Mentoring

NB: All mentoring slots are FULL for 2024. If you wish to make enquiries for 2025, please use the website’s contact form.

Em Strang, 2022

Genuinely revelatory. You are an exceptional mentor.

Mentee, 2020

I tailor all my mentorships to suit the individual, working intuitively and listening for what a mentee might need. Sometimes prospective mentees say to me, “I’m not a writer and I don’t want to publish a book”, when in fact they are a writer – often a gifted one at that – and they certainly do want to publish a book – as long as we can work together to silence the inner critic first.

I base my work loosely around three models of mentorship, always cross-pollinating models to work with each unique person. The skills and experience I’ve gathered over the last three decades of writing, editing and publishing, together with my own creative explorations in movement, visual art, psychotherapy, voicework and spiritual practice, allow me to work in multiple directions and across artforms.

The three models are:

  • Creative Writing (working with writers of all stripes over a three month period)
  • Creative Practice (one month dive into creative practice across artforms and modalities, depending on the tastes and needs of the mentee)
  • Creative Intensive (one to two days in person, exploring a specific question relating to a work-in-progress, an urge to make or a stuckness)

CREATIVE WRITING MENTORING

At the start of the mentorship, I was writing how I thought a poet should write; by the end, I was writing how I should write. A big difference! I can’t thank Em enough for her very thorough critique.

Poet, 2020

I offer a three-month mentoring scheme for poets & writers, comprising of three meetings (virtually or face-to-face) – one at the beginning of the mentorship, one in the middle and one at the end – and detailed, in-line feedback on up to a dozen poems (depending on length) or up to 10K words of prose.

Please note that this is a baseline for submissions, and may vary depending on the stage the writer is at and what kind of feedback they’re after: obviously, new work requires more time than polished pieces. For example, writers have previously submitted a complete book of fiction for structural feedback, or 10K words of prose for detailed line editing. In both cases, the mentorship also included 3 hours of discussion, plus email or WhatsApp support.

The mentee submits an initial excerpt of work (up to 2.5K prose/2 poems) before the first zoom, if they wish to.

The first zoom is about diving into the needs of the writer and what he/she wants to get out of the mentorship. Typical questions are:

What are you looking to achieve/understand/move towards? 

How do you see my role in this? 

What wants to be expressed through you in this book/project?

Who and what is the book/project for?  

Who is your audience?

POETRY & PROSE FEEDBACK will focus, amongst other things, on the following:

  • Structure & Form
  • Tone
  • Rhythm & Rhyme
  • Voice (intention)
  • Private/Personal/Universal
  • Line Breaks
  • Punctuation
  • Imagery
  • Titles
  • Narrative arc
  • Coherence/Inevitablity/Plausibility
  • Tense
  • Point of view
  • Language

The mentorship spans over a three-month period to enable mentor and mentee to properly dig into the work, ask questions, troubleshoot, and to allow the poems/prose room to breathe before a final meeting. WhatsApp or email are open to the mentee throughout the period, for practical support, a listening ear and accountability (if the mentee wants this).

This mentorship is for people who are already working on a writing project in either prose or poetry. It’s also for people who need help beginning and shaping; for those who want feedback and structural suggestions; and for those who have finished a first draft and would like inline commentary and overview feedback. 

I offer a free, introductory zoom (up to half an hour) to see if we are a good fit for one another.

If you’re interested, please use my contact form to get in touch.

CREATIVE PRACTICE MENTORING

It does not seem an obvious choice for an entrepreneur to choose a poet as a mentor, but for me, my time with Em was the most transformative, perspective-shifting, creativity-tapping experience of my personal and professional life. With Em’s extraordinary care and guidance, I was able to access my creative process in a way that moved me past old patterning and conditioned thinking and allowed me to bring fresh insights and ideas to my business, in a way that other coaching and mentoring had not delivered. The times we live in require the return of the polymath, and working with Em opened up creative fields for me that would have been unavailable otherwise.

Lawyer & CEO, 2020

I offer a one-month online mentoring process, including three meetings – one at the beginning, one in the middle and one at the end of the mentorship.

This mentorship is for people who have forgotten they’re born to be creative; for those who doubt their ability to be creative; for those who want to boost their creativity in any field – be it artistic output, career or parenting; and for people who are already making work but are stuck, seeking support and feedback, needing accountability or simply a sense of companionship on the journey to making something. 

To get the best out of the mentorship, it’s ideal if the mentee is able to commit to a minimum of half an hour’s daily creative practice, which may include painting, dancing, writing, singing, crafting, or a combination of some or all of these. 

We will work with a question or an obstacle that the mentee brings, and use this as a springboard for reflection and for devising tools to help liberate the authentic self.

This is not a standard mentoring programme. Instead, it’s an invitation to play, to gently let go of control in a safe environment (your own home) and to consider the seeming paradox that ‘vulnerability is the cornerstone of confidence’ (Brené Brown).

As mentor, I take a gentle, invitational approach and make sure that the mentee is consulted and in agreement at every step of the process. This is very much a mutual learning process, where I listen and invite you to explore creative practice, and you articulate your needs and responses.

I have worked with artists and makers of all stripes, and with lawyers, social workers and scientists.

Please contact me for further details. I offer a free, introductory zoom (up to half an hour) to see if we are a good fit for one another.

Thank you for forging a path I could follow and for being trustworthy.

Mentee 2020

CREATIVE INTENSIVE

I offer a 1- or 2- day creative intensive, working one to one with you on a creative project or enquiry. It doesn’t have to be a writing project: I’ve worked with dancers, academics, visual artists, etc. The aim of the intensive is to set off in search of greater freedom: how can your creative practice, your life and your self find more paths to liberation?

As with all my work, I take an holistic approach in working with you and your material, and I tailor the intensive entirely to the mentee’s needs, questions and requests. We work from 10am to 4pm and I charge a flat rate of £300 per day.

Please get in touch if you have any questions or would like to book a slot.

I find myself at a loss for words. Reason being, the two days didn’t really end. Not in the way linear time might suggest they would. The two days we spent together were life-changing, Em. Often, I think this term has come to take on a very dramatic, sudden shift in a human’s life. So I’ll clarify that the two days weren’t life-changing in this sense. Rather, the workshop has acted as a means of nourishment and sustenance that will keep feeding my creative life for years to come. The workshop was a moment that extended back through the past & into the future and so anything I say now, can only be representative of what I have processed thus far. For me, this experience symbolises the life of the Spring; a gift that keeps giving. 

The life & experience exchanged in those two days still moves through me. I know in months to come, those learnings will have deepened and shapeshifted and become something else, perhaps something more easily articulated. So, I want to resist the urgency I feel to try and contain the organism; the wisdom of your years, into something so reductive as a ‘this is what I have taken away’. Instead, I’ll settle with Blake: “To see a World in a grain of sand, and a Heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.” Thank you. 

Mentee, 2022

EDITING

I also offer an editing service in both prose and poetry. Unlike my role as mentor, as editor I place more emphasis on the text than on the writer. I work in consultation with the writer, of course, but the focus of the editing process is the manuscript:

  • Does the text cohere?
  • How is it structured? Why?
  • Are the transitions smooth, and do they contribute to the overall meaning and depth of the work?
  • If punctuation is one of the most beautiful tools a writer can possess, how beautiful is your text?
  • What is superfluous?
  • How happy are you in the Land of Syntax & Grammar? Could you be happier?

For more information, please contact me.

My hourly rate for editing is £55.