26 Treasures was a national project developed by writers’ organisation 26. The project paired writers with ‘treasures’ in museums across the UK: the V&A, the National Library of Wales, the National Museum of Scotland and the Ulster Museum.The idea was that each writer would write a personal, emotive response to the treasure they were paired with – in exactly 62 words – a concise literary form called a sestude.

My treasure was a photograph from the 1840s by Welsh photographer John Thomas, which is held in the National Library of Wales. You can read the ‘creation story’ of how I wrote my piece on the project website. My sestude was published online and formed part of an exhibit at the National Library of Wales. It’s also in the 26 Treasures anthology, published by Unbound.