If you were considering a Ph.D in the field of English Literature, and you were struggling to find a suitably original area for research you might think twice about writing a thesis on Emily Brönte. Her work has been investigated from every angle, examined, dissected, analysed, re-imagined and shamelessly decontextualised.

But you'd be wrong to shy away. Emily's masterwork, Wuthering Heights, is kaleidoscopically generous: the closer you look, the more it yields. It teems with the mental energy of a writer who is compelled to engage with the extremity of experience through the depiction of a singularly brutal landscape, and the emotional asperity of its inhabitants.

The novel is moorland-shaped, and the authenticity of its cruel and intense grandeur is reflected in the atmospheric landscape which rises to Penistone Hill and to the high Pennines beyond, immediately behind Emily's home at Haworth Parsonage. It is rare to see such symmetry between the form of a novel and the terrain that gave rise to it.

The uncanny parallel is not lost on Sue Newby, Brönte expert and Learning Officer at the Parsonage, in which the drama of Wuthering Heights was conceived and written. Her 12 years in the post underwrites her commitment to the novelist and her sisters, to their place in the modern world, and to promoting their continuing relevance in the wider community.

In this, the bi-centenary year of Emily's birth, Sue will be sharing some of her extensive knowledge of the writer's life, work and changing reputation in a talk at the Settle Stories Festival in April.

What, we wondered in a recent interview, drives Sue's own passion:

What do you consider to be your greatest achievement ?

To have maintained my curiosity and open mind, and hopefully, sense of humour!

What inspires your creativity ?

Other people’s creativity, maybe just a line in a book or a character in a film – and anything that gives me a chance to see familiar things differently. And there’s always walking on the moors…

Give one piece of advice to your younger self

It all goes by a lot quicker than you could imagine, so try and make the most of every minute.

Who is your artistic idol and why ?

Emily Bronte! A free spirit - a true original and a genius.

What is the key goal in your work ?

To help communicate how amazing, exciting and relevant the work of the Brontës is, and to help spread the word that they belong to everyone.

What are the stakes ? What happens if you fail ?

I’ve messed up the opportunity to accomplish the above.

If you could be any literary character, who would you be and why ?

Lyra Belaqua from Phillip Pulman’s His Dark Materials. She has amazing adventures and is so irreverent, brave, honest and loyal.

What would your epitaph say ?

Just do it.

Sue Newby: A Talk on Emily Brönte - Settle Stories Festival, Saturday 7th April.
www.settlestories.org.uk/festival