Love Letters to London

Love Letters to London returns for its fourth year with thousands of pounds in cash prizes.

Dust off the keyboard or get tapping on your mobile, because there is more than £4,000 of prizes in the London Society’s free to enter writing competition “Love Letters to London”.

This competition is accessible to everyone to celebrate our wonderful, fantastic, infuriating city in prose or poetry.

Open to all ages, and all writing styles – fiction, poetry, essays and reportage – whether you live in the capital or not. There are special categories for under 18s, as well as prizes for schools.

The annual Love Letters to London writing competition from The London Society returns for its fourth year with a new theme and venue for the winners’ reveal.

This year we have teamed up with St Paul’s Cathedral and they will be hosting the prizegiving in St Paul’s Crypt on Saturday, 29 March 2025. The prize is being launched this year, which marks the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s sermon at St Paul’s, so we are theming the competition around: Dreams for London.

What are your passions, hopes and dreams for this incredible city? We all need to dream to conjure up a brighter future. Let your imagination run riot, spill your dreams onto the page in prose and poetry (or both!).

There’s more than £4,000 in prize money up for grabs in the London Society’s free to enter writing competition Love Letters to London. So now is the time to get out pen and paper or get typing.

If you want to walk away with one of the four first prizes of £500 – and see your work published by The London Society – get writing your own ‘Love Letter to London’. 

Categories & Prizes

First prize: £500

Four runner up prizes of £150 each

In addition, the school of the first prize winner will receive £250 of books.

Read the rules

First prize: £500

Four runner up prizes of £150 each

In addition, the school of the first prize winner will receive £250 of books.

Read the rules

First prize: £500

Second prize: £250

Third prize: £100

Read the rules

First prize: £500

Second prize: £250

Third prize: £100

Read the rules

How to enter

Tell us why you love this city.

Write a Love Letter to London of up to 500 words.

Entries are to be around the theme of “Dreams for London”. What are your passions, hopes and dreams for this incredible city? Just let your imagination run wild.
It can be reportage, an historical essay, a ‘think piece’, a spot of futurology, a work of fiction, a poem. We are open to all forms and styles.

 

Entries must be on a Word or Google Docs file with title (no PDFs).

All entries will be judged anonymously, so the first page of the entry must have:

  1. the title of your entry,
  2. the category you are entering,
  3. your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address
  4. entrants for the two under-18 categories should also include the name of their school or college


For enquiries, email director@londonsociety.org.uk 

We look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Please read thoroughly.

  1. The competition is open to anyone aged under 18 (‘11 and under’ and ‘12-18’ categories) and 18 or over at the time of entering (‘open’ and ‘poetry’ categories). International entries are welcome.

  2. All entries must have a title and must not exceed 500 words or for poems 40 lines in length(excluding title). Entries are to be around the theme of “Dreams for London”What are your passions, hopes and dreams for this incredible city? Just let your imagination run wild. It can be reportage, an historical essay, a ‘think piece’, a spot of futurology, a work of fiction, a poem.

  3. Entries must be the entrant’s original work.

  4. Entries can have been published elsewhere but must fit the brief and have been written in 2024.

  5. The closing date of the competition is noon (UK time), 20th December 2024.

  6. Entries must be a Word or Google Docs file with title (no PDFs). All entries will be judged anonymously, so the first page of the entry should have the title of your entry, and your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address.

  7. There is a limit of three on the number of entries a single entrant can make.

  8. No one can win more than one category.

  9. Entries will not be returned, so please keep a copy.

  10. Under no circumstances can alterations be made to the pieces once entered.

  11. Online entries should be sent to curator@londonsociety.org.uk

  12. Telephone or email confirmation of receipt is not available. The London Society is unable to confirm the content of documents submitted online or by post, so please ensure you send the correct version.

  13. Online entries are preferred, but postal entries may be sent to:
    Love Letters Competition, The London Society, Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1 7ED
  14. The competition organisers reserve the right to change the judging panel without notice and not to award prizes if, in the judges’ opinion, such an action is justified.

  15. All entries are read, The decision of the judges is final; neither the judges nor The London Society will enter into any correspondence.

  16. No one associated with running the Competition, or a Trustee of The London Society, can enter the competition.

  17. Copyright in all entries will remain with the entrant, but The London Society has the right to use any entry for free in its own publications in print, online or in other media.

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