Women of the Wild

A couple of news sites focus on this weekend's Brontë Festival of Women's Writing. The Telegraph and Argus has someone from the Brontë Society--Sassy Holmes in all likelihood--tell it all:

During the pandemic, we got to slow down and appreciate the green spaces down our street and on our door step. Connecting with nature has never seemed more important. That’s why this year at the Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing we’re celebrating the contemporary female voices who draw inspiration from the landscape.

The Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing champions female creativity and celebrates the legacy of the UK’s most famous literary sisters - the Brontës. [...]

This year, we’re championing ‘Women of the Wild’, where visitors will have the chance to hear from some of the leading female voices in nature writing today.

There is a rich programme on offer, highlighting important themes of wellbeing, creativity and sustainability in new and exciting ways.

Take to the stars with NASA scientist Libby Jackson and astrophysicist Emma Chapman and discuss writing about space whilst stargazing on the moors.

Swap days in the office for walks in the wood with Emma Mitchell as we discuss the inspiration behind her richly illustrated nature diary The Wild Remedy, as seen on BBC’s Springwatch.

Embed local dialect and different languages into poetry inspired by place and belonging, with Bradford-based poet Nabeela Ahmed.

Discover how to cook affordable, easy and tasty plant-based food with bestselling author Katy Beskow, and maybe even try some samples too! This is just a flavour of the fantastic events on offer.

Not only do we champion female voices in our programme, but the festival is run by women too, with a commitment to supporting local female-led businesses.

We are excited to welcome a cohort of enthusiastic and driven female Event Volunteers who will be on hand to help our visitors during the weekend. Festival partners Cobbles and Clay, run by fantastic Haworth business owner Jill Ross, will be offering 10per cent off all takeaway food and drink for Weekend Pass holders.

Into the Wild, another independent female-owned Yorkshire business, will be supplying a glorious Bell Tent to serve as our Festival Hub for the weekend; a space where you can chill out, read, and try your hand a creative pop-up workshop.

Sustainability is at the heart of the festival.

The landscape was vital to the Bronte family; they walked the moors and used their surroundings as inspiration for poetry and prose. What would Wuthering Heights be without the iconic Yorkshire moorlands?

We know how important it is to look after the natural world, and have embedded this ethos throughout the festival weekend. Join Jess Kidd’s Green Corner in our Festival Hub for a workshop that explores the sustainability by using ancient drawing materials to create art.

Artist Rebecca Chesney will be closing the festival weekend by reflecting on the weather in the Brontes’ work and in Haworth over the years, looking at what it can tell us about changing climate and affected landscape.

Moreover, this year we’ve introduced a special Green Pass weekend ticket, which gets you into all events at an immensely discounted rate if you travel to Haworth by train, bus, or bike!

The cherry on the top is our range of Bronte Festival of Women’s Writing merchandise that is 100per cent sustainable - from plantable bookmarks to recycled cotton tote bags.

Set in the beautiful village of Haworth against the backdrop of the Brontës’ inspirational former home, the Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing promises to be an inspiring and empowering weekend for everyone in our community.

Whether you’re a crafter, reader, baker, or simply curious about creativity, there’s guaranteed to be something for you. This year, the festival also includes a free strand of activities for families, with activities themed around exploring words and shared storytelling, so there will be something for the whole family to enjoy!

See you on the cobbles?

Northern Soul has festival programmer Sassy Holmes tell about it:

“The first place we start is the theme, which is always around our special exhibition and this year that’s The Brontës and the Wild – exploring nature, of course, but also the idea of wildness, the Brontës loving their landscape and being inspired by their environment.”

When it came to choosing the right people to bring the theme to life, Holmes says that she “wanted to find artists and creatives who could speak to what being out in nature can do for your mind, your soul, how that can kind of reset you”.

Holmes found Emma Mitchell, bestselling author of The Wild Remedy (and sometime presenter of BBC Springwatch) who will appear at the festival to talk about how nature and creativity can improve mental health. Local poet and yoga teacher Emma Connally Barklem will be guiding a mindful yoga session, interwoven with readings from her new collection Ridings. Holmes has worked with Connally Barklem before, creating online wellbeing resources that can still be accessed.

According to Holmes, this is one of the great things about running an annual festival: the ability to foster relationships and connections between artists and the Parsonage Museum.

“I like staying with the artists that we meet who speak to the Brontës really clearly, and finding ways to kind of bring them back and share their stories and really support them. I guess the festival is as much about shining a light on the Brontës as it is about promoting contemporary writing and supporting up and coming artists.” [...]

Genuine local connection is always crucial for the festival, says Holmes. “I really want to tap into local artists from the Yorkshire area who live and breathe and experience the landscape on a daily basis.”

Meanwhile, chef and baker Katy Beskow will be running a session on “easy, simple, affordable, but really tasty plant-based food”.

“She’s based in Yorkshire,” says Holmes, “has been all her life, so it’s really nice to get that local, authentic voice coming through. Also with Katie’s event, the sustainability is really clear – thinking about how we can tackle climate change in small ways, on a daily basis.”

Another local artist at the festival is multilingual Bradford poet Nabeela Ahmed who will help workshop participants to craft poetry inspired by both the wild nature outside and the wild characters in the Brontë novels. Using multiple languages in her poetry, Ahmed will explore how to incorporate other languages and dialects into poems.

“Nabeela did the opening bid videos for Bradford 2025,” says Holmes, “so it’s really nice to have that Bradford voice coming in as well.” [...]

What would she like to say to anyone considering coming along?

“It’s so worthwhile this year. Of course, it always is, but this year in particular, we’ve got so many fantastic events and speakers, but we’ve also got these additional things. Like, on the Friday, we’ve got the festival opening party at Cobbles and Clay, where everyone can have a drink, meet some of the guests, then have some nibbles. And this year with Words on the Street, it’s all about cultivating the festivalgoer experience. There’s so much going on, wherever they turn – there’s a street act on the cobbles, there’s a second-hand book shop to go sit in and chill out, there’s an amazing workshop all about how to write poetry.

“It’s a really worthwhile weekend if you’re interested in anything to do with literature, reading or creative writing.” (Amy Stone)

Oregon Live reports that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has announced its 2024 season.

Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” directed by Miriam A. Laube, and Charlotte Brontë's “Jane Eyre,” adapted by Elizabeth Williamson and directed by Dawn Monique Williams, both at the Allen Elizabethan Theatre, will round out the season. (Lizzy Acker)

A contributor to Los Angeles Times' High School Insider is not a fan of Jane Eyre (her loss):

“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë: It’s been done a million times, and it’s been done better

I should start by saying that Brontë, Jane, and I are good acquaintances, with “Jane Eyre” being an annually-mandated reread for some class or another. Perhaps it’s this constant reread of the lengthy novel that gives me the confidence to call its pace dawdling and its plot scarce. Should you choose to pick up the book, you’ll be forced to follow Jane from the moment she’s born to middle age, mind for the frequent, improbable jumps in timeline. Fairly early on, the novel switches from an intriguing retelling of the mistreatment Jane faced as a young orphan to a love story that lacks character development or chemistry. Perhaps this jarring, unwelcome switch is what’s made me so anti-Jane Eyre despite my love of Brontë’s writing style. For, in theory, “Jane Eyre” is a telling tale of how girls are so often mistreated by those whom girls are supposed to be able to trust and how intellectual women are so often ridiculed and cast aside by men confident they know everything. But, in execution, the latter half of the book, especially the rushed ending, undercuts everything Brontë told us Jane stood for, and left me a combination of bored, underwhelmed, and perpetually asking aloud, “seriously?” If you’re looking for a book like “Jane Eyre” but want to walk away feeling enlightened rather than deceived, I suggest you shift your focus to finding a copy of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” or the contemporary Rebecca Makkai’s “The Great Believers” – both of which have landed a spot on my favorites list (a list Jane Eyre will never grace). (Maya Henry)

Bok365 (Norway) looks at the consequences of book banning.

I Texas skal en ny lov forplikte utgivere og salgsledd til å sensurere og sette aldergrense både på bøker som allerede eksisterer i skolebibliotek, og de som skal kjøpes inn. Kriteriene er vage og vanskelige å tolke, men formålet med loven er å hindre at barn og unge får lese om forelskelse og seksualitet. Klassikere som Shakespeares «Romeo og Julie», John Steinbecks «Om mus og menn» og Charlotte Bröntes «Jane Eyre» kan rammes av loven. Den som formidler eller noensinne har formidlet en ulovlig bok til unge under 18 (dette gjelder også bøker som allerede er i de enkelte skolebibliotek i Texas) straffes av delstatsmyndighetene med leveringsnekt for fremtiden. (Sarah C. J. Willand, and Tine Kjær) (Translation)

Reader's Digest has quite a bold (and unfounded) claim:

Books inspired by York include: The Secret Garden, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre (Liam Smith)

By Yorkshire, absolutely. By York, not really.

The Telegraph features the Goth aesthetic:

Above all, as the dress of female Goths suggests, the Goth heart lies in Victoriania, though in torrid works such as Wuthering Heights rather more than Margaret Thatcher’s “Victorian values”. (Nicholas Blincoe)