A bonkers concept for a song

Keighley News looks at some of the events which will be taking place for this year’s Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing, which focuses on working-class writing.

Haworth will for the ninth year running become a magnet for female authors, agents, poets and publishers.
Guest curator Kit de Waal, author of the novel My Name is Leon, has worked closely with the Brontë Parsonage Museum to programme the long weekend running from September 20-22.
With festival organiser Lauren Livesey, the museum’s Audience Development Officer, Kit has put together inspirational workshops, talks, readings, panel discussions and practical ‘how to’ sessions for readers and writers of all ages.
Lauren said: “The Brontës were geographically remote from the publishing centre of 19th century London and they lacked the social and familial connections that often opened doors in the worlds of literature and publishing.
“Those barriers still exist 170 years later, and in the hope of breaking through some of these, we invited Kit de Waal to programme a range of events that are both relevant to, and supportive of, different voices.”
This year’s programme celebrates working-class writing, which inspired Kit de Waal's anthology Common People.
Kit said: “It’s never been more important to hear the voices of working class women who manage to write, despite the barriers of time and money and society’s attitude towards literary spaces and the right to be heard.
“But we also write because of the barriers, because we push against them and find in that struggle a unique voice, our take on the world.
“We have tried to include as many diverse interests as possible in our programme, and we hope everyone will find something that speaks to them.”
Highlights of the festival include appearances by Amy Liptrot (The Outrun), Sara Collins (The Confessions of Frannie Langton), Cathy Rentzenbrink (The Last Act Of Love), poet Clare Shaw (Flood), and the team behind the recently-launched Staunch Prize.
Children’s author Nadia Shireen (Billy and the Dragon) will host an interactive storytime and drawing workshop for aspiring writers and illustrators aged between three and seven, based around her current heroine, Billy.
Nadia has set out to instil the expectation of a strong female lead from a young age.
Blogger, YouTuber and debut author Lucy Powrie, Young Ambassador for the Brontë Society, will return to Haworth after playing a part in previous events celebrating the Brontë sisters’ writing.
Lauren said Lucy would share her infectious passion for literature, as well as introducing her first novel for young adults (The Paper & Hearts Society).
Lauren added: “Award-winning author and educator Liz Flanagan (Eden Summer) also writes for children and young adults with strong female protagonists; together with Lucy they will share their journeys from first draft to finished book.
“Workshops and free-writing sessions will offer visitors the chance to hone their craft including an illustration workshop for children and a spoken word night, hosted by the team behind Manchester’s ‘Verbose’.
“A specially-devised ‘Life of a Book’ event will feature writers, agents, publishers and booksellers all sharing their tips and expertise.
“Poet Clare Shaw will be festival writer-in-residence and as well as being involved in several events over the weekend. She will the festival by sharing her experiences and new poems created in response to the festival in a free final event.” (David Knights)

AnneBrontë.org and Periodico Daily (Italy) joined in the celebrations as well. Of course, it was also Kate Bush's birthday yesterday, so here's a selection of sites celebrating it with references to her Brontë-inspired hit.

It all began with her smash-hit single, 1977’s “Wuthering Heights,” which takes as its subjects Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff of the eponymous Emily Brontë novel. “Heathcliff,” the infectious chorus goes, “It's me, I’m Cathy, I've come home, I’m—so co-o-o-old / Let me in through your wind-o-o-ow.” (Over a decade later, Bush would revisit Anglo-Irish literature in “The Sensual World,” using bits of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy in Ulysses.) From the outset, Bush determined that the strength of her imagination—paired with an iron-clad resolve to see it through—would be central to her art. Although inspired by a TV adaptation (namely, the moment in the 1967 miniseries when Heathcliff is visited by Catherine’s ghost), Kate Bush didn’t sit down to write “Wuthering Heights” until she’d read the entire book. “I needed to get the mood properly,” she explained to Denis Tuohy in 1978.
It’s a bonkers concept for a song—especially one that would sit atop the U.K. charts for a month straight, replacing ABBA’s “Take a Chance on Me”—with the most incredible pseudo-operatic vocals (and a perfectly bizarre music video) to match; but that’s not even my favorite track on The Kick Inside. Where an immediate obsession with “Wuthering Heights” bore the useful reminder that weird (and bookish!) could be pretty wonderful, the rest of that album, which ran the gamut from absolute bangers (see: “The Saxophone Song,” which more than delivers on the promise of its title, and “Strange Phenomena”) to moments of pure poetry (see: “The Man with the Child in His Eyes”), made an ever stronger case for the young Kate Bush as one of music’s foremost expositors of female sensuality. (Marley Marius in Vogue)

