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Friday, September 13, 2019

Friday, September 13, 2019 10:36 am by Cristina in , , , , , ,    No comments
The Telegraph and Argus is looking forward to next weekend's event at Haworth:
Inspirational female authors, poets, publishers and agents are heading to Haworth for the Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing.
The event, from September 20-22, features guest curator Kit de Waal, who has worked with the Parsonage Museum on workshops, talks, readings and panel discussions. The programme celebrates working class writing, and guests include writers Amy Liptrot, Sara Collins and Clare Shaw. Children’s author Nadia Shireen will host an interactive storytime and drawing workshop for youngsters, blogger, YouTuber and debut author Lucy Powrie, Young Ambassador for the Brontë Society, will talk about her first novel for young adults, The Paper & Hearts Society, and author and educator Liz Flanagan shares her journey from first draft to finished book. (Emma Clayton)
Keighley News remarks on the children's side of it.
Children will be catered for as well as adults by the Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing in Haworth.
Nadia Shireen, author of children’s books including Billy and the Dragon, will demonstrate the importance of a strong female lead in stories for those at a young age.
On Saturday September 21 she will host an interactive story time and drawing workshop for aspiring writers and illustrators aged between three and seven, based around her current heroine Billy.
Nadia has illustrated many popular children’s books including The Baby That Roared. She studied law and worked as a music journalist before taking an MA in children’s book illustration at Cambridge School of Art.
The festival, running from September 20-22, will also offer workshops and free-writing sessions for adults and young people, along with talks, readings and panel discussions.
Guest curator Kit de Waal, author of the novel My Name is Leon, has programmed the festival on the theme of working-class writing.
Highlights 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.
Blogger, YouTuber and debut author Lucy Powrie, Young Ambassador for the Bronte Society, will share her infectious passion for literature, as well as introducing her first novel for young adults.
A ‘Life of a Book’ event will feature writers, agents, publishers and booksellers all sharing their tips and expertise. (David Knights)
The Spectator features the Brontë Parsonage.
‘Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless?’ Jane Eyre asks Mr Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s most famous novel. What is true of Brontë’s heroine is equally true of her Yorkshire home: plain in every sense of the word and yet perennially mysterious.
The muted colour palette of the house reflect the rain-soaked moors surrounding it in a pleasing way. Tucked up a cobbled lane behind Haworth’s church, you would easily pass by without stopping to notice it, were you not aware of its former inhabitants. [...]
Death was never far away from the parsonage; the sofa on which Emily is believed to have died sits nonchalantly in the corner. Behind it is the fireplace where Charlotte is purported by some to have burnt the unpublished manuscript of Emily’s second novel. Like its inhabitants, the house’s resolute plainness seems to contain a lingering fear of giving too much away.
I come in search of Emily’s gothic imagination and Charlotte’s eye for plot but find fabrics and beads behind glass. A dress worn by Charlotte holds pride of place in her bedroom, along with a pair of boots — much is made of her tiny hands and feet. In the corner is a coral necklace believed to have been bought by Anne on a trip to Scarborough where Charlotte later went to bury her: while Emily loved the moors, Anne was most at home by the sea. The few fragments I find of the sisters’ writing are inscribed into secretive, palm-sized notebooks, the words illegible without a magnifying glass. They bring to mind the disguises in Villette and the madwoman hidden in the attic.
Tucked away upstairs is a mahogany cabinet taken from the home of William Eyre. Charlotte wove Eyre’s cabinet, along with his name, into the pages of Jane Eyre after a visit to his house. The painted panels portraying the faces of the 12 apostles appear in the chapter where Jane first discovers Rochester’s mad wife.
In Bramwell [sic] Brontë’s bedroom, scrawled papers are strewn over the bed, ink is spilt and drawings are pinned to the wall. It’s strange, in these enlightened times, for such emphasis to be placed on the male creative mind while the sisters’ lives are left untapped in glass cabinets. But perhaps that’s the way they would have wanted it. (Joanna Rossiter)
We could have done without that last bit, though. There's a reason for the recreation of Branwell's bedroom (his bicentenary only a couple of years ago) which many journalists insist on overlooking in order to make a ridiculous point.

Woman & Home and The Independent report that Boden has launched a 'coat collection inspired by important female British icons'.
Brontë Duffle Coat - Baltic
Source
The fashion brand is celebrating historical women from different areas of the work with the new range.
With the slogan ‘Behind every great coat is a great woman’, the 30-piece collection aims to ‘embrace British creativity’. [...]
Each coat in the retailer’s Autumn/Winter 2019 collection is named after an iconic woman, with aspects of the coat designed to reflect the woman or what she did. [...]
Each coat in the retailer’s Autumn/Winter 2019 collection is named after an iconic woman, with aspects of the coat designed to reflect the woman or what she did. [...]
Honouring romantic writer Emily Brontë, who famously penned the ground-breaking Wuthering Heights set in the moors or Yorkshire, the Brontë coat features a quilted lining and fluffy hood, with a cosy wool-blend fabric to leave you ‘Well-equipped for windswept moors’. (Aleesha Badkar)
It is a lovely collection indeed, but as far as can tell, the coat honours all three Brontë sisters as it's simply called 'Brontë Duffle Coat' (available in three colours: navy, post box red and baltic).

According to The Guardian, Andrea Arnold's take on Wuthering Heights is among 'The 100 best films of the 21st century'.
58. Wuthering Heights (2011)
Andrea Arnold tossed out the costume drama rulebook with her raw, passionate retelling of Emily Brontë’s novel. I’d argue the case for Wuthering Heights as one of the most criminally underrated movies of recent years – though it’s been influential, blazing a trail for stripped-back period movies such as Lady Macbeth. Arnold was an early adopter of inclusive casting, too, giving the role of Heathcliff to black actor James Howson. (Cath Clarke)
The Record looks back on Tim Burton's Batman (1989).
Furthermore, Vicky Vale’s search for the truth behind Batman mirrors Jane Eyre’s search for the truth behind Edward Rochester. Instead of a mad bride hidden in the attic, Vale uncovers the tragedy in Wayne’s past and the dark cave in the basement.
Me lo leggo (Italy) reviews the book Catherine by Matteo Zanini.
Catherine è un libro che sorprende non solo per le idee narrative innovative rispetto alle comuni opere Regency, ma avvince per lo stile ammaliante dell’autore, capace di rievocare con la sua scrittura le pagine di autrici come Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, le sorelle Brontë. (Roberta Taverna) (Translation)
The Imaginative Conservative feels the need to write 'in defense of Jane Eyre'. Character Madness and Musings has an excerpt and a giveaway of Charlotte Brontë before Jane Eyre by Glynnis Fawkes. Worcester News reports the upcoming local performances of the Blackeyed Theatre production of Jane Eyre.

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