The Brontës’ story may have begun in humble Haworth, but its impact can be felt in the output of creatives across the world. 

To find out just how important their works were, we’ve gathered a group of authors to discuss how the Brontës inspired their creativity, while reflecting on the artistic power the family holds over modern popular culture. 

Chaired by Sally Bayley, our speakers include Tasha Suri, the award-winning writer behind the Wuthering Heights-inspired young adult epic What Souls Are Made Of, Glass Town graphic novelist and author Isabel Greenberg, and British-Palestinian writer Shereen Malherbe, author of the Jane Eyre remix, The Land Beneath the Light.

Take a step into the minds of our authors and join us for a fascinating insight into the enduring legacy of Yorkshire’s famous literary family.

About The Authors

Headshot of children's author Tasha Suri sat at a small round table with a cup of tea

Tasha Suri

Tasha Suri was born in Harrow, north-west London. The daughter of Punjabi parents, she spent many childhood holidays exploring India with her family, and still fondly remembers the time she was chased around the Taj Mahal by an irate tour guide. She studied English and creative writing at Warwick University, and now lives in London where she works as a librarian. To no one’s surprise, she owns a cat. A love of period Bollywood films, history and mythology led her to begin writing South Asian influenced fantasy. Tasha Suri has won the British Fantasy Society Best Newcomer Award and Starburst Brave New Words Award. Her debut, Empire of Sand, has been optioned for TV.

Isabel Greenberg

Isabel Greenberg is an illustrator, writer and comic artist and the author of three graphic novels; The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, The One Hundred Nights of Hero, and Glass Town. She has also illustrated a number of children’s books, and is a lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts.

Headshot of Sally Bayley

Sally Bayley

Sally Bayley is a writer of fiction and non-fiction. As a child, she absorbed the sounds and rhythms of poetry, ballads and folksongs, and these patterns inform the structure of her story-telling.

In 1990, Sally was the first child to go to university from West Sussex County Council Care services. She studied at St Andrews university, and then went to America, where she taught aesthetic education in midwestern schools and universities and foundation arts courses to adults in inner city Ohio. She is interested in the Liberal Arts model of education and believes anyone can think or write to a high level with the right encouragement and practice. One reader has described her books as rhapsodies which means ‘to stitch a song.’

Sally is currently a Lecturer in English at Hertford College, Oxford. She also teaches on the Sarah Lawrence visiting programme at Wadham College, Oxford. From 2018-2020 she was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Oxford Brookes University.

Shereen Malherbe

Shereen Malherbe is a British Palestinian author. After spending over a decade living throughout the Middle East, Shereen now resides in England with her husband and four children.

Shereen, an English Literature graduate, is a writer, researcher & consultant for various organisations.

Shereen’s debut novel, Jasmine Falling, has been voted among the Best Books by Muslim Women (Goodreads), and her second, The Tower has become academic set text in a US university. Her short story, The Cypress Tree, was published in World Literature Today’s landmark edition, ‘Palestine Voices’.

Her latest novel, The Land Beneath the Light; a Palestinian reimagining of Jane Eyre, has been nominated for the Palestine Book Awards 2022.