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Thursday, May 31, 2018

First of all, an exciting yet intriguing announcement from the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
Pillar Portrait EDIT: Check out  BBC Look North (around minute 18') to know more of this very special loan.


The Telegraph and Argus features the Emily Brontë bicentenary celebrations at South Square Gallery, Thornton.
South Square Gallery, just a few minutes’ walk from the author’s birthplace, is holding a birthday party to celebrate the author tomorrow.
The event will also mark the opening of its latest exhibition Of Real Worlds, which features multi sensory work by local artists as well as pupils from Thornton’s schools.
Thornton-based artist Lucy Barker has worked with schools to explore Emily Brontë’s literary works, with pupils learning about the history of Emily’s family.
Students at Thornton Primary School created stop motion animation pieces based on the lives of Emily and her sisters.
And pupils from years 8 and 9 at Beckfoot Thornton have created collages out of her poetry and writings.
The new exhibition will include an immersive projection, inspired by the moors and natural landscapes that inspired Emily Brontë.
There will also be projections of the work the pupils made in their workshops and 3D pieces of art.
Alice Withers from South Square said: “We hope these events will help make the anniversary a milestone for the village. It is good Thornton is becoming more well known as the Brontë’s birthplace now.”
South Square held a similar exhibition to remember Charlotte Brontë on the 200th anniversary of her birth in 2016.
Tomorrow’s party will run from 6-10pm and feature live music, cocktails, art exhibitions, activities, DJ’s, a “Wuthering Heights participatory dance challenge” and techno soundscapes. Adrena Adrena will be backing up their artistic spherical projections with live drumming while Becky Marshall will be performing a techno soundscape inspired Emily’s works. And dance artist Daliah Touré will be taking part in a participatory dance performance inspired by the Kate Bush song Wuthering Heights.
The exhibition will run until July 27. (Chris Young)
The Telegraph and Argus also reminds readers that this year's temporary exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum is still on.
An exhibition exploring the life of Emily Brontë will continue throughout the summer and autumn.
Making Thunder Roar is this year’s flagship exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth.
The museum invited well-known Emily admirers to share their own fascination with the Wuthering Heights novelist’s life and work. (David Knights)
The Star announces that Wuthering Heights Day will also take place in Sheffield and reminds readers that this year coincides with Emily's bicentenary.
South Street Park amphitheatre, overlooking Sheffield railway station, will become a flurry of flailing limbs and flowing gowns as they attempt to recreate the dance moves from her famous Wuthering Heights video. People have been invited to channel their inner Cathy and get their groove on for this spot of 'communal lunacy', to use the organisers' words, on Saturday, July 14, at 2pm. READ MORE: Former world champion shows his support at Sheffield funeral of boxer Scott Westgarth It's one of similar events which will be taking place around the world, from Sydney to San Francisco, for what has been dubbed the 'Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever'. The celebrations are being held to mark the 200th birthday of the book's author Emily Brontë, Kate's 60th birthday and the song's 40th anniversary. The Sheffield leg is being organised by the Friends of Sheaf Valley Park.
"Lads, lasses, kiddies, grandmas, pets… if you like dancing, even if you 'can't' dance (theres no such thing) we would love you to join us for some communal lunacy," the invitation states. "Dress in red like the mighty KATE BUSH and wuther like you’ve never wuthered before. Fling yourself about with wild abandon, climb through windows and grab Heathcliff’s soul away. "There will be lead dancers to follow on the day, so you don’t have to worry about learning the moves beforehand." Linda Ball, who chairs the friends group and is a big Kate Bush fan, claimed this would be the first such event in the north of England. She said the reaction so far had been 'really positive', with two dance groups - Dancestars Sheffield and Odd Sock Dance - already signed up to take part. She hopes other events being organised to celebrate the anniversary of Emily Brontë's birth - including the unveiling of a stone near the author's former home in Haworth, West Yorkshire, inscribed with a message from Kate Bush - will further fuel public interest. Those wishing to take part in the free event, which will be filmed and shared via social media, have been advised to travel by public transport and bring a picnic if they wish. There will be a collection on the day for the friends group to help cover its costs. The first Wuthering Heights day took place in 2013, and there are plenty of videos charting the fun had that day. "We very much look forward to seeing you. Out on the wiley, windy amphitheatre," concludes the invitation. (Robert Cumber)
By the way, SoloLibri (Italy) includes Kate Bush's song a list of literature-inspired songs.

