Putting Sudbury's former hospital and Canada's largest mural into words

Submit your writing on Sudbury's polarizing mural Here is your chance to get your thoughts and feelings out about the mural on Sudbury's former hospital. Watch Molly Frommer's report.

Sudbury — The Sudbury Writers' Guild is putting the call out and looking for thoughts, feelings and memories about the former Sudbury hospital turned Canada's largest mural in a new anthology.

Sudbury Writers' Guild has launched the Hospital Mural Writing Project and is looking for submissions in fiction, non-fiction or poetic form.

"What you think of (the hospital). How you feel about it, about the hospital. Your experiences in the hospital; if anything extraordinary happened to you (there). We want to hear these stories. We want to hear from the people who worked here, from the people who drive by, even from the people who live across the streets and are now stuck looking at it," said Thomas Leduc, with Sudbury Writers' Guild.

This idea came from member Bernie Hughes who said he came up with this idea after noticing many people taking pictures of the mural every time he drove by.

"I thought to myself, 'what are people thinking when they drive by the hospital?' I then started thinking about the hospital itself. This building was a hospital in Sudbury for many, many years, and thousands of people in this town have got experiences and deep relationships with this building," said Hughes.

Both Leduc and Hughes say with the amount of change this building has been through since it opened in 1950, there's a lot to write about.

"I see a lot of metaphor with the mural, the colours and the city; I see a lot of reflection in the building. The building itself, slow process of change, and the city's slow process in change in all that's going on with us," said Leduc.

"The hospital represents a lot of feelings, a lot of change with people. Then this building say abandoned to ten years and now it's a mural what does that say about Sudbury with respect to change and its ability to manage and move things forward in this town," said Hughes.

Members say depending on the submissions received, the guild is hoping to publish an anthology and will be accepting entries up until June 30.