About Auburn Langley
Auburn is a writer, and the Director of the Sunderland Lit & Phil Society. Once established in 1795, the society remained dormant for many years, before Auburn brought a community committee together to re-establish the society in 2025. Lit & Phil run monthly panel-based events in the venue Pop Recs in Sunderland, alongside a monthly Philosophy Discussion Group in Port Independent. Like ArtyParti, the society has a Patreon model, should you be interested in signing up to support them.
You can listen to recordings from the first two Sunderland Lit & Phil events as episodes of the ArtyParti podcast below.
Through her writing Auburn enjoys exploring societal setups, trying to examine what we take for granted, and looking at different ways in which we could tackle problems in society using fantasy settings. For instance, her novel-in-progress Monadh Mór is an exploration of human destruction of the planet through overconsumption and environmental destruction, using the Celtic mythology and ancient forests of the highlands. When writing about world-events in non-fictional settings, Auburn puts context and nuance back into the headlines, to explore big stories in the world.
Auburn likes to make history tangible and accessible, examining history to look at identity, and what led to us becoming what we are today. On the shoulders of giants, and all that. In Auburn’s ‘Queer Romans’ project, in partnership with Harbour Printworks, she explores gender identity and sexuality from the ancient world.
Alongside running the Sunderland Lit & Phil Society, Auburn is currently working on a text-based post-apocalyptic video-game, allowing her to exercise her passion for political activism whilst experimenting with storytelling in a new media. She’s also a talented calligrapher, and brought a series of illustrated pumpkins to our fourth ArtyParti Show & Tell.
Listen to Auburn Langley on the ArtyParti podcast:
Auburn Langley, Founder of the (new) Sunderland Lit & Phil Society, shares her motivations behind reclaiming the society after over 150 years. Join us and Auburn in the Atheneum building - where the society used to meet in Sunderland - to celebrate its relaunch.
With a focus on publishing, this month’s Lit & Phil panel discussed the challenges facing the publishing industry, as it continues to evolve, and how other arts and cultural organisations are beginning to explore small-scale publishing as they grow. Alongside the discussion, the panel share useful resources to help writers, poets, and authors along the way.
Alongside a series of hand-drawn pumpkins and calligraphy, Auburn joined our fourth ‘ArtyParti Show & Tell’ event back in 2025 to introduce her text-based choose-your-own adventure game set in a post-apocalyptic Sunderland, which she’s developing as a political education tool.