Confession - I am obsessed with Kate Bush and, like most people, it started the first time I heard “Wuthering Heights”
It sounded unlike anything I had heard before, a haunting, ethereal ballad based on a book I merely skimmed through for AP English. It certainly wasn’t off-putting, but it was at odds with what I thought a popular song could be. I mean, few people would think to start a song with such lyrics as: “Out on the wiley, windy moors/We'd roll and fall in green.”
But there’s something about it that draws you in that eerie, high pitched howl which puts you face to face with Cathy’s ghost at the icy window.
The first time I heard it, I had to hear it again. And again and again. And I haven’t stopped since. (Emma Davey on Bust)

La emblemática «Wuthering Heights» apareció en enero de 1978 como single de debut de la artista londinense . Se erigió en su primer gran éxito en muchos países, nº 1 en Italia, Nueva Zelanda, Australia, Irlanda y Reino Unido. También fue parte de su ópera prima, el LP «The Kick Inside».
Kate Bush escribió el tema a los 18 años, una canción basada en la novela del mismo nombre de Emily Brontë, en español «Cumbres Borrascosas». Bush se inspiró para escribir la canción en los últimos diez minutos de una miniserie de la BBC de 1967 basada en la novela. Más tarde leyó el libro y descubrió que compartía cumpleaños , este 30 de julio,  con la Brönte [sic]. (Julián Ruiz on Plásticos y decibelios (Spain) (Translation)

Also on Notizie Musica (Italy). And the song is also mentioned in this description of musician Bryan Ferry's talent on Metro Times:

What other man could pen a dizzying, five-plus-minute song about a love affair with an inflatable doll with the breadth of Wuthering Heights and the attitude of Patti Smith? (Jerilyn Jordan)

It's Yorkshire Day tomorrow and The Telegraph and Argus shares how it will be marked in Bradford.

The We are West Yorkshire: Bradford people exhibition celebrates Bradford glass designer Kalim Afzal, Manningham-based photographer Nudrat Afza and world famous Bradford born-artist David Hockney, among others.
It also showcases innovators such as Sir Titus Salt, Christopher Pratt and the Brontë sisters, as well as the reformists Miriam Lord, Margaret McMillan and Richard Oastler, who were all from the Bradford district. (Felicity Macnamara)

And tomorrow also marks the bicentenary of the publication of Moby Dick. The Guardian has an article about it:

When a modest Everyman edition appeared in London 20 years after Melville’s death in 1891, DH Lawrence declared it a work of futurism before futurism had been invented; EM Forster and WH Auden extolled its queer nature. Virginia Woolf read it three times, comparing it to Wuthering Heights in its strangeness, and noted in her 1926 diary that no biographer would believe her work was inspired by the vision of “a fin rising on a wide blank sea”. (Philip Hoare)

A selection of literary teas on Book Riot:

Simpson and Vail's Literary Author Teas
You can choose from novelists and poets of the past with this line of teas. If you enjoy Regency times, you can sip on Jane Austen’s Black Tea Blend; or if you prefer the Victorian period, try the Brontë Sisters’ Black Tea Blend. (Christina M. Rau)

Here's a question of The Times Daily Quiz for today:

2 Laurence Olivier’s first best actor Oscar nomination was for which role in Wuthering Heights (1939)?

Yesterday was also Friendship Day and Metro included Emily Brontë's poem Love and Friendship on a selection of related quotations. What Rachel Wrote posts about her 'Anne Brontë roses' and a nice idea for Anne's grave. Dear Author has a review of Lyndsay Faye's Jane Steele. Girl with her Head in a Book posts about I Am Heathcliff.

Finally, a reading alert for today, in Karlsruhe, Germany

Am Mittwoch, 31. Juli 2019, beginnt der Abend mit Ursula Baldauf, die das Buch „Bühler Höhe“ von Brigitte Glaser vorstellt. Auf sie folgt Cordula Sailer mit „Was wollen die denn hier?“ von Lucas Vogelsang und Joachim Król. Weiter geht es mit Nikolai Ditzenbach (Dante Alighieri: „Die göttliche Komödie“), Wolfgang Semmler (Karsten Dusse: „Achtsam morden“) und Anna Fath (Emily Brontë: „Sturmhöhe“). (Durlacher)