'Drive me mad'

BBC highlights the Wandering Imaginations project.

Authors from Yorkshire and Ghana have produced a set of short stories inspired by the imaginary worlds the Brontës created as children.

As part of Bradford City of Culture 2025, Wandering Imaginations saw two authors from Yorkshire and two from Ghana create stories inspired by the fictitious land Angria – which maps on to West Africa - created by the Brontë siblings.

Four writers, Kristina Diprose and CM Govender from Bradford, and Akorfa Dawson and Peggy Kere Osman from Ghana, took part in workshops in Accra and Haworth before the stories went on display at the Brontë Parsonage.

Author Ms Diprose, who described herself as a "Brontë fangirl" said the project had been "a dream come true".

"I've read all the Brontë novels, so when I saw this project I couldn't believe it was a real opportunity. Even more so, when they actually picked me to be part of it," she said.

"To see my work up in the foyer of the place that celebrates the writing of my literary heroines is incredible."

Ms Dawson from Ghana, whose work includes Afro-futuristic themes, said this was her second time in Yorkshire.

"Yorkshire is like a scene out of a book or movie, everything is so vintage and it's been a great experience," she said.

"The first time I walked into the Brontë Parsonage, it felt like walking in the steps of the Brontë sisters. That was so heartwarming."

Ms Govender, from Manningham, said working with the Brontes' juvenilia – the work they wrote as children – had helped her work through her feelings of imposter syndrome.

She said: "A 10-year-old Charlotte Brontë created one of these books and put her name on that page as a declaration that as an adult she was going to be published, and that is so humbling to someone who struggles with imposter syndrome and is really struggling to aspire that way.

"To have a child who is so determined to make her mark in a world where women are supposed to be quiet, as a child she went there.

"They are so beyond their time, so it's incredibly humbling to be associated with their legacies."

Ms Osman said the project was her first time writing a short story, as she mainly writes poetry.

"I took Wuthering Heights for A-levels so that's why I applied for the project," she said.

"It's a pinch-me moment. It's a dream come true for me because I'm a Heathcliff fangirl. I'm happy to be in the environment the Brontë siblings lived in.

"The story I wrote finished on a cliff hanger, so it has encouraged me to keep on writing. It's a fire beneath me to keep me going." (Grace Wood and Olivia Courtney-Ashton)

A student argues in The Teen Mag why she 'Won't Be Watching the New 'Wuthering Heights' Film' and, dear me, there's nothing like the narrow-mindedness of youth. Just saying 'because it doesn't interest me' would have been enough, but instead we got this:

My personal gripe with the upcoming adaptation is not simply that Heathcliff is being played by a white man, but that he is played by a white man whilst Edgar Linton, Cathy's other love interest, is played by a man of mixed Pakistani, Scottish, and English descent. Shazad Latif as Linton is a peculiar decision that confuses a fundamental issue in the novel, the choice between the two men and the diverging worlds they represent.

Described as having "light hair and fair skin", Linton is Heathcliff's exact opposite, and Cathy marrying Linton is a rejection of her wild, unrestrained childhood. I am not the sort to immediately devolve into raging paroxysms about race-blind casting, but in this film, the consequences of it are that the key ideas in the novel are lost. And, once they are lost, what are we really left with beyond a vague historical romance where the characters have the same names as some Emily Brontë characters from 1847?

(I won't even deign to comment on Hong Chau as Nelly; I daresay you get my general angst)

Marketing can make or break a film. In our era of social media, it is more important than ever before to curate a decisive promotional campaign, something that plays to the algorithms that dictate our feeds and lives with ease.

So when billboards popped up with phrases like "Drive me mad" and "Come undone", I was left only wearily dismayed. This sort of marketing is befitting of Colleen Hoover novels, highly eroticised but otherwise stale.

Naturally, these billboards are deliberately vague, existing to create mystery about potentially taboo love beyond mortal boundaries like death. The absence of the actual film title on all the posters is effective in provoking curiosity, but there is nothing particularly Wuthering Heights about the marketing, as a direct result of the shock factor being prioritised.

And nothing is more shocking than the unreleased Charli XCX's songs lined up for this film; this one's more odd than truly offensive, revealing a deeply strange creative vision.

The film is also scheduled to be released on the 13th of February next year, otherwise known as Valentine's Day. If that does not suggest there is some serious genre confusion here, I don't know what does.

I don't mean to suggest for a moment that pandering to fan wishes is a better way of making a film; in fact, doing so has been the cheapening of lots of other franchises. However, antagonising the fanbase is hardly any more sensible, and that is exactly what we have seen so far from Wuthering Heights.

The aforementioned casting director, Cochrane, has coined the novel by Emily Brontë "just a book". Dismissive and far too giddy in its anti-intellectual sentiments, this has only served to alienate the very people whose support this film could have enjoyed.

For fans of Wuthering Heights, it is certainly not "just" a book (as if being a book is somehow insufficient if you want to matter) and is instead an infamously subversive story that could only be published under a male pseudonym, Ellis Bell, and garnered moral controversy on publication. The filmmakers would do well to recognise how daring the book was in its own right, despite not being a 2025 BookTok dark romance. [...]

Either way, the film has raised interesting questions about the role of adaptations and, if it gets more people reading Emily Brontë's gothic romance (even out of morbid curiosity or as preparation to watch the new film), I'll be glad for its existence. (Zaara Arif)

Yes, because that's the whole point of it. But just a couple of things: 'Drive me mad' comes verbatim from the novel--if you're 'wearily dismayed' by it, you should take it up with Emily Brontë herself. And perhaps it's time for a reminder that the Brontës didn't use male pseudonyms. Here's Charlotte's take on it:

Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because – without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called "feminine" – we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise.” [our bold]

The Telegraph is also scandalised because 'Wuthering Heights is packed full of S&M, says director of adaptation'.

The Argus interviews writer Kate Mosse.

Favourite person?

In the real world I have a group of favourite people, and in the imaginary world, Emily Brontë, because her novel Wuthering Heights has had such a big impact on me both as a writer and as a reader. (Louise Flind)

The Times interviews Sally Wainwright:

We meet in a BBC conference room on a boiling hot, sunny day, which feels wrong for the Brontë of broadcasting: we should be in a whitewashed farmhouse as rain wallops the windows. There should at the very least be a pot of tea. (Alice Jones)