Writing the Wartime Shipyards: Sculpture and Storytelling on Wearside

Calling all budding historians, creative writers and all with interests in Sunderland’s local heritage! As part of Remembrance weekend and in celebration of the upcoming installation of a new sculpture, ‘Molly’, Sunderland's first artwork commemorating women shipbuilders during the war, we invite you to join our team of expert researchers and creative practitioners from the University of Sunderland to unearth and create new stories of Sunderland both past and present. 

Held in the heart of the city at the new City Hall, we will be offering a workshop on historical research and working in archives, as well as a short talk from Dr Ron Lawson the sculptor of Molly, before turning over the creativity to you as we develop writing about the shipbuilders and families that surrounded Wearside’s famed shipyards during the Second World War. You are invited in this session to create your own creative excerpt, contribute to a community-created zine that will be deposited in local and national libraries, and even participate in live research concerning creativity and culture in our region. Of course, if you simply want to come along for a chat and take your creative ideas home with you, that’s fine too.

Whether you have an interest in local or family history, our industrial past, artwork today, or you’re starting out on a creative writing journey, we look forward to welcoming you and bringing Molly and the shipbuilding communities of the past to life. 

Find out more about Making Molly: Stories and Ships in Sunderland taking place on 9 November.

Image credit: Sunderland City Council