Loneliness Awareness Week 2026 - Meet the entries from our Adult Creative Writing and Art Competition!

Posted on: June 24, 2026

For Loneliness Awareness Week 2026, the gunnercooke foundation and House of Books & Friends invited all you aspiring writers and artists out there to enter our Adult Creative Writing and Art Competition! The task? To submit a short piece of writing and/or piece of art inspired by the theme of Loneliness Awareness Week 2026 – Giving Loneliness a Voice. Judged by local artist and illustrator, Hiumandy Ho and, author, Connor Hutchinson, we were really interested in your responses to the theme and reflections on belonging, community and connection. This competition is all in aid of supporting Marmalade Trust’s mission in destigmatising loneliness and we were overjoyed by just how many of you gave loneliness a voice through a range of creative outputs.

A huge thank you and well done goes to all our entrants and winners – none of this would have been possible without you! Why not grab a hot drink and read through the amazing submissions below!

Creative Writing Category

1st Place – The Art of Picking Daisies by Constanza Oportus

2nd Place – My Grandma’s Parrot by Laura Fox

Untitled Poem by Lee Wood

Full Stop by Eslam Alshami

False Reflection by Lucy Edmiston

Lonely Waves by Elaine Moss

Nanny by Martha Clayton

Outside Inside by Amani Islam

The Flightless Moth by Rowley

Loneliness, my colleague by Alice E

“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver by Lagoon Myers