In The Irish Times, writer Sally Green discusses the need for strong female characters.
Who do you think of when I say “strong female character”? Katniss Everdeen? Jane Eyre? Hermione Granger? Maybe it’s someone from a film? My current favourite kick-ass woman is Mildred Hayes from Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, who is as tough as they come in the pursuit of justice for her murdered daughter. But what makes these female characters strong and do we really need them in the books we read and the films we watch? And is it as important to have strong female characters for male readers as it is for female readers? [...]
Leadership is a role that female characters don’t often adopt. Jane Eyre, Hermione Granger and Elizabeth Bennett are all clever, brave, hardworking, resilient and so much more, but they’re not leaders.
A columnist from Junkee shares '5 Books That Helped Me Figure My Life Out', the first of which is
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
I’m going to start with a classic, the one that got me back into reading and my love for literature. Jane Eyre is an embodiment of independence, being true to yourself, and doing background checks on the guy you fall in love with.
What inspired me about Jane was her strong principles not only to herself, but to the people around her. She radiates strength and gave me the willpower to cut off toxic relationships and own up to my own mistakes. In short, be like Jane Eyre. (Sofia Casanova)
Smart Bitches Trashy Books recommends Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.
RECOMMENDED: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde is $1.99! I loved this fantasy novel and highly recommend it to readers who love the classics. The heroine works in literary detection, so when characters in famous novels go missing, she’s the one to call. Admittedly, the book does take a while to get into as you try to settle into the worldbuilding, but I think Fforde eventually finds his footing and the following books in the series just get better.
Welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, veryseriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense.
All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, until someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature. When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of Brontë’s novel, Thursday must track down the villain and enter the novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide. (Amanda)
The Sun reports that the average Brit spends 'more than 20 days a year on Twitter and Facebook'.
Here is a sobering thought – you could read the complete works of Dickens, Tolstoy and all three Brontë sisters in the time the average Brit wastes each year on sites such as Twitter. (Lynsey Clarke)
The Writing Cooperative discusses how to go about 'Putting Yourself in the Story'.
Like all things in writing, there isn’t a rule for how much of your own personal story you put in your work. The Bell Jar is one of my favorite books, but another is Wuthering Heights, a story which bears no resemblance whatsoever to Emily Brontë’s life. (Catherine/Kitty)
Express shares the results of a YouGov poll of the movies Brits most want to see adapted into a West End stage musical.
1. The Greatest Showman
2. Moulin Rouge
3. Wuthering Heights
4. Bridget Jones Diary
5. Back to the Future
6. Peter Pan
7. Jane Eyre
8. Lady and the Tramp
9. La La Land
10. Pitch Perfect (George Simpson)
We wonder whether they know that there are musicals based on both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights?

A Jezebel columnist shows 'All the Shit I Bought at the Royal Wedding' and yet she has one regret:
My only real regret is that I did not purchase a leather bookmark celebrating the occasion to add to my collection, which also includes leather bookmarks from Jane Austen territory, Brontë country, and Glastonbury. (Kelly Faircloth)
The Scotsman recommends David Austin's Emily Brontë rose as one of 'Five plants that keep on giving after summer'. Letterboxd gives 5 stars to Wuthering Heights 1939 while For the love of books posts about the original novel. My Jane Eyre Library features a library copy of the novel marked 'in pink crayon, pencil and red ink'. 30 Brontë Facts on the Brontë Babe Blog.

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