What Would Emily Say?

The Ventura County Star interviews singer Stevie Nicks and about her new solo album (no release date yet) she says,

What can fans expect from the new album?
It’s very diversified. There is an Italian love song I wrote when I was in Italy last summer. There is a crazy, wild rock ’n’ roll song called “The Ghosts Are Gone.” There is a song about a novel called “Wide Sargasso Sea,” the precursor to Jane Eyre. It was a crazy movie in the ’80s that I loved. (Marjorie Hernandez)

The Independent reviews Between the Sheets by Leslie MacDowell.

Among the nine women writers of the first half of 20th century analyzed by the author we found the author of Wide Sargasso Sea: Jane Rhys.
Nor is it necessarily true that they needed the pain in order to get published. Jean Rhys owed her late success with Wide Sargasso Sea to the kind intervention of Francis Wyndham. (Diana Souhami)

After UK politics Australian politics may be the next target of the put-a-Brontë-in-your-news campaign. In The Australian:

There's a famous scene in Charlotte Brontë's Gothic melodrama Jane Eyre where the heroine relates to her betrothed her awful experience of the previous night, when a ghastly figure of a woman invaded her sleeping-chamber and rent apart her bridal veil, trampling it to the floor.
As the reader soon discovers, the figure is no spectre: rather, she is the hero's unacknowledged wife Bertha, the famous "madwoman in the attic", whom Rochester has kept confined while he woos Jane as a bachelor. In the novel -- following the laws of poetic justice -- fate resolves the issue as it must.
The mad, embittered wife sets fire to the house and destroys herself, thus removing herself both from the story and the heroine's memory, while Jane is reunited with her injured but chastened lover. Real life, as we know, is not always so merciful.
We suspect that Brontë's point was quite simple. The dark secret, suppressed against its will, soon enough comes to light. The regretted association will eventually assert itself. Better to share your embarrassments and failings frankly with those you are trying to woo. Better to let in the light.
Right now the Prime Minister -- playing Rochester to the general public's Jane Eyre, if you like -- has her own "madwoman in the attic" problem, and she is evidently uncertain how to deal with it. (Julia Gillard)

The Times lists 50 ways to say 'you're fat'. Charlotte Brontë is quoted:

36. “A woman of robust frame, square-shouldered and strong-limbed ... stout” (Charlotte Brontë).

The actual phrase comes from Jane Eyre (Chapter IV) and is a description of Mrs Reed:

Mrs. Reed might be at that time some six or seven and thirty; she was a woman of robust frame, square-shouldered and strong-limbed, not tall, and, though stout, not obese: she had a somewhat large face, the under jaw being much developed and very solid; her brow was low, her chin large and prominent, mouth and nose sufficiently regular; under her light eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid of ruth; her skin was dark and opaque, her hair nearly flaxen; her constitution was sound as a bell--illness never came near her; she was an exact, clever manager; her household and tenantry were thoroughly under her control; her children only at times defied her authority and laughed it to scorn; she dressed well, and had a presence and port calculated to set off handsome attire.

Inspired by the Martin Schauder's case, Charlotte Hofton in the Isle of Wight County Press demands equal rights:

I spend at least 20 minutes getting dressed before I can write so much as a word.
First there’s the special T-shirt, bearing the slogan "Deadline? What deadline?" and my crinoline skirt, modelled on a design originally worn by the Brontë sisters. (...)
I am sure the County Press will understand the pressure this puts me under and will be delighted to make the necessary adjustments to my remuneration.

Belief.net talks about making comics based on the Torah:

The stories of the Torah are incredibly rich, and it's no wonder that authors, like myself, are inspired to try to turn them into great children's literature. Just as we are cautious and humble about adapting Shakespeare and Brontë for the five year old set, kal v'chomer we should be extraordinarily careful about how we retell the stories of the Torah. (Homeshuling)

A quote of Emily is the Daily Quote of The Fairport-East Rochester Port, Stuck in a Book and Rule of Three visited the Brontë Parsonage, Kevin Jackson's Theatre Reviews posts about Polly Teale's Brontë performances in Sydney, Teaching and Technology is reading Jane Eyre, missmarvellous loves Jane Eyre 1996(?) (in Swedish), Seriously..., Annie Speaks Her Mind, *Tristi Pinkston, LDS Writer, Tangled Words and Dreams, The Write Blocks, For the Love of the Written Word, Why Not? Because I Said So! review Chocolate Roses by Joan Sowards.

Finally, The Chronicle of Higher Education (and Psychology Today) publishes an article about Sex & Romance Expert Emily Brontë, inspiration of the WWES (What Would Emily Say?) group. In the words of Gina Barreca, founder and for the moment only member of the group:

Please can we start a group called "What Would Emily Say?" I mean, Emily Brontë's birthday is July 30th and heartsick lovers everywhere need to celebrate—or at least consult.
Members of WWES already exist, even if they don't have an official name or offer official T-shirts (yet). This was proven to me by the fact that I was asked to complete a series of questions concerning love and romance in Wuthering Heights for a popular online dating site. With an eye towards making my comments revelant to what are somtimes called "singles" in today's world, I accepted the challenge because it was too funny to pass up. (Read more)
7. What do we learn from Emily Brontë's book? Wuthering Heights teaches us that: 1. You shouldn't marry only for money; 2. You shouldn't marry only for passion; 3. You shouldn't depend only on your significant other for self-definition; 4. You need to get away from the moors, out of the rain, and into a warm circle of good friends who will laugh you out of your depression before you start yelling somebody's name on the moor.
Happy birthday, Emily Brontë, wherever you are.

Joining this wish: Inside Google Books, Dawn Schreiner Illustration (who posts an original portrait), A Cineaste's Bookshelf and Readaholic (also celebrating the 75th anniversary of Penguin Books with a giveaway of Wuthering Heights and Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair, this one only on the first blog), Les Brontë à Paris (in French), Anne Bustard, Blogue do Sítio do Livro and Abaciente (in Portuguese), Wonder and the Wooden Post, the Brontë Sisters, The Diary of a Dead Moth, The Educated Imagination, January Magazine, Enslow Publishers and not a tribute post per se, but also related to, Much Madness is Divinest Sense reviews Denise Giardina's Emily's Ghost.

Categories: Books, Emily Brontë, Fiction, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights