Alumni Mentoring
Across nine months, you'll work on your manuscript with a mentor from our team of experienced author-tutors. They'll help you keep up your writing momentum, develop your craft and troubleshoot issues in your manuscript. £1,600.
Mentoring is aimed at those seeking targeted, detailed one-to-one feedback. 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 of those writing 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
Mentoring takes place over nine months and consists of three hour-long sessions with a mentor from our author/tutor team.
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 a date 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.
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
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, 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 July if you want to get started this summer.
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.
A July 2024 to March 2025 mentoring programme would look like this:
Mentoring Session 1
Jul - Sept 2024Mentoring Session 2
Oct - Dec 2024Mentoring session 3
Jan - Mar 2025Submission list
Mar 2025
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.
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.
Genevieve Fox
- Feature journalist
- Renowned memoirist
Joanna Glen
- Has edited a variety of non-fiction books
- Shortlisted for the 2019 Costa First Novel Award
Sarah Hilary
- Winner of the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year 2015
- Award-winning short story writer
Simon Ings
- Author of 8 acclaimed novels
- Columnist for the Times
- Renowned science fiction author
Vaseem Khan
- Sunday Times bestseller
- Winner of the 2021 CWA Historical Dagger Award
Ayisha Malik
- Author of 3 critically acclaimed novels
- Winner of The Diverse Book Awards
Wyl Menmuir
- Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
- Winner of the Roger Deakin Award
Lauren Pearson
- Author of five books for young readers
- Former literary agent and current freelance editor
William Shaw
- Shortlisted for the CWA Golden dagger
- Author of 10 crime novels
Joe Thomas
- Critically acclaimed author
- Guardian Best Book of 2020
Chloe Timms
- Writer, campaigner and podcast host
- Novelist
Anthony Trevelyan
- Longlisted for the 2016 Desmond Elliott Prize
- Novelist and short fiction author
Hannah Sandford
- Editorial Director at Bloomsbury Children's and YA Fiction
Christopher Wakling
- Author of 7 acclaimed novels
Simon Wroe
- Winner of the Betty Trask Award
- Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award
Huma Qureshi
- Harper's Bazaar Short Story Prize winner