Online group mentoring from published authors
Working with a children’s author, receive ongoing developmental editing, writing advice, publishing insights, and direct feedback on your manuscript
to help you elevate your writing craft to the next level, in addition to working with a serious group of like-minded authors.
Suitable for PB, CB, MG, Teen and YA novelists.
Sign up to our waiting list to be offered the first places.
Mentoring has always been at the heart of everything we do, and we’ve been considering how to improve this even further.
Step forward Group Mentoring!
Why Group Mentoring?
- More affordable form than all the individual components combined
- Learn from both mentor and peers
- Be part of a community of like-minded people
- Connect with writers who can support one another beyond the mentoring programme
Receive tutor and peer feedback on your writing
Our 3 experienced and award-winning mentors will lead the group mentoring, initially lasting 3 months (but with a first refusal on rolling over), where novelists can benefit from a mixture of 1-2-1 mentoring combined with the benefits of group tutorials and a critique group with like-minded, serious authors.
Cultivate connections with fellow writers
We have space for 8 writers in each of the 3 groups.
Your group will meet up for 3 tutorials on Zoom, led by your mentor, focussed upon problems and areas for discussion in your writing.
What is involved?
- Each month you will receive feedback on 5000 words (or a complete PB text) of your work in progress from your mentor and have one email consultation to ask any questions.
- You will have a monthly group tutorial via Zoom, where you can discuss any aspect of writing, from craft to publishing insights.
- A one-off group Zoom call with a top literary agent where you can ask anything you ever wanted to ask an agent!
- You will swap work with other writers in a peer critique group, where you know everyone involved is serious about improving and will help push your writing to a new level. As we know, critiquing others work is one of the most valuable ways to help improve your own craft and editing.
- You will have a dedicated Slack channel where you and your fellow writers can cultivate new relationships and share experiences, as well as work.
Is group mentoring right for you?
- You’re writing or wanting to write books for children and/or teens (Picture Book, Chapter Book, Middle Grade, Teen and Young Adult. Read definitions for each of the age categories).
- You have at least a solid story idea and an initial piece of writing. However, our mentors can support writers at any stage of manuscript development, all the way up to completed books.
- You’re open to receiving constructive feedback on your writing and have a desire to improve your craft (Read Melissa Wellivers’ top tips for receiving feedback).
- You’re committed to your own writing and current project, and to working within a group to help each other to elevate your craft even further
Meet the Mentors
Melinda Salisbury – Young Adult
Melinda Salisbury is a four-time Carnegie nominated author, whose first novel The Sin Eater’s Daughter was the bestselling UKYA debut of 2015. Her other books include the sequels to The Sin Eater’s Daughter: The Sleeping Prince, and The Scarecrow Queen, the State of Sorrow duology, Scottish folk-horror novel Hold Back The Tide, Persephone origin story, Her Dark Wings, and in non-fiction, The Way Back Almanac. Melinda has been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the YA Book Prize, and the Branford Boase Award. Hold Back the Tide was a YALSA 2022 pick and Hold Back the Tide was a Guardian Best Book of 2022. Her books havebeen published in 15 countries to date.
Vashti Hardy – Chapter books and Middle Grade
Vashti Hardy is a writer of children’s books living near Brighton in Sussex with her husband and three teens. She was a primary school teacher for several years, and has a special interest in children’s writing, especially free-writing and the use of journals and creating fantasy worlds. She has a first-class honours teaching degree with English specialism and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Chichester.
Now a successful children’s author, Vashti’s breathtaking middle grade fantasies are published across the world in several languages. Wildspark won the Blue Peter Book Award ‘Best Story’ in 2020 and the FCBG Children’s Book Awards and Brightstorm was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, Books are My Bag Awards, among others.
Clare Helen Welsh – Picture Books
Clare Helen Welsh is the author fiction and non-fiction picture books and early readers. She is passionate about using creativity and the arts to promote a love of learning and emotional well-being. Clare also works as a Write Mentor tutor and offers a manuscript critique service and 7 week Picture Book Course. Clare is represented by Alice Williams of Alice Williams Literary.
Clare is an award-winning picture book writer. ‘The Tide’ (illustrated by Ashling Lindsay, Little Tiger 2019) won The North Somerset Teacher’s Book Award 2019, SCBWI-BI Crystal Kite Award 2020 and an Honour Award for Illustration at The Children’s Book Awards, Ireland. ‘The Perfect Shelter’ (illustrated by Asa Gilland, Little Tiger 2020) was shortlisted for the InstaBookGrammies 2020 and has been reviewed by The Guardian, identified as a book to support children through the Coronavirus pandemic.
Still interested? Sign up here, but be quick as there’s only 8 places available with each mentor:
Please note that there is a waiting list for group mentoring, so please scroll to the top and add your name to the form.