Mentoring
TLC mentee Mark Patton’s novel, set in 2400 BC, the dawn of the Bronze Age, tells the story of a young man’s coming of age against the background of a rapidly changing society. What started out early 2010 as a manuscript titled “Twilight of the Ancestors”, has recently been published by Crooked Cat Publications as “Undreamed Shores”, 24th May 2012.TLC is delighted that Mark Patton has had his work published. Click here to read more about his book.
Fawzia Kane, a former TLC mentee, has published her collection of poems titled Tantie Diablesse. Waterloo Press will launch the book at the end of January, a collection of poems that ‘range over Borgesian fantasies to historically informed evocations of the poet’s native Trinidad and Tobago’.
Fawzia Muradali Kane was born in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago and the poems reflect not only her own experiences as a child, but also draw on the history of the area and the country’s changeover from being a colony to independence. Fawzia came to the UK on a scholarship to study architecture and now lives in London.
Fawzia’s poetry has been published in several journals including Agenda, Brittle Star, Poetry Review, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, and Rialto.
Click here to learn more about this collection by Fawzia Kane. TLC will showcase Fawzia’s mentoring project in February.
Suzanne Joinson, a former mentee who came to TLC through the Arts Council and Writers’ Centre Norwich, agented by Rachel Calder, has recently been at the heart of an exciting five-way auction for her new novel A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgari. Bloomsbury, which has bought world rights to the novel, will publish the novel in the UK, US, Germany and Australia in summer 2012.
The novel, written after she finished the TLC mentoring programme, tells the story of two sisters who travel to Kashgar in 1923 to set up a Christian mission, paralleled by the present-day story of a woman who returns to London after a long trip and finds a man sleeping outside her front door.
In the Bookseller article editorial director Helen Garnons-Williams says: “In Suzanne’s Joinson’s extraordinary novel, we have found the perfect book and the perfect author for Bloomsbury. This beautifully written and utterly captivating novel, with its characters who are all searching and fleeing and discovering and connected to each other in ways that they do not, at first understand—explores ideas of history and religion, inheritance and belonging with delicacy and empathy. We are thrilled to be publishing it.”
Click here to read the full story in The Bookseller. We are delighted on Suzanne’s behalf and wish her all the best of luck with her novel.
TLC mentee, Rachel Connor, recently got picked up by Crocus Books and will be published autumn 2011. Rachel completed her novel, Sisterwives, while she was signed up for the Chapter and Verse Mentoring Program.
It is a story of intimacy, desire and spiritual quest. In an isolated religious community, Amarantha prepares for her Sealing to Tobias. Giving her away is Rebecca: Tobias’ first wife. All three are committed to polygamous marriage, which is at the core of their beliefs. None are prepared for the emotional turbulence it will cause. Then Tobias discovers a secret which threatens to split the community apart. And in the wake of the upheaval, the villagers are forced to face the truth about belief, about spirit and their relationships with each other.
Crocus Books, which is partly funded by Commonword in Manchester, publishes one to two books each year. We are delighted on Rachel’s behalf and wish her all the best of luck with her novel. Check out Rachel’s website to find out more about the new novel and Rachel’s other writing projects.
TLC’s mentoring programme just keeps on growing. On 9th October, we had 15 mentees attend the second of our biannual industry days. The day is an event exclusively arranged for mentees in TLC’s Chapter and Verse mentoring scheme to discuss the publishing industry with industry specialists and meet the other mentees. TLC was delighted to again offer an intimate panel of experts: Will Atkins (Macmillan New Writing), Arzu Tahsin (Orion) and Anna Webber (United Agents literary agency).
We thoroughly enjoyed getting to meet all the mentees and hearing about their experiences. At the end of the day we even had several mentees do a lively round of practice pitches for our panel of agents and editors. Lots of good energy and inspiration!
Write Words interviews Caroline McCarthy, Manager of The Literary Consultancy, about their new mentoring scheme for writers.
Tell us about the mentoring scheme
In short, the TLC mentoring scheme gives writers the chance to develop their work over the course of a year. It will include 6 one to one “tutorials” (conducted by email or post) by a carefully chosen mentor, who will be an experienced published author. At the end of the course writers will receive a manuscript assessment from a TLC and be invited to spend a day in London meeting with members of the publishing industry, such as literary agents and editors from leading houses. We are offering a discount of over £700 to the first 20 writers who enroll, so it’s a good time to join up! We are immensely grateful to The Arts Council England for supporting this scheme.
Why did you decide to launch a mentoring scheme for writers?
We see many writers who’ve had their manuscript assessed by us return with redrafts time after time, so offering ongoing tuition feels very much like a natural progression for TLC. Both myself, and TLC’s Director, Rebecca Swift, share a passion for working with new writers. We believe in nurturing the creative processes involved in writing, but also encourage people to think realistically about their work. The mentoring scheme – with its TLC read and an ‘industry day’ – fits in perfectly with our ethos: it’s great for people to develop their work but one needs a strong awareness of the realities of getting published.
Click here to read the entire interview and learn more about the mentoring scheme.