“Coughing in My Coffin”, the Brontë song Andrew Lloyd Webber hasn't written (yet?)

The Dewsbury Reporter looks back on the recent North Kirklees Literary Festival.

The first North Kirklees Literary Festival featured talks, music, walks and workshops inspired by writers with links to the area from last Friday to Sunday.
Prof Ann Sumner, the executive director of the Brontë Society, gave a talk on the Brontës and the railways, while Kirklees Council museums curator Katina Bill gave a talk on fashion in Brontë times.
Spen author and lecturer John Brooke spoke about his book Cruel Lives, on West Yorkshire epidemics during the 19th century. [...]
A Landseer painting of the Brontës was discussed by its owner James Gorin Von Grozny, and an Elizabeth Gaskell drawing was discussed by Liz Rye, who bought it during the 1980s.
Workshops, children’s activities and walks took place on Sunday.
And the festival also featured a Brontë tribute concert by jazz singer Val Wiseman at Whitechapel Church in Cleckheaton.
Coun Pinder said: “It was a shot in the dark – we didn’t know how popular it would be – but it was a great success.”

Still locally, History Extra places the Brontë Parsonage Museum among the 'undiscovered museums 2013'.

Haworth Parsonage, once home to Yorkshire's famous Brontë sisters, is now a top UK tourist attraction. Newly refurbished for 2013 with an exciting £60,000 decorative scheme, the Museum has never offered a more powerful experience of the famous authors of Jane Eyre (Charlotte), Wuthering Heights (Emily) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne). 

The Daily Mail mentions Broughton Hall in Yorkshire.

I'm also chuffed to learn that Wuthering Heights, starring Ralph Fiennes, was filmed here, conjuring all kinds of Heathcliff fantasies during our stay in the sublime Yorkshire Dales. (Sara Lawrence)

The Irish Examiner reviews the film Kelly + Victor:

Like an urban Wuthering Heights but with Kelly as Heathcliff, the film is quite frank in its portrayal of sexual dynamics between the titular characters, and Evans is encouraged by audiences’ reactions to these scenes. (Don O’Mahony)

BBC iPlayer offers the chance to listen to The Night Visiting presented by folk musician Tim van Eyken  where

Tim considers, too, how the night visiting is a trope in our literature. Isn't the balcony scene in 'Romeo and Juliet' a night visit? What of Cathy in 'Wuthering Heights'? 

And speaking of musicians, The Independent discusses where Andrew Lloyd Webber should go next musically speaking. We found it hilarious:

Silas Lowering. Grim but evocative musical set in 19th-century Yorkshire, as recorded in the diaries of local GP Silas. His most famous patients were the Brontë family at Haworth Parsonage, where Dr Lowering was often called to attend the sisters’ fainting fits and their brother Branwell’s alcoholic ravings. At the climax Emily is found to have Asperger’s, as well as early-onset TB. Songs include “My Resistance is Low,” and the sparkling “Coughing in My Coffin.” (John Walsh)

This is how a columnist from the Times of Malta pictures book clubs.

First, you have the ringleader – a middle-aged man who read English at university and who exerts his authority by occasionally blurting out, “I don’t agree with you. Wuthering Heights is a post-structuralist exercise in untangling the terministic screens of modern discourse.” His sidekick (usually his poor wife) will agree – but deep down, what she is really thinking is how gorgeous Alec d’Urberville's hair is. (Stanley Borg)

And a columnist from the News & Record shares a high school anecdote.

 It was history class. Her history teacher was reading from the textbook, and she was reading the novel, “Jane Eyre.” She had slipped it under the desk, and she turned to her classmate, a black teenager, and whispered, “Aren’t you bored?”
“No,” he responded. He was enthralled. (Jeri Rowe)

The Halifax Courier celebrates 'the life and art of sculptor Jocelyn - one of Halifax’s greatest daughters'. You know her.

As a sculptor she won some major commissions. Probably her best known work is a group in bronze of the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, which was commissioned by the Bronte Society.
The sculpture, more than 4 ft high and weighing 10 hundredweight, was commended by the sculptor Jacob Epstein and won Jocelyn a major award, the Leeds Gold Medal, in 1951.
Jocelyn Horner intended the work to be the centrepiece of a Brontë Memorial Chapel at Haworth Parish Church. In the event it was first shown at Leeds Art Galley and is now in the garden of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth.

The Yorkshire Post features Maney Publishing, the company in charge of the publication of Brontë Studies. The Charger Bulletin has an article on the second annual University of New Haven musical theater cabaret, where Sirens from Jane Eyre the Musical was performed among many others. A Tree, a Book and a Breeze writes briefly about The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne by Catherine Reef.