A grant for the Old School Rooms

Great news for Haworth's Old School Rooms as reported by Keighley News:

A major project to repair and refurbish one of Haworth's most valuable and historic buildings has received a welcome funding boost.
The Brontë Spirit Charity, which is in charge of the Old School Room, in Church Street, has today revealed that it will be able to carry out vital repairs to the landmark property thanks to a £44,873 grant from funding body WREN.
The money, awarded by WREN’s FCC Community Action Fund, will be used to fix the badly-leaking original roofs of the Patrick Brontë-inspired building.
Averil Kenyon, chairman of The Brontë Spirit group, believes that once this work is complete, the fully restored facility will make a huge difference to the lives of people living in the area.
She said: “This project will provide a real boost to the people of Haworth and its visitors.
"It’s fantastic that WREN has awarded us this money and we are really looking forward to finishing the very necessary repairs to the roofs at the west-end of the building.”
WREN is a not-for-profit business that awards grants for community, biodiversity and heritage projects from funds donated by FCC Environment through the Landfill Communities Fund.
Penny Beaumont, who is WREN’s grant manager for Yorkshire, said: “We are delighted to be supporting the Haworth Old School Room Roof Repair Works project, and pleased our funding will make such a difference to so many groups of people across Haworth.
"WREN is always happy to consider grant applications for projects that benefit local communities, and we are looking forward to this one having a positive impact very soon.”
Mrs Kenyon added that she hopes that the repairs to the old, battered Victorian-era roof will be completed before the start of next winter.
Located between Haworth Parish Church and the Brontë Parsonage Museum on Church Street, the grade II listed Old School Room is one of the most important parts of the village's literary heritage.
Originally built by Patrick Brontë in 1832 and used for teaching by all his famous children, it is an integral part of the Brontë family landscape and story.
Since 2011 the Old School Room has been managed by a small charity, The Brontë Spirit.
This is made up of local people whose aims are to conserve and maintain the building for future generations, and to build on the Old School Room's 184-years of service to the community.
At the end of last year Bradford Council approved an application to replace six windows on the northern side of the building with new, timber frame replica windows.

The Courier (Australia) features Shake & Stir Theatre's take on Wuthering Heights in which

Both stage and screen will be utilised. When a character is suppressing their emotions, a projection will light up the back of the stage depicting their true feelings.
Natural elements of fire and wind will also be brought into the stage environment, recreating those doleful moors.
Gemma Willing, who plays Heathcliff’s love interest Catherine Earnshaw, said audiences loved the gothic masterpiece by Emily Brontë due to the flawed natures of the characters.
“It’s a rollercoaster but it’s an absolute honour to play such a prolific character,” she said.
“I’m biased but I admire her a lot – I admire her free spirit. One of the main things I love about her is she’s so human – she has so many faults and so many flaws, but she’s just a human who’s trying to do the best she can in the society’s she’s in.
“I think that’s a universal struggle of doing what you think you should do versus what you think you should do.”
Willing said the “Catherine in me” loves Heathcliff, but she was also aware of his violent side.
“I have this conversation with a lot of girlfriends. You have someone in your life that you love to hate, and you hate to love them,” she said.
“Catherine doesn’t get to see the violent side of Heathcliff and it’s only later on in the novel that her daughter has to deal with it.”
She said Catherine and Heathcliff were like “magnets”.
“There’s this tragedy that she hasn’t chased her soulmate. It’s every girl’s romance dream because it’s so passionate,” she said.
”When you’re madly and deeply in love with someone, you feel like there’s thins part of you that belongs to them and it’s a physical kind of chemistry as well as emotional and spiritual - you feel like you’re one person and you’re soulmates.”
Willing studied theatre in Perth and has also appeared on the big screen, in Australian movie Looking for Grace.
She said film and theatre required a completely different acting skill set, especially when it came to projecting intimate scenes from stage.
“With theatre, it’s quite magical that what one audience will see, another will never see,” she said.
“In film, you can whisper and the camera will pick that up. Also with theatre, you don’t get to do another take if you stuff it up, which gets the adrenaline pumping.” (Amber Wilson)

Jane Eyre 2011 is on Decider's 'Top 10 period dramas on Netflix'.

Before he dazzled everyone with True Detective, director Cary Fukunaga was bringing fresh life to a tried and true literary classic. His 2011 version of Jane Eyre brings the tale back to its moody, gothic roots. This isn’t just a romance between a governess and her master. This is a ghost story about what haunts the human soul. (Meghan O'Keefe)

On RTVE (Spain), film director Justin Kurzel talks about adapting Assassin's Creed for the big screen.

El cineasta afirma que Ubisoft, la empresa creadora del videojuego, les dio carta libre para recrear su universo. “En cierto modo era como adaptar Jane Eyre: había que mantener el espíritu y centrarse en los personajes más interesantes”. (Esteban Ramón) (Translation)

Bustle tells 'The Stories Behind 12 Author Pseudonyms' such as

4. Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
You probably don't run across too many people named Currer, Ellis, or Acton, but you've likely met some Charlottes, Emilys, and Annes. The three Brontë sisters were all writers in 19th century England, when female writers were not thought "proper" (or marketable). So they each choose gender-neutral names that would obscure their gender while preserving their initials. Currer and Acton were the last names of female scholar and a female poet who the Brontës knew of, as an extra middle finger to all the sexist publishers out there. (Charlotte Ahlin)

The Jewellery Editor has an article on emeralds, apparently 'the birthstone of May babies'. They claim that,

Emeralds signify hope and prosperity, and if you are a May baby, you are lucky enough to share your birthstone with some of the great women in history, such as Queen Victoria - for whom Prince Albert set a symbolic snake wedding ring with this vibrantly colored gem. Other greats include Audrey Hepburn, Catherine the Great, Florence Nightingale, Emily Brontë, Katherine [sic] Hepburn, Queen Mary II and Cate Blanchett (Beth Bernstein)

We are sorry but Emily Brontë was born on July 30.

BBC World Book Club has a podcast on which Tracy Chevalier and Claire Harman discuss whether Jane Eyre is 'a little too good'. GraphoMania (Italy) has an article on Wuthering Heights. The Brontë Parsonage Facebook page shares a video showing Tracy Chevalier and the exhibition she has curated. Tea Time Chronicles (in French) reviews Syrie James's The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë; Pierogi Pruskie (in Polish) posts about Jane Eyre. Pamela Nash on the Brontë Parsonage Blog writes a brief chronicle of the Brontë200 events at the Gaskell House in Manchester. Bluestalking Journal talks about the Irish roots of Patrick Brontë.