THE director of the new Wuthering Heights film, starring Margot Robbie, will be a guest at this year’s Bronte Women’s Writing Festival.
Taking place in Haworth, the festival will celebrate novelists and the North, with a focus on Bradford, in its year as UK City of Culture, as the home of the Brontes.
Actor, writer and film-maker Emerald Fennell, who wrote and directed cult hit Saltburn, will discuss her much-anticipated big screen version of Wuthering Heights, filmed in the Yorkshire Dales this year and set for release early 2026.
Other guests include best-selling author Tracy Chevalier, who wrote Girl with a Pearl Earring, and Australian author and TV presenter Holly Ringland, reflecting on how their writing has been shaped by the Brontes’ legacy.
This year’s festival theme is Writers From and Based in the North, with a focus on stories shaped by northern landscapes and the influences of the Bronte sisters, and showcasing new work from northern publishers.
Bingley author Linda Green will host a festival event. Image submitted
Rebecca Yorke, Director of the Bronte Parsonage Museum, says: “This year at the museum, we’ve fully embraced our role in Bradford’s growing creative story, and this continues through the festival. Packed with guests and events that inspire and ignite the imagination, we’re especially excited about the four writers we’ve worked with in collaboration with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture and the Writers Project of Ghana.
“As children in Haworth, the Bronte siblings dreamed up a series of imaginary worlds – including Angria, a fantastical kingdom that maps directly onto the coast of West Africa. We know the family would be thrilled that four emerging writers (two from Bradford, two from Ghana) have written new stories inspired by Angria but rooted in their own imaginations.”
Claire Govender and Kristina Diprose from Bradford and Akorfa Dawson and Peggy Kere Osman from Ghana revisit the Bronte’s world of Angria, for a new collection of stories and animations.
Other festival events include Irish Trinidadian author Amanda Smyth and West Yorkshire’s SJ Bradley and Anna Chilvers in conversation with Bronte Society chair Lucy Powrie; best-selling Bingley author Linda Green chatting with writers including Bradford-based Sairish Hussain; and arts writer Yvette Huddleston exploring historical fiction set in Yorkshire and northern folklore with Bradford’s Rachel Bower and Jennie Godfrey, author of best-seller The List of Suspicious Things.
Prospective authors can sign up for Writing a Novel courses with Linda Green, in person and online.
* Bronte Festival of Women’s Writing is at Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth from September 26-28.
For more about the festival and tickets visit bronte.org.uk
