'Adapted, “homaged” and repackaged in ingenious ways'

Keighley News has an article on the Brontë Festival of Women's Writing held by the Brontë Society earlier this month.

Jackie Kay opened the festival with a series of thoroughly entertaining readings of her poems.
The audience were also privileged to hear the premiere of the poems which Jackie composed while she was writer-in-residence.
For Brontë enthusiasts it was interesting to hear Jackie’s interpretation of the Brontë story in particular that of Jane Eyre at an airport!
We are very much looking forward to the publication of her poems. Throughout the weekend many exciting events took place including talks, workshops and family events.
On Saturday morning people enjoyed designing their own graphic memoir and learning to express ideas and feelings through pictures rather than words at the Louise Crosby: Creative Writing Workshop.
Saturday afternoon saw the return of Jackie Kay as people flocked to be part of her sell-out Creative Writing Workshop. Budding writers wrote prose and poetry based on memories.
Jackie enjoyed the workshop very much and described the work as ‘the best she had ever heard in a workshop’.
In fact she was so impressed with it that she asked everyone who was part of the workshop to send in one of their poems to be published alongside her Brontë poems.
In the evening bestselling author of the Italian Renaissance trilogy, Sarah Dunant, shared the secrets of her trade.
She explained that to recreate the past as a living, breathing place she has had to visited churches, archives, museums and art galleries all over Italy.
Illustrated with pictures, she recounted her discoveries such as how the decoding of old paintings and the work of modern historians helped her to penetrate hidden worlds inside the Renaissance.
Sarah said she found characters, in everyday life and drama in palaces, brothels, convents and even the Vatican.
The audience were completely captivated by her experiences and perhaps maybe would be tempted to visit Italy.
The festival came to a close with Rebecca Stirrups’ Gothic Creative Writing Workshop.
At the start of the workshop people were introduced to the first chapters of Gothic novels, which became the inspiration for their own writing.
All who attended the workshop enjoyed creating a character psychology and environment and this was particularly helped by being in the Parsonage cellar!
On Wednesday executive director of the Brontë Society, Professor Ann Sumner and Professor David Hill from the University of Leeds discussed Turner’s painting of Bolton Abbey and his influence on Charlotte Brontë’s drawings.
After both speakers had spoken about Charlotte Brontë and Turner, a lively discussion was generated about the extent of Turner’s influence on Charlotte and whether she copied the famous Turner watercolour of Bolton Abbey.
As a follow up to this interesting subject matter the West Yorkshire Brontë Society are already planning to visit to Bolton Abbey to take in the view Turner would have seen and possibly that of Charlotte Brontë.

And speaking of Turner, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner features Jane Sellars and her new book Art and Yorkshire: From Turner to Hockney.

A former director of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, Jane is also the author of a book on the artistic endeavours of the world-famous family, who are featured prominently in her new book. (Hilarie Stelfox)

More on books, as Public Radio Tulsa also wonders about the Wide Sargasso Sea influence on Donald McCaig's Ruth's Journey.

So, will this be a radical reimagining of one of literature's most upsetting characters, a la Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea? (Annalisa Quinn)

John Sutherland begins a review of Val McDermid's Northanger Abbey in the Financial Times as follows:

The appetite we have for good-naturedly violating the fiction of Jane Austen is inexhaustible. Other classic writers – Shakespeare, Dickens, Conan Doyle, the Brontës – have had their works adapted, “homaged” and repackaged in ingenious ways. But none has been reconsidered quite as extensively as Austen. . . 

Guide 2 Bristol reminds locals that today is the last chance to watch Sally Cookson's take on Jane Eyre.

For Bristol’s theatre lovers this Saturday will offer the final opportunity to watch Bristol Old Vic’s two part production of Jane Eyre, which has been delighting audiences throughout the month. . . 

The Huffington Post lists '9 Famous Women Who Waited to Wed', one of which is Charlotte Brontë:

"Reader, I married him," announces Jane Eyre in the eponymous 1847 masterwork by English novelist Charlotte Brontë. But eight years prior to the novel's publication, the 23-year-old Brontë did not respond with like enthusiasm to Reverend Henry Nussey's marriage proposal. The budding writer refused on the grounds she was too "romantic and eccentric" for him and instead pursued a living as a teacher and governess.
Brontë subsequently developed strong feelings for Belgian educator and mentor Constantin Héger, but he was already married with children. Then, more than a decade later at age 38, Brontë settled for curate and longtime admirer, Arthur Bell Nicholls. She died while pregnant the following year. We can only suppose that Jane Eyre's description of her relationship with Mr. Rochester mirrors Brontë's own ideal of a fulfilling marriage:
To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. (Daria Snadowsky)

BD Zoom (France) features the three volumes of The Graphic Cannon and mentions that the Brontës are included in volume 2. Dear Author reviews Villette. Welcome to my (New) Tweendom is 'smitten' by Jane, le renard et moi. Janice Turner celebrates in The Times the Non-Mother's Day and mentions other childless illustrious women like the Brontës, Jane Austen or George Eliot.