In our latest post, Tom Wicker reflects on the sensory solace of lockdown baking and breathing out in the face of COVID uncertanties.

Writer and mental health advocate Kate Stone Matheson describes the solitude of chronic illness and disability against a backdrop of repeated pandemic lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia.

Thomas Dixon and Tom Laqueur speak to Barbara Taylor about our relationships with animals and how they figure in our understanding of loneliness and solitude. This conversation was filmed during the second COVID-19 lockdown in England, with topics stretching from the meanings of empathy, to animal evolution, canine grief, and the difference between cats and dogs.

We cross continents for our latest 'Lockdown Fantasy', as Viv Graveson imagines herself back to the very best kind of solitude with a herd of orphaned Kenyan elephants.

A new 'Lockdown Fantasy' from novelist and historian Mary Chamberlain, who muses on the ups and downs of creativity and imagination during the pandemic and beyond.

Sarah Garfinkel and Akshi Singh discuss loneliness and solitude through the lens of Sarah's work on interoception, the perception of sensations from inside the body. Their conversation, filmed during the second COVID-19 lockdown in England, covers emotional mirroring, empathy, and neurodivergent loneliness, and is followed by Akshi's suggestions for further reading and listening.

Our postdoctoral researcher James Morland writes about family, longing, and the dreamiest of dream dogs for the second post in our 'Lockdown Fantasies' blog series.

In our new blog series on 'Lockdown Fantasies', our Principal Investigator Barbara Taylor shows how pandemical solitude can play on the imagination.

We explore nature, in the Cairngorms and beyond, in our latest post, as Di Beddow introduces us to the mountain landscapes of Nan Shepherd's writing and suggests how nature might enhance and sweeten solitude.

Rachel Long speaks to Akshi Singh about inspirational women writers, poetry collectives, and writing as a way of being alone, before reading from her Forward-prize nominated collection 'My Darling From the Lions'. This conversation was filmed during the second COVID-19 lockdown in England and is followed by Akshi's reflections on Rachel's poetry.