so much fun because I feel like I'm taking dictation from the universe," James said. "I do so much in-depth research that I know these characters really well before I begin writing anything. So when it comes to having them in a scene talking to each other I just let it flow."
She gets to know the characters so well, James said, that it becomes hard to let them go once a book is finished. After the final words are written, she said, it's difficult to move on to the next novel. (Miriam Finder)

Uptown Magazine (Winnipeg) lists the 2009 dance productions in Winnipeg, including Gaile Petrusson-Hiley's Brontë:

3. Brontë, Mouvement/Winnipeg Dance Projects, Rachel Browne Theatre, Sept. 18 - 20, 2009
Local choreographer Gaile Petursson-Hiley may be one of the city's greatest unsung heroes. Brontë, her first major production since her imaginative Faeries (2006), was inspired by the brooding poetry and windswept novels of the Victorian-era Brontë sisters - Emily, Charlotte and Anne - who lived double lives to see their work published. A strong company of five dancers including Kristin Haight, James Phillips, Brock Adams, Kathleen Price Hiley and Darby Gibbs performed the full-length piece, which celebrated the transcendent power of creativity while creating compassionate bonds that blur across time and space. (Holly Harris)

The Guardian also reviews 2009 in books and includes the following event:

Wuthering Heights tops the classics bestseller lists after it is repackaged as the 'favourite book' of Stephenie Meyer's Bella and Edward with a cover styled on her Twilight series. (Michelle Pauli)

The Kingston Whig Standard quotes Charlotte Brontë in Susan Belyea's column:

Charlotte Bronte said, "I try to avoid looking forward or backward and try to keep looking upward." Unfortunately, this has never worked well for me; I tend to trip over things when I'm only looking upward.

The quotes comes from a letter from Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey (January 15, 1849).

Bernard Ingham expresses his present state of mind in the Yorkshire Post very clearly:

Not surprisingly, this festive season finds me in the sort of grumpy state that Heathcliff, Scrooge and Gordon Brown in one of his mobile chucking fits would recognise. Bah! I growl, what do I need of New Year resolutions. What good will they do?

A local Brontëite in the Brainerd Dispatch, The Bookworm's Hideout joins the All About the Brontës Challenge 2010 which has been officially inaugurated on Laura's Reviews, ...Y después de todo, nada posts about her love for Jane Eyre and mentions a recent YA Spanish book: No vuelvas a leer Jane Eyre (Don't read Jane Eyre again) by Carmen Gómez Ojeda (2002). My Own Little Corner of the World and Christian Bookworm review Melanie Jeschke's Jillian Dare.

Finally, Drowned in Sound has the honour to open the 2010 section of bizarre Brontë references:

Singles of the Year: 2009
Ortolan - ‘I'll See You There’
Sign up for the Sounds Familyre mail-out now if you have not already. Ortolan are merely the tip of their particular iceberg of warm and fuzzy, askancely odd greatness. I called them ‘alt-pop Brontë sisters’ and - as in many things, apart from those what matter - I was right. (Wendy Roby)

Categories: Brontëana, Brontëites, Dance, Fiction, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights