Writing Mentor

 

I began work in the field of teaching creative writing in 1983, when I joined Anne Cluysenaar and Brian Cox (the professor of literature at Sheffield University, not the actor or the scientist) in setting up the Verbal Arts Association, which tried to persuade schools, universities and colleges to teach creative writing courses.

In the last decade or so, I have acted as a mentor for a number of writers through the mentoring scheme run by Literature Wales (formerly Academi, and before that The Welsh Academy). I have worked with a number of novelists and autobiographers on their books, and several of these have found their way into print. The Literature Wales mentoring sessions consist of five meetings over a period of up to (and sometimes beyond) 18 months, before each of which I will have read a submitted manuscript and marked it up ready to discuss.

I am a firm believer in the teachability of some aspects of writing, whether prose or verse, and in the benefits of workshopping work in progress. Drafts, as a friend of mine once said, are allowed to be draughty, and it is the mentor’s job to block some of the draughts and to guide and encourage the processes of writing and revision.

I am happy to take on writers for mentoring, for a fee to be discussed, and hope to continue in this work through Literature Wales and other organisations.

Please contact me for details at simon.rees@dramaturg