Alumni Mentoring

Across nine months, you'll work on your manuscript with a mentor from our team of experienced author-tutors. Your mentor will help you to develop your craft and troubleshoot issues in your manuscript as well as keeping your writing momentum high. £1,600.

Mentoring is aimed at those seeking targeted, detailed one-to-one feedback. Our alumni programme takes place over nine months and consists of three hour-long sessions with a mentor from our author/tutor team. Each session will focus on how best to support you – whether you are working towards a finished manuscript, embarking on an edit, or looking for advice on next steps or guidance as you begin a new project.

We have suitable mentors for those writing in any of the following genres/categories:

Novels written for adults
Novels written for children (older than 7) or young adults
Collection of short stories
Memoir
Narrative non-fiction

Your mentor will read up to 10,000 words of your work before each session and then provide valuable and constructive feedback verbally and by giving you 500 words of notes each time. You can also use a mentoring session to have an in-depth discussion about plot issues, by instead sending a synopsis plus an 8,000-word extract – or just a synopsis and a sheet of issues and questions to put to the mentor.

The sessions take place on dates to be agreed between you, for one hour. Usually mentoring takes place over Zoom, but where possible may take place in person (subject to mentor’s preference and availability). The three sessions should be spread so that they happen approximately every three months across the nine-month period, although accommodations can sometimes be made for mentees who would like to progress through the programme more quickly. Please do get in touch with us if you would like to discuss.

Huge thanks for sending Emily (Barr) into my writing life, we get on brilliantly – she ‘gets’ the book – and me – which is the most wonderful gift

Kitty Buchanan-Gregory, Mentoring
Former mentoring student

Fees

£1,600 (inc VAT), payable in full before mentoring starts, or via three agreed instalments of £533.33.

Schedule

This is a bespoke service, and you'll work with the CBC team and your mentor to tailor the programme to your mentoring needs. You can sign up for our Alumni Mentoring at any time. However, we do recommend signing up before the end of October if you want to get started this autumn.

You must submit your 10,000-word extract at least two weeks ahead of your planned date for tutorials, to give your mentor ample reading time. The three mentoring sessions should be spread evenly so that they happen approximately every three months.

An October 2024 to July 2025 mentoring programme would look like this:

Mentoring Session 1
Oct - Jan 2024
More
Mentoring Session 2
Feb - Apr 2025
More
Mentoring session 3
May - Jul 2025
More
Submission list
Jul/Aug 2025
More

Ready to sign up?

Please email students@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk with a 3,000-word extract from your opening alongside a one-page synopsis or short summary of the novel you’re writing and if you have a preferred mentor from the list below. As ever, if you’d like any advice on who might be a good fit for your work, please do ask.

Each mentor only has limited spaces and they are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, so get in touch as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. If we can’t match you with your first choice mentor, we will endeavour to suggest a suitable alternative.

Submission list service

If you sign up for our mentoring scheme, you’ll also get access to our bespoke submission list service. When you’re ready to send the novel you’re working on with CBC to agents, we will produce a tailored list of UK agents (outside of Curtis Brown and C&W) for you to pitch your work to. Jennifer Kerslake, Head of Courses at CBC and former editor at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, or Abby Parsons, Senior Manager at CBC and former editor at Hachette UK, will take a look at your synopsis, pitch letter and opening and draw on their experience and knowledge of agents and their interests to produce a personalised submissions list for your particular novel, with details of at least ten agents. (This service will be provided in addition to the personal submission to CB and C&W that all alumni can access.)

Meet our mentors

All our mentors are published authors or industry professionals with significant teaching experience. Our brilliant team of mentors take on students on a first-come, first-served basis. If you’d like to work with a specific author this autumn get in touch with us today.

Julia Armfield

Winner of the 2018 White Review Short Story Prize
Winner of the 2020 Pushcart Prize

Laura Barnett

#1 Bestselling author
Author of 5 acclaimed novels

Craig Barr-Green

Award-winning children's author
Lecturer at Falmouth University

Emily Barr

Bestselling YA author

Suzannah Dunn

Author of 13 novels
Over a quarter of a million copies sold in the UK alone

Lizzie Enfield

Columnist for Writing Magazine
Author of 5 acclaimed novels

Anna Freeman

Winner of the 2013 Tibor Jones Pager-Turner Prize
Author of 2 historical novels
Host of Radio 4's human interest arts programme, Sketches: Stories of Art and People.