The The NSW Writers' Centre

Mentorship Program

The NSW Writers’ Centre offers a mentorship scheme for members who would like professional assistance with their writing. They are best suited for writers who have a fully completed manuscript and need some help to more it to the next draft.

The scheme offers one-to-one discussion, supervision and analysis of a member’s work with an experienced, established writer or editor. This may involve face-to-face meetings held at times and places suitable to both mentor and mentoree, email communication, skype chats and/or phone link ups.

The mentor may make handwritten notes on this copy of your manuscript for discussion with you in a face-to-face meeting, but will NOT write a full manuscript assessment report. Mentors are also not in a position to directly recommend you to a publisher and a literary agent. The Mentor is there to work on making your manuscript as strong as possible.

Mentor’s Assessment

If you need just an appraisal of your manuscript then our Mentor’s Assessment may be a good choice. With this program you apply and send through your manuscript and one of our mentors will complete a two-page assessment of where the manuscript is at and suggest some possible changes. If you would like a mentors assessment no need to choose a mentor as we will send it out for a blind assessment.

Applying for Mentorship

Begin by browsing through our list of mentors (see drop-down menu to the right of this page) to see which mentor would be best suited to your project.

The next step is to complete the mentorship application form.

You will need to provide us with as much information about how your manuscript got to where it is today, including length, numbers of drafts and the period of time you have been working on it. Also if you have had a previous manuscript assessment, or it has been part of a mentorship before please tell us of this as well. Keep your any synopsis notes as brief as possible

Once you fill in the mentoree form we will check your mentors availability and interest in working on your project. All of our mentors are busy so take limited mentorships per year, After this point we will put you in touch with your mentor to make your own working arrangements. It is of course possible to discuss your project with a prospective mentor before payment if you would like as we appreciate a mentorship is a very personal relationship.

Cost

The cost to the mentoree is:

• $470 for Mentors Assessment
• $825 for 10 hours
• $1,200 for 15 hours
• $1,540 for 20 hours

All prices are inclusive of GST. All of these times include the Mentors reading time.

Want to Know More?

If you’d like to know more about the mentorship scheme, click here to read about the experience of one of our mentorees, Matthew Roberts, and his mentor, Barry Oakley.

For further information contact the Centre on (02) 9555 9757 or email the Centre.