Wandering Imaginations is a collection of new fantasy and science-fiction stories created for Bradford 2025 by four emerging writers – Kristina Diprose and CM Govender from Bradford, Akorfa Dawson and Peggy Kere Osman from Ghana – that take partial inspiration from the imaginary worlds created by the Brontës in childhood. This special exhibition at Brontë Parsonage Museum presents the four stories in audiobook form – accompanied by animations and illustrations created for Bradford 2025 by Fran Haslam, a Yorkshire-based artist, and Karen Kutame, an artist based in Ghana. 

These four stories were written following residencies at Pa Gya! A Literary Festival in Accra and the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth. As well as the stories themselves, the exhibition shows how the writers took inspiration from the imaginary worlds created by the Brontë siblings as children in Haworth.

Admission to the exhibition is free with a museum ticket. 

Listen to the stories below for free on our Soundcloud.

Where Swallows Go by Kristina Diprose

Kristina Diprose’s retelling of Greek mythology’s Philomela is equal parts heartbreaking and playful. After being transformed into a swallow, Philomela is separated from her sister, Procne. She comes to terms with her new reality whilst encountering mythological landscapes and characters through her travels bringing together Ghanaian and Greek mythologies. Always searching for Procne, she navigates the natural, mythical, and human worlds re-building her own confidence and sense of self in the shadow of great wrongs against her family.

The Woman of Fire by C. M. Govender

Matemasie has been keeping watch over her city for years, convicted by the prophecy spoken over her as a child. She knows devastation is coming; she has dreamt of it each night, all at the hands of the faceless woman of fire.

Weary of her task, an enemy arrives at the gates, and her loyalties are tested by a new love. She starts to question if she knows the woman of fire by another name.

One Mouth by Peggy Kere Osman

Driven by vengeance and cryptic clues, Ledinney surfaces into a world of masked strangers with one purpose: to overthrow JUDAS, a syndicate that runs the new world. Teaming up with a thief who shouldn’t exist and a hot-headed alchemist, he forms a resistance to overturn the underbelly of the new world. But as cybernetic hounds close in and long-buried secrets unravel, Ledinney must decide how far he’s willing to go for justice—and who he’s willing to become to get it.

Come With Me by Akorfa Dawson

In an Afrofuturist matriarchal town where each woman is assigned a predestined mission, Zorya begins to question the crushing expectations placed upon her. When a rare temporal rift allows her to meet her serene and fulfilled future self, Zorya is lured by the comfort of knowing what’s to come, though the path remains unclear.

As pressure to conform mounts, Zorya must decide: surrender to the life scripted for her, or risk the uncertainty of carving her own path to freedom.