2021 Summer Programme Mentor-Mentee Pairings

862 applicants. 64 mentors. 4 months of mentoring. 2 weeks of deliberation. 1 agent showcase.

It’s time to announce the 2021 mentor-mentee pairings!

A quick note on selection: almost all of our mentors discussed how agonisingly difficult it was to (a) narrow down all their applications to just a few and (b) to select only 1 (or 2) mentees to work with.

Many were not considered because the mentor believed the work was ready and wouldn’t benefit as much as other manuscripts with 4 months of work. Others were too far the other way.

Sometimes the genre/style and a hundred other reasons to do with taste and subjectivity played a part.

Ultimately, the mentors have chosen someone they believe they can help significantly and whose work they are excited enough about to read over and over.

If your name is not listed we implore you to continue writing and submitting, even to us again next year. So many former mentees applied for 2/3 years in a row before being successful. It’s a long game, and you have to be willing to continue even after multiple rounds of disappointment.

And I know you can do it!

To help take the edge off, we have organised a 1 day pitch party on the 7th May: #WMPitch

All of us, wish all of you, the very best with your writing going forward!

Names are listed in the mentee alphabetical order for ease of browsing for applicants.

If your name is on the list below, Stuart will email you this evening, and your mentor will also be in touch soon to discuss how things will work.

Feel free to share the great news with everyone – there’s no anonymity with this one, so celebrate hard. The small successes don’t come around too often, so do take advantage.