Emily in the TIFF (and yoga, textile artwork, women's writing festivals...)

Several news outlets confirm that Frances O'Connor's Emily film will have its premiere through the TIFF's Platform program:

Frances O’Connor’s Emily, a biopic based on the classic author Emily Brontë, will be the first film shown at the Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform program this year. The festival will run from September 8 through September 18 and Emily will later have a regular release by Warner Bros. in 2023 in the United Kingdom, with Bleecker Street releasing it in the United States. (Lacy Long in Collider)

“Emily,” a biopic starring Emma Mackey as “Wuthering Heights” writer Emily Brontë, will have its world premiere through Toronto International Film Festival’s Platform program, the festival announced Wednesday.
Platform, which was established in 2015 and is named after the 2000 film by Jia Zhang-ke, screens eight to 12 films from a diverse range of global filmmakers with rising careers. After the screenings, the Platform Prize, an award of $20,000 CAD, is given to one film selected by an international jury. (Wilson Chapman in Variety)

 Emily is Brontë’s origin story, with TIFF describing the film as a “boldly atmospheric portrait” and “a tale of creativity, secret desire, and a woman’s arduous journey toward self-actualisation in 19th-century England.” (Jackie Keast in If)

In Canada, the film is distributed by Sphère Films, according to L'Initiative. 

Keighley News reports how

Wotk produced by a group of students has gone on display at Haworth's Brontë Parsonage Museum.

The intricate piece of textile artwork is sitting alongside an exhibition Defying Expectations: Inside Charlotte Brontë’s Wardrobe, which features more than 20 items of clothing and accessories that belonged to the writer of Jane Eyre.

Textile artist and author Hannah Lamb was approached by the museum to produce the interactive artwork. (...)

As part of the project, called Fragment of a Dress, visitors to the museum were invited to write a few words about an item of clothing that was significant to them.

Over two weeks, the students rendered the handwritten stories in embroidery, building up the words stitch by stitch. Each piece was worked on transparent silk organza and they were then put together in the style of a dress that Charlotte Brontë might have recognised.

Sassy Holmes, programme officer at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, said: "Hannah has created a nostalgic and moving piece of art, that tells the story of how important clothes are to us. (Alistain Shand)

Reader's Digest recommends summer reads based on your holiday destination:

Delve into the dark, evocative allure of the Caribbean islands with Jean Rhys' The Wide Sargasso Sea.

A prequel to Charlotte Bronte's seminal Jane Eyre, Rhys' rich and sensual novel puts the spotlight on the "madwoman in the attic"—that is, before she went mad.

Set in Jamaica and Dominica, the mysterious thriller is laced with the scent of smoke and spice and filled with luscious, tropical locations that practically explode off the page. (Meg Walters)

The New Indian Express talks about blackout poetry:

 Practitioners of blackout poetry often use text at random, specifically to get a desired result. While Bhola has used newspapers to create her poems, Mishra refers to literary texts from the nineteenth century such as the works by Jane Austen, Emily Brontë that, in her opinion, eases the process and helps her create something out of the ordinary owing to the vocabulary prevalent in said texts. (Anjani Chadha)

Problematic relationships in literature. Bookriot selects:

Catherine Earnsahw and Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights

This is one of my all-time favorite novels for many reasons, not the least of which is the absurdly dysfunctional relationships between pretty much all the characters. With perhaps two exceptions, if a character in this book interacts with another, the odds are good that it will not lead to a healthy outcome for anyone. But Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff’s relationship is, by and far, the most dysfunctional of the lot: not only are they the epitome of co-dependent and self-destructive, but they manage to drag everyone else within a 50 foot radius into their drama. (Carolina Ciucci)

Publishers Weekly lists overlooked but essential novels:

 2. Windward Heights by Maryse Condé

In How to Read Now, I talk about some of my experiences in a pretty terrible writing program I attended while living in London. But I regretted that I wasn’t able to fit in a section about one of the few true joys of my time at that institution, which was the Caribbean Women’s Writing class I audited, along with two other women of color. Taught by Prof. Joan Anim-Addo, it’s where I first read and loved the work of writers like Maryse Condé, Velma Pollard, Olive Senior, and Beryl Gilroy. Of course, writers like Césaire, Senghor, Glissant, and Walcott are some of the best-known luminaries of Caribbean literature. Condé, a writer from Guadeloupe, is perhaps lesser known in the States than her male peers, a point she doesn’t shy away from discussing in her interviews. Windward Heights is a bravura reimagining of Wuthering Heights, written in a blend of French and Guadeloup creole; in an interview, Condé said: "There is no French. There is the French of Proust, of Chateaubriand, of Maryse Condé… I write neither in French nor in Creole, I write in Maryse Condé.” (Elaine Castillo)

El Confidencial (Spain) talks about the hero's journey template of stories:

Aunque también hay mujeres que se engloban en el monomito, y no hace falta que sean princesas Disney. Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brontë, por ejemplo, está considerada unánimemente como parte del viaje del héroe: una mujer victoriana de clase media que se debe enfrentar a obstáculos y conflictos, diferentes a los de sus contrapartes masculinos, y que finalmente sale victoriosa de los mismos. Es, además, un claro ejemplo del llamado 'Bildungsroman': historias comunes en la ficción victoriana, sobre el aprendizaje, que muestran el desarrollo moral y psicológico de los protagonistas a medida que se convierten en adultos. (Ada Nuño) (Translation)

Positive quotes, including one by Charlotte Brontë, in Today. 

Finally, a new initiative of the Brontë Parsonage Museum: Brontë Wellness. 

Brontë Themed Yoga Class - with EmmaYogaLive

Welcome to our Brontë -themed 15 minute accessible yoga class. 

Emma Conally-Barklem will lead the session, which has both chair and mat-based options. It is suitable for all and led with a focus on kindness and respect whatever body you are in. 

The class is infused with the lives and work of the Brontë’ s as we connect body, mind and breath to encourage peaceful release and easing of everyday tensions. It closes with an extract from Emma’s poem, ‘The Meeting of the Waters’.

This class is part of a special suite of wellbeing resources which centralises the Brontë’s, their writing and their landscape, curated by Emma Conally-Barklem.

And, also from the Parsonage, the 2022 Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing schedule has been released:

From poetry workshops and Q&A’s to live music and more, this year’s festival is HYBRID, so you can join in Haworth or online. 

Check out http://bronte.org.uk/whats-on to find out about the festival, running Friday 23 September - Sunday 25 September.