‘Still so relatable’: how teenage discovery of the Brontës fostered career in literature
Lucy Powrie was 15 years old when she first read Anne Brontë’s 1847 novel Agnes Grey and instantly, intensely, fell in love.“There was just this moment of, I suppose, feeling like I’d come home.I’d found something that was just better than anything I had ever found in my life.”Already a wildly enthusiastic reader, she had been blogging about books since the age of 12, and hosting a book review channel on YouTube since she was 13.Discovering Anne Brontë, followed immediately by her older sisters Emily and Charlotte, opened the door to a new world: “They were everything that I didn’t realise was out there.
”She started talking about them on her blog and channel, “and I realised very quickly that there were a lot of people who also loved the Brontës and wanted to talk about them because they didn’t have anybody to talk about them with [either].”Powrie is still only 25 but – as is doubtless apparent – she is not a person who believes in hanging around.In October she was appointed the chair of the Brontë Parsonage Museum at the family’s former home in Haworth, making her the youngest leader of one of the oldest literary societies in the world.She is now the guardian of the legacy of some of the most fiercely loved writers in all of English literature.If her age raises eyebrows, Powrie has earned her stripes.
She has been a member of the Brontë Society – the membership organisation which owns the parsonage and with it the world’s largest collection of Brontë artefacts – since she was a teenager, having emailed them cold with an offer.“I said, ‘Oh, hello, I’m Lucy, and I know that you want to reach young people: I’m a young person who loves the Brontës, and I’ve got a lot of young people who love the Brontës.Would you like to work with me?’” She was named a “young ambassador” for the museum and society, becoming a trustee last year.As she points out, who better than a twentysomething woman to advocate for three sisters who were writing their startlingly original books at a similar age? (Of the three, only Charlotte lived past 30.) “At heart,” says Powrie, “they were young women writing about being a young woman.
Her own love of reading had emerged during unhappy school days in Chippenham, Wiltshire, when she struggled to make friends, which she says was further complicated by her undiagnosed autism.There was something in the sisters’ bold unconventionality that she had recognised, she says.“I read Wuthering Heights, and it was the darkness in it, I think, that got to the heart of something that I was feeling that I couldn’t articulate.And so [while] Agnes Gray was the way in, as soon as I read Wuthering Heights there was no turning back.It filled my whole life.
”Her parents, while supportive of her enthusiasm, had no literary connections or experience (“I said ‘I’ve just started a blog about books’, and they said, ‘What’s a blog?’”) but, like her heroines, Powrie was a single-minded young woman,By 17, she had an agent for her own writing, at 19 she published her first novel for teens, The Paper and Hearts Society,There are now three in the series; another novel for young adults will be published next year,“I don’t think I could ever not be writing,” she says,“As Charlotte said, ‘I’m just going to write because I cannot help it.
’” She is in her final year of a history degree through the Open University and has 45,000 subscribers on Youtube, where she regularly posts about her reading and writing.Her teenage fervour for the sisters has mellowed into a thoughtful analysis of how she can help the society and museum stay relevant in a multiplatform age, with so much competition for readers’ attention.That doesn’t mean “[sitting] there constantly going, ‘Look at this thing on TikTok,’” she says, but rather ensuring the society remains valuable and alive to people of all ages.Not a problem, she believes, with these authors.“They are still so relatable.
I think about them every day.There’s not a day goes by when I don’t take a lesson that I’ve learned from the Brontës and put into practice.”
Sam Konstas makes debut to remember as Australia edge India on day one
It has been a tour of polygraphic variation for India’s Test team. Down and out to begin in Perth, becoming ascendant by the end. Back to the bottom in Adelaide, dragging themselves out of trouble in Brisbane to finish the draw there on a high. But starting the fourth Test in Melbourne, right in the series at 1-1, was the first time the Indians have looked completely at a loss.It’s not that nobody has ever batted aggressively in Tests
Australia v India: fourth men’s cricket Test, day one – as it happened
Konstas’s joyous, impudent 65-ball 60, a debut innings like no other, gave Australia a grip on the game that they may not relinquish. India loosened it slightly during the last session, when they reduced Australia from 237 for 2 to 299 for 6, but overall it was Australia’s day. And it was undeniably Sam Konstas’s day.86th over: Australia 311-6 (Smith 68, Cummins 6) A swinging yorker from Bumrah is played well by Cummins, who clips it into the leg side for a couple. Those are the last runs of a terrific day’s play, one that will be forever associated with the audacious brilliance of Sam Konstas
Teen tearaway Sam Konstas rewrites red-ball recipe in fearless Boxing Day debut | Jack Snape
The first attempt by Sam Konstas at a ramp shot did not go well. In the windy heat of the MCG on Boxing Day, a swing and a miss was met with a wry grin from Jasprit Bumrah. At the non-striker’s end, Usman Khawaja – 38 a week ago – cracked a smile.When Konstas failed to connect on a second try minutes later, the writing was on the wall. In a critical moment of a Test series that will define this generation of Australian players, selectors had taken a risk
Skelton’s Grey Dawning has talent to light up Kempton in wide-open race
There have been many renewals of the King George VI Chase in recent years which revolved around a clear market leader but there is no obvious starting point for weighing up this year’s race at Kempton on Thursday, as nine of the 11 runners already have at least one Grade One victory over fences to their name and at least four – Spillane’s Tower, Banbridge, Grey Dawning and Il Est Francais – could conceivably set off as favourite.There are also slight question marks over all four of the principals in the betting. Banbridge is unproven at the three-mile trip, Il Est Francais ran poorly after bursting a blood vessel last time out, Spillane’s Tower has shown his best form with more cut in the ground and Grey Dawning had a tough race in the Betfair Chase in November.Every punter will have their own idea about how best to weigh it all in the balance, and Bravemansgame, the winner in 2022 and second behind Hewick last year, is an interesting each-way alternative at double-figure odds as he returns to a track and trip which clearly suits him so well.For a win bet, however, the most appealing option is the progressive Grey Dawning (2
Paris was the Dude: 2024 Olympics were right Games at perfect time
Four months after Paris 2024’s spectacular finale, starring Tom Cruise abseiling off the top of the Stade de France and hurtling out of a plane above Los Angeles, the executive director of the Olympics is mulling over the lasting impact of the Games. Albeit with the help of a rather different cinematic icon.“I was making a presentation to Deloitte executives recently,” says Christophe Dubi, the man responsible for planning and delivering the Olympics. “And I started by paraphrasing the Stranger in The Big Lebowski: ‘Sometimes, there is a man, he’s the man for his time and place, he was The Dude.’ Because Paris really was the right Games, at the right time and place
India to play Champions Trophy games in Dubai after refusal to visit Pakistan
India’s matches at the 2025 Champions Trophy will be held in Dubai, the International Cricket Council confirmed on Tuesday.Pakistan, the tournament hosts, selected the United Arab Emirates as a neutral venue for India’s fixtures with the team not able to play matches in Pakistan because of political tensions.The hosts’ Group A game against India will now be played in Dubai, along with India’s games against Bangladesh and New Zealand. The decision also means that the venue for the final on 9 March will change from Lahore to Dubai if India qualify.Last month the Board of Control for Cricket in India, citing government advice, told the ICC it would not send a team to the tournament, which begins in February
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