Work in Progress

My current book project, Livings, opens in the Spring of 1845 in the rapidly industrializing village of Haworth in West Yorkshire. Four young adults—Anne, Charlotte, Emily, and Branwell Brontë—have been out in the world for several years, trying to establish themselves in various kinds of work, but all four have now returned, in the dismal wake of personal or professional failures, to the home where they grew up: suddenly dependent on their father, an elderly Anglican parson whose failing eyesight threatens even his own continuing employment. None of the four will ever obtain another paying job, and only one of the sisters will ever earn enough from her writing to contribute to the household budget.

My title is intended to evoke several meanings: there’s the obvious one of “making a living,” i.e., supporting oneself through the barter of time, knowledge, and/or skills for money with which to purchase food and shelter. In the time and place I’m writing about, however, the term “living” was also applied to some titled positions, especially among the clergy. For example, the Rev. Brontë himself is said to have “the living” of St. Michael and All Angels Church in Haworth. Lastly and most importantly, my title refers to the acts of living in which each of my characters is engaged: that is, the daily occupations of eating, sleeping, household chores and errands, interactions (amongst themselves, their friends, their neighbors) —along, of course, with the writing of revolutionary new kinds of poetry and novels. Livings is ultimately about those particular “livings,” individually and collectively. How did these five highly strung, eccentric personalities, intimately sharing an intense but limited fund of experience, come to react so differently to the most basic events of life: love, sex, religious feeling, grief, mortality? What did they reveal to (or conceal from) each other, within the close confines of a shared home? How were they viewed by their friends and acquaintances, or by the villagers surrounding them?

Individual pieces from Livings have appeared in print and online periodicals, including three special issues of the Brontë Society Gazette (click the button to see “Excerpts” page, below). In addition, I am continuing to seek publication of individual pieces in journals and magazines as I pull the full manuscript together.