The Brontë Writing Centre is based in the heart of Haworth, otherwise known as ‘Brontë Country’, where all the Brontës lived and wrote their classic works of literature. We provide opportunities for new, emerging and established writers. We offer writing courses, masterclasses, workshops, projects, mentorship, tours, talks and more. Our tutors are all esteemed, award-winning writers with many years’ experience of teaching and mentorship. Our founder, Dr Michael Stewart, has published a number of best-selling books, and has also written for theatre, radio and TV. His debut novel, King Crow, won the Guardian newspaper’s Not-the-Booker Award and was selected as a recommended read for World Book Night. His novel Ill Will was optioned by Kudos Film and Television. He is the winner of the BBC Alfred Bradley Bursary Award, the H.E. Bates Short Story Award, the Kings Cross Award for New Writing, and many other prizes and awards. He is the creator of the Brontë Stones project, and was head of Creative Writing at Huddersfield University for over seventeen years, where he was associate professor. He has helped many writers find their way to publication and success. Find out more about him here.

Stacey Halls’ first novel The Familiars was the bestselling debut novel of 2019, won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for a British Book Award. Her second novel The Foundling, third Mrs England and fourth The Household were all Sunday Times bestsellers. She has sold over a million copies across all formats and in 2022 won the Women’s Prize Futures Award.

‘Highly atmospheric and tense’ Richard Osman

‘The new Hilary Mantel’ COSMOPOLITAN

‘Stacey Halls is a writer of great originality, great imagination and great sense of place. Atmospheric, intelligent, accessible, every novel is worth reading, then reading again and again’ KATE MOSSE

‘Another gripping, immersive, intelligent work of historical fiction from the bestselling author of The Familiars‘ KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE, author of THE MERCIES

‘A moving, atmospheric chiller’ INDEPENDENT

‘A breath-taking achievement’ SUNDAY EXPRESS

‘Enjoyable and atmospheric’ THE TIMES

‘Absorbing . . . Halls weaves together the elements of her story with great skill’ Sunday Times

Sairish Hussain is a British novelist and lecturer in creative writing. Her debut novel The Family Tree (2020) was shortlisted for a Costa Book Award and the Portico Prize. This was followed by Hidden Fires (2024). In her writing, she is known for her portrayals of British-Pakistani families.

‘Poignantly paints the extraordinary in ordinary lives’ THE SUNDAY POST
‘An engrossing and moving story’ CLARE CHAMBERS, author of Small Pleasures
‘An evocative portrayal of love and family’ AYISHA MALIK
‘Invites you in, not as a stranger but as a family friend’ KATIE FFORDE
‘A masterclass in representation and brilliant writing’ ZEBA TALKHANI, author of My Past is a Foreign Country

Stephen May is the author of six novels including Life! Death! Prizes! which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and The Guardian Not The Booker Prize. He has also been shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year and is a winner of the Media Wales Reader’s Prize. He has also written plays, as well as for television and film. He lives in West Yorkshire.

‘Stephen May has a nose for fascinating historical events’ The Times

‘Very fine and fun novel’ The Spectator

‘Skilfully orchestrates a large cast of both historical and fictional characters’ Financial Times

‘The spry, sardonic voice of the new historical fiction’ Hilary Mantel

Katherine Clements‘ debut novel, The Crimson Ribbon, was published in 2014 and her second, The Silvered Heart, in 2015. Her third novel, The Coffin Path, became an Amazon bestseller and was nominated for the HWA Gold Crown Award and The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize in 2018. Her writing has won and been shortlisted for many prizes, including the Winchester Writers’ Conference First Three Pages Award and the Weald & Downland Museum/Jerwood Prize for Historical Fiction.

‘An eerily gripping novel in which the ghosts of the past haunt the present in more ways than one’ Sunday Times

Cathianne Hall is a writer, script/story editor and performance storyteller with twenty years experience across film, theatre and TV. Her TV work includes twelve years working on story for the UK’s highest rating Soap Operas (Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks).

Cathianne was also a core member of the CBBC in-house drama development team. In her time there she developed work for children and teens, notably the commission and production of the continuation of The Demon Headmaster and The Beaker Girls which concluded over twenty years of Tracy Beaker’s story. She has mentored new writers for BBC Writersroom North, developed for Rollem Productions. the BFI Young Audience Fund and is a development mentor on Screen Yorkshire’s Flex and Beyond Brontes programmes.

Cathianne’s original practise centres on researching hidden history to create modern fables that resonate across the years about ordinary but extraordinary people, especially women. Her one-woman shows on this theme include The Girl in the Grate, The Famous 45 and Modern Girl 1895. She also has a track record in community theatre/film/arts including Heckmondfright for Creative Scene, Space Circus for Chol Theatre, Yan Tan Tedera for Eden Arts and The Ballad of Lucky B’Stard for Bestival.

Dr Claire O’Callaghan is a literary scholar, cultural historian, and writer. She is an expert on Victorian literature and culture, particularly the lives, works and legacies of the Brontës. Claire is Senior Lecturer in English (Victorian Literature) at Loughborough University, U.K. (part-time), and also serves as Editor-in-Chief of Brontë Studies, the official journal of the Brontë Society.

Claire is the author of Emily Brontë Reappraised (Saraband, 2018). She works closely with the Brontë Parsonage Museum, most recently leading a project on Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Little Book’—an initiative dedicated to transcribing, editing, and interpreting a long-lost manuscript newly recovered. She is also preparing a new edition of Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey for Oxford World’s Classics (forthcoming 2027).

A frequent media contributor, Claire has contributed to media and television for the BBC, Sky Arts, and History Hit. 

Praise for Emily Brontë Reappraised: “Thoughtful…an informally written, no-nonsense reappraisal…”