A creative movement to amplify the voices of people with lived experience. Transforming the stories we hear, how they’re told and who tells them.
A collection of new writing from 37 emerging and established writers with lived experience from across the UK.
This anthology is testimony, resistance, a nationwide act of creative truth-telling.
“all around you, you see us: broken, breaking, mending, don’t pretend you can’t see us too.”
Less than 10% of people working in the creative industries come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds – an inequality that continues to limit who gets to speak and be heard.
To challenge this, we partnered with Nick Hern Books to publish our first anthology of new writing from people with lived experience in November 2025.
From sofa-surfing and street-sleeping to the rental industry, citizenship, identity, and mental health, these monologues move between imagined futures and urgent realities. They encompass resilience, hope, rage, and humour to offer a multifaceted portrait of homelessness and poverty in the UK today.
“This book is unlike anything else – it brings together voices and experiences that are too often ignored, but that carry incredible power, honesty, and humanity.” Rory Kinnear
The Open Call
In April 2025, we launched a national open call inviting writers to share their perspectives on homelessness, poverty and inequity. We received 135 submissions from across the UK, reflecting a wide range of experiences and identities.
Twenty-two writers, including three Cardboard Citizens Members, were selected for the collection, alongside new monologues by Malorie Blackman, Chris Bush, Michelle De Swarte, Inua Ellams, Matilda Feyisayo Ibini and Joelle Taylor, plus the nine monologues from the More Than One Story film series and a foreword by BAFTA Award-winning actor Michael Sheen.
All published writers were paid, and for some this was their first professional creative work.
Cardboard Citizens Members were trained and paid as readers alongside industry professionals, providing detailed feedback through a trauma-informed, strengths-based process.
Learn more in our short video.
48%
identified as being from Global Majority backgrounds
57%
identified as part of the LGBTQ+ community
46%
identified as disabled
21%
had experience of the care system
The Launch
On Sunday 9 November, over 500 people came together at the Trafalgar Theatre in London to celebrate the launch of More Than One Story.
Hosted by Rory Kinnear and Cardboard Citizens Member Shahab Awad, the monologues were brought to life for the first time by our incredible company of performers, including Laura Checkley, Arthur Darvill, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Ayesha Dharker, Katherine Devlin, Shon Faye, Vinnie Heaven, James Jip, Nicôle Lecky, Daisy Lewis, Prasanna Puwanarajah, Anna Russell-Martin, Josh Tedeku, and Liam Williams, with music from Tom Rasmussen and Joel Jack.
It was a moment — a moment of art, justice, and storytelling.
Watch the event highlights video.
“The monologues included in the book are intelligent windows into a reality we’re trained to look away from by a ruling class that capitalises on the weak. It’s a thought-provoking collection, meant to start a conversation that reaches beyond the threshold of the theatre. It’s a testament [] and an urgent call to action.” BroadwayWorld
More Than One Story is available to purchase directly from Nick Hern Books for £10.39, as well as from other major UK booksellers.
"This is a loud book and a quiet friend, a remarkable tribute to the most vulnerable among us, a call to action and community."
— Joelle Taylor, T.S Eliot Prize Winning poet, playwright and More Than One Story writer.
Help bring these stories to life
As a small charity, Cardboard Citizens can only create opportunities like this by partnering with likeminded individuals and organisations.
Whether you’re submitting a monologue or not, please consider a donation of any size to help amplify these voices and fuel lasting change.
Together, we can change the narrative of homelessness and poverty.
Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
