Judges announced in creative writing competition for care-experienced children

The panel of judges for Voices 2025, the national creative writing competition for care-experienced children and young people, with leading children’s authors with personal experience of the care system featured.

The writing competition, organised by CoramVoice, invites all care-experienced children and young people aged 4-25 to showcase their creativity by submitting an entry of 500 words or under 500 words in written form or video format including poems, short stories, raps, songs or newspaper articles.

The panel includes acclaimed children's authors, writers and other leading experts in their field, many of whom have personal experience of the care system.

Judges include:
- Baroness Lola Young - Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey became one of the first Black Women members of the House of Lords in 2004 and is currently Chancellor of the University of Nottingham. Raised in foster care in London, Baroness Young's memoir '8 Weeks: Looking Back, Moving Forwards, Defying the Odds' was published in 2024.

- Patrice Lawrence - Patrice Lawrence is a writer for children and young people. She has won a number of awards including the Bookseller YA Prize, the Waterstones Prize for Older Children's Fiction, the Jhalak Prize for Children and Young People and the Little Rebels Children's Award. She is the Booktrust Writer-In-Residence until February 2025, with a focus on children facing challenging circumstances.

- E.L Norry - E.L Norry is a fiction and non-fiction MG/YA author. She has also written two TV episodes for the BBC One soap opera EastEnders. She balances writing with a part-time job at an FE college working in Wellbeing and Safeguarding. Her books include a wide variety of styles and genres, and her new book, Runaways, is out July 2025 with Bloomsbury.

- Kirsty Capes - Kirsty Capes is a care-experienced author who works in marketing. She holds a PhD from Brunel University London; her thesis investigates representations of the care experience in contemporary British fiction. Her first novel, Careless, was longlisted for the Women's Prize 2022.

- Chris Wild - Chris Wild is an author, keynote speaker and avid campaigner for young people in care. He has appeared across numerous media channels such as the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV.

- Jordan Morgan – Jordan Morgan is the Director of Programmes at Forward Thinking, a London-based conflict resolution NGO. He has related expertise in frontline mediation, negotiation, and the facilitation of national political and community dialogue processes. He is a trustee of the Drive Forward Foundation (DFF) where he founded the DFF Policy Forum, a national award-winning group which aims to empower young people from care to use their experiences to advocate for political and legislative change to the British care system.

- Callen Martin - Callen Martin graduated in 2019 from Bath Spa University's MA in Writing for Young People, becoming the first care leaver in the history of East Sussex to study at post-graduate level. He is now a literary agent, representing authors that write books for children and young adults and, in his spare time, is writing his own children's books too.

- Deborah Maclaren - Deborah Maclaren is the Chief Executive of LoveReading and LoveReading4Kids, whose mission is to share book love and get more people reading. With her school governor hat on she understands the importance of reading for pleasure, and LoveReading4Kids supports parents, carers and schools across the UK to engender a love of reading in their children.

The panel will be judging entries from children and young people aged 4-25 alongside a group of young judges who were finalists in previous years of the competition, on the theme of 'My Voice'.

Brigid Robinson, Managing Director of Coram Voice, said the judges will “bring a wealth of creativity and experience to the competition, and will be incredibly inspiring for all our young writers taking part this year.”

“The Voices competition is the only dedicated competition for care-experienced young people, offering them the chance to write or create a piece on what matters to them most, to be heard, and to celebrate their voices.

“We urge children and young people to get their entries in before the deadline for the chance to have their work read by our judges and to meet them in person at our awards ceremony.”

“I love celebrating the creative expression and voices of care-experienced young people because often in our society their voices can be overlooked,” Care-experienced author E.L Norry, who is returning to judge Voices for the third time, said.