A FESTIVAL weekend takes place at Haworth's Bronte Parsonage Museum this month.
The Bronte Festival of Women's Writing is being staged, from September 23 to 25.
Influential female authors, poets and writers from this country and across the globe will feature.
And to coincide with that, a family-orientated Bronte Free Festival-Words on the Street initiative is being organised.
It will include storytelling, animal-themed family yoga, pop-up poetry, mural art, craft workshops and street performers, in and around the museum grounds. The activities are free and no booking is required.
The Festival of Women's Writing offers 19 events, and in a first for the festival, most activities will be available to either attend in person or watch online.
The theme is Defying Expectations, which ties in with an exhibition of the same name currently running in the parsonage.
Co-created by historical consultant Dr Eleanor Houghton, the exhibition focuses on – and reimagines – the garments and accessories worn by Charlotte Bronte.
Festival highlights will include a performance by musicians, composers and songwriters Alexandra Braithwaite, Sophie Galpin and Beckie Wilkie of their soundtrack to the 2020 Royal Exchange Theatre production of Wuthering Heights – followed by a question-and-answer session.
Also, there will be a poetry reading by Monika Radojevic – winner of Stormzy’s #Merky Books New Writers' Prize. She will read from her collection, Teeth in the Back of My Neck.
And TV chef Rosemary Shrager will give a cooking tutorial centred on a recipe inspired by the Brontes. Resource packs will be sent to participants cooking from home.
People who can't attend events in person will be able to see some streamed live via Zoom or YouTube, or in other cases have recordings emailed.
Just three events will be in-person only – two creative workshops and a ‘coffee chat’ with Nicky Peacock, the parsonage’s newest writer in residence, who will answer questions about her work.
Sassy Holmes, programme officer at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, said: "We’re incredibly excited for this year’s festival. The line-up is full of amazing and talented women who aren't afraid to speak their mind and have been ‘defying expectations’ in their own individual ways for years."
Tickets for events range in price from £3 to £10, or weekend 'bundles' are available – £55 including admission to all in-person events and to the museum, or £40 for all online events.
For full details of both festivals, visit bronte.org.uk/whats-on.
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