'Electrifying Women' Project

 The 'Electrifying Women' Project was funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, and based at the University of Leeds. It was a nine month project started in June 2019 to mark the centenary of the UK’s Women’s Engineering Society (WES).

As stated on the project's website, the aim was to broaden public awareness of women’s diverse collaborative roles in engineering since the 19th century, showing the many precedents for women’s future roles in engineering. 

The project ran a series of events including workshops and talks. One of these was a creative writing workshop that Jennifer participated in. It captured her imagination as the idea of the workshop was to take fact to fantasy. Jennifer began by looking at Laura Annie Willson, (1877-1942). She was born in Halifax and worked from the age of ten in a local factory. Later she became involved in the Trade Union and the suffrage movement. She was also a founder member of the Electrical Association for women. Jennifer has written a fictitious letter from Annie and this is included in a published anthology. Jennifer enjoyed being able to mix facts and fiction, creating any missing parts of the story. 

From this workshop the 2nd edition anthology was created.  You can view Jennifer's contribution to the Anthology (entitled Vol. 2: Even More Electrifying Women here.  If anyone is interested in a hard copy of this volume and/or the earlier first volume please email  Jennifer