Mentoring

Our Mentoring Programme is tailored to each writer’s needs and provides encouragement, support, substantial feedback and advice every month. It is suitable for writers of fiction and creative non-fiction for the page or the screen.

You sign up for six or twelve months. Your tailored mentoring programme includes the following elements:

• You’ll receive a comprehensive ten-step master class on the skills you’ll need, and to guide you through your writing journey.
• You can submit up to 5000 words of your developing manuscript per month or a total of 30000/60000 words to which we will respond with detailed notes.
• Alternatively, in any given month you can request a brainstorm instead of submitting 5000 words; or
• One-on-one help with developing character, story, or the structure of your narrative.
• In addition, we hold a group discussion each month, during which you are entitled to discuss your project – both our feedback and your next steps – for half an hour.
• And, we offer a monthly two-hour “write-in” session in which writers on the mentorship programme are invited to work together (virtually) and discuss with us any writing problems they’re having.

With their distinctive honest-but-kind approach, our mentors Jo-Anne Richards and Richard Beynon with associates Michele Rowe for screenwriting and Fred de Vries for travel writing, provide notes and advice on story, characters, structure, scenes, point of view and style.

This programme will help you start - and finish - your book, collection of short stories or screenplay. We can work with you to develop a television series, and craft your proposal. We can help you turn a book into a screenplay, or vice versa.

It is suitable for anyone who has completed a substantial writing course or has industry experience. We hold your hand and walk you through the process.