Brontë Birthplace Fundraising Efforts and Brontë Parsonage Toilets

Cautious good news from Thornton, we read in The Telegraph & Argus:

A campaign to safeguard the future of the birthplace of the Brontë sisters has doubled its fundraising efforts after reaching its initial target in days.
A steering group is aiming to rescue the Brontë birthplace in Thornton, from a private sale and to establish it as a community asset.
An online crowdfunding page was set up last week with an initial £20,000 target to help towards buying the Brontë birthplace. (...)

Campaigner Steve Stanworth said: “It’s brilliant that we have reached the £20,000 target.

“We wanted to get the word out there as quickly as possible and as far as possible.

“There has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes. We are quite pleased. The steering group has been working for over a month on it.

“The key has been that people see it as a community asset.

“The donations have been quite widespread, with some coming out of the district.

“We have not got a timeline to reach the £40,000 target. We will see how it goes. The next step will be harder. (Mark Stanford)

It seems that the proposal for building new toilet facilities at the Brontë Parsonage Museum has been approved. Again, The Telegraph & Argus: 

The Brontë Parsonage in Haworth is where the world-famous literary sisters grew up and penned some of their most famous works.
Built in 1779, the building is currently used as a museum dedicated to the family, and attracts visitors from around the world.
In Spring, the Parsonage Museum submitted a planning application to install a new toilet block on land at the far side of the Grade I listed building – near the entrance to the museum’s more modern gift shop.
It would include a number of toilet cubicles, an accessible toilet and a changing places toilet cubicle – for people with multiple and complex disabilities who have assistants with them.
It would be built on an area currently covered by trees and shrubs. (...)

“The chosen location is not only best suited with access to the existing shop but does not impact on the more historic parts of the museum.

“The proposal cannot be seen to those viewing the primary or secondary elevations of the Museum.” (Chris Young)

Riverfront Times recommends The Brontë Sister House Party in St Louis:

The Brontë sisters are throwing the house party of (multiple) lifetimes, and you're invited.
Slightly Askew Theatre Ensemble is staging the world premiere of Courtney Bailey's Brontë Sister House Party, an absurd, revisionist feminist tribute to the literary legends. The premise is Groundhog Day-esque: Charlotte (Maggie Conroy), Anne (Cassidy Flynn) and Emily (Rachel Tibbetts) Brontë are stuck in a purgatorial time loop where they must throw a fabulous house party every day for eternity. Only once the party achieves a certain standard may they be released from the loop. The play is a tribute to all the women artists who have created under pressure and still can throw a kick-ass party. (Jenna Jones)

LondonTheatre1 reviews Classic! as seen at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival:

Classic! is set around a group of actors coming together to break a record for the most novels ever shared on stage. In doing that, they share the stories in extremely unexpected ways: Moby Dick becomes a sea shanty, Jane Eyre is a silent movie, Oliver Twist is a film noir and Black Beauty a pantomime… and that’s just scratching the surface! (Chris Omaweng)

The obituary of Marguerite M. McDermott from Philadelphia as published on Legacy says:

She wrote her MA thesis on Charlotte Brontë's Villette, which she had always hoped to transform into a play.

EasternEye interviews the author Vasundra Tailor:

Asjar Nazir: Has a book greatly impacted you?
V.T.: I read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë when I was very young. To this day, the mad woman in the tower still gives me the shivers.

A weird and unexpected bursary reference in StockHead:

The Australian Pacific Coal 3-act play we mentioned yesterday seems destined to become a drawn-out period epic as Australian Pacific Coal (ASX:AQC) continues to swat away suitors like a Bronte novel brat. (Grego Stronach)

Things to do in the Kirklees area in September according to the Examiner:

As always, the [Open Days Heritage] festival will include a varied range of the district's historic churches, some coinciding with Yorkshire Churches Day on 10 September. Dewsbury Minster founded in 627AD will reveal its Anglo-Saxon relics, tower tours and links with the Brontës.

This columnist in the Morning Sun remembers his first time with Kate Bush:

[Kenny] Everett broadcast Bush’s video for “Wuthering Heights,” which was musically brilliant and visually interesting. I was aesthetically besotted by the musical interpretation of a 19th century gothic romance (vis-à-vis the 1939 film starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier), and found soon after the 45 at Boogie Records. (Bruce Edward Walker)

Infolibre (Spain) interviews the journalist Cristina Ónega:

La periodista comenta a infoLibre que ahora mismo está leyendo Madres, padres y demás. Esta colección de ensayos de Siri Hustvedt –a la que han llamado “la Virginia Woolf del siglo XXI”– sigue la línea feminista que ha definido su carrera. En esta ocasión se ayuda de su experiencia personal, la de su familia y la de sus “madres artísticas” –Jane Austen, Emily Brontë y Louise Bourgeois– para pasear por la memoria, maternidad y la paternidad, pero también el arte y la literatura. (Anabel Cuevas Vega) (Translation)

A journalist and Jane Eyre-lover, Kathrine Jebsen Moore is interviewed in Resett (Norway).