I have never been on a writing scheme where there has been so much support and guidance, as well as a phenomenal range of masterclasses, open door sessions and ask the editor/agent events. Truly astonishing.
Iqbal Hussain (Mentee 2021 – 2022)
Our highly successful long-term mentoring scheme supports talented, emerging writers of colour with mentoring from published authors, and has launched the careers of critically acclaimed and prize-winning authors, such as Branford Boase and Jhalak Prize winner Maisie Chan (Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths, Keep Dancing Lizzie Chu ), multiple prize winner/ nominee Danielle Jawando (And the Stars Were Burning Brightly, When Our Worlds Collided), Joyce Efia Harmer (How Far We’ve Come), Nazima Pathan (Dream Hunters), Iqbal Hussain (The Night I Borrowed Time). To date we have mentored 20 mentees and, although publication is not the only measure of success, we are proud to say that so far 25% of our mentees have gone on to be published authors – and some of those have returned as mentors on the scheme.
Mentoring gallery since 2016
How our mentoring scheme works
The scheme is evaluated every time it runs and some changes to the following details may be made in the future, to improve the scheme. To date, mentees have been selected on the basis of merit of a writing sample, by a team of publishing professionals. On the mentoring scheme, the mentees write their first book for children or teenagers over the course of a year. Each mentee is matched with a published mentor for the course of the scheme. They receive:
- 1-1 feedback and support from their mentor – typically 13 hours across 12 months. Former mentors have included: Michael Mann (Ghost Cloud), Maisie Chan (Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past), Rachel Faturoti (The Boy in the Smoke), Polly Ho-Yen (The Boy Who Grew a Tree), E.L. Norry (Runaways), Kereen Getten (When Life Gives You Mangoes), Kimberly Pauley (The Accidental Wizard), Danielle Jawando (If My Words had Wings), Alexandra Sheppard (Oh My Gods).
- small group workshops with major agents, editors and authors, focused on career and craft skills for writers, with a special focus on the experience of people of colour in publishing.
- inclusion in Megaphone Community’s programme of events, workshops, Q&As, and the Community forum itself.
- a launch to the publishing industry. In 2024 we collaborated with All Stories on Meet the Mentee, a networking and promotion event for the mentees from both schemes.
The scheme is heavily subsidised thanks to Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grants and runs on a pay as you feel basis. The maximum fee paid by any mentee for the entire content in 2023 – 2024 was £300, but it was also provided on a fully-funded basis, costing the mentee nothing. Financial accessibility is extremely important to us and we also subsidise expenses where necessary, for example, for travel.
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CIC number 13808064