Wandering Imaginations Bradford. Image Credit: Andrew Benge.
Commissioned as part of a partnership between the Brontë Parsonage Museum and Bradford 2025, ‘Wandering Imaginations’ brings together artists from the UK and Ghana to create a series of audio stories inspired by the Brontës’ childhood kingdoms — Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal — and the expansive imagination that shaped them. I sat down with Kristina Diprose and Claire Govender to talk about writing across genres, cultures, and media – and what it means to honour the Brontës by reinventing them.
We began by discussing Kristina and Claire’s approach to reimagining the Brontës’ 19th-century world through a modern fantasy or sci-fi lens. Both found the brief more open-ended than they expected, offering, as Claire put it, “the incredible privilege of letting our imaginations roam, just like the Brontës did in their childhood worlds of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal”.
That spirit of imaginative freedom – especially the Brontës’ bold, rebellious centering of morally complex female leads – proved particularly influential. Kristina shared that she wanted “to write from the perspective of someone who isn’t altogether good, and to have a spark of that unruly energy that is so characteristic of their writing.” Claire was similarly drawn to the Brontës’ refusal to create simplistic female figures: “You find yourself rooting for their characters, then questioning them, because their morality is never straightforward. That was something I really held onto in my own piece, which features two similarly ambiguous female leads.”
Kristina Diprose headshot, Wandering Imaginations Bradford. Image Credit: Andrew Benge.
Spanning continents, from Bradford to Ghana, the project brings together different perspectives to engage with the Brontës in new ways. For Kristina, who grew up on the Yorkshire coast, her “first connection to the Brontës was through our shared love of the sea.” She reflects, “When you live at the land’s edge, you can’t help but imagine worlds beyond your own.” In that sense, she found kindred spirits in the Brontës – “writers who created new worlds when the existing one felt too small, and who pushed against the confines of domesticity, femininity, and class.”
Claire, drawing on her background as a British South African, described the project as “an extraordinary opportunity to explore a culture I had never experienced before,” and praised collaborators Akorfa Dawson and Peggy Kere Osman for their generosity. She noted the Brontës’ original mapping of Angria onto a fictionalised West Africa was shaped by colonial imagination. “What this project offers is something very different: not an imposition, but an exchange — one grounded in care, collaboration, and mutual respect.”
Day 3 in Ghana, Wandering Imaginations. Image Credit: @Lyfline Photography.
Both writers see cross-cultural collaboration as essential in today’s artistic landscape because as Kristina questions, “What’s the point in art if it’s not a conversation?” She continues, “now more than ever, I think we need stories from everywhere – stories that disrupt and de-centre what we think we know of the world, and stories that nurture our curiosity.” Claire added, “Too often, writers from the Global South are expected to write only from a cultural lens, but their ideas are genre-spanning and universal. Their full imaginative landscapes deserve to be seen.”
The stories will be presented as audiobooks, enriched with animation and illustration. This multimedia format re-shaped both writers’ creative process. Kristina, who enjoys experimenting with form, found herself focusing more on dialogue, dramatic tension, and description: “I don’t naturally have a strong visual imagination, so in editing, I pushed myself to ‘colour in’ the scenes more vividly.” Claire, meanwhile, noticed a lyrical quality emerging in her work. “The rhythm, the flow – it might make it a bit more complex to read, but I think it will translate beautifully when heard.”
Claire Govender, Wandering Imaginations Bradford. Image Credit: Andrew Benge.
Handing their work over to other artists was both “terrifying and exhilarating.” Claire reflected on how her script transformed as collaborators added visuals and sound: “It becomes something far beyond what you could have imagined on your own.” Kristina offered a vivid example: while writing the final scene she was inspired by a sketch by Anne Brontë featured in the Parsonage Museum – a woman gazing at the sea – and was moved by artist Fran’s reinterpretation of this image for her story.
Presented in collaboration with Bradford 2025, the project is especially meaningful for both writers, who have lived in the city for several years. For Kristina, it also marks her first paid commission – a significant personal milestone. In the past, she was juggling a day job and grappling with imposter syndrome. This project has been a real confidence boost: “having my work featured at the Brontë Parsonage is a dream come true.” Claire echoed that sentiment: “I’m just a writer working from a desk in my bedroom. Before this, writing felt like something I did on the side. Now, for the first time, it’s something I can prioritise and treat as work – a real career, not just a dream.”
Day 1 in Ghana, Wandering Imaginations. Image Credit: @Lyfline Photography.
As our conversation drew to a close, I asked Kristina and Claire what they might ask the Brontës, were they able to sit down with them today. Kristina paused, then said, “They never shied away from the darker side of human experience. I wrote a mythical story of women silenced by violence and reborn as migratory birds. I’d love to ask each of the sisters what bird they would choose to be — and what journey they would take.” Claire laughed. “I’d absolutely love a proper natter with them. I want to know which of my characters they’d relate to — and what they’d make of one in particular. She’s outrageous. I think they’d find her hilarious.”
In many ways, this project – spanning continents, forms, and generations – is its own kind of conversation: a dialogue across time, culture, and imagination. And in inviting new voices into the Brontës’ world, Kristina and Claire aren’t just paying tribute to a literary legacy – they’re expanding it.
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To hear more from Kristina and Claire, alongside Ghanaian writers Akorfa Dawson and Peggy Kere Osman, all four will be discussing their new stories in Haworth on Saturday 27 September 2025, 4–5pm, as part of the ‘Brontë Women’s Writing Festival’.
The exhibition will be on display in the Bronte Parsonage Museum from 24 September – 31 December 2025.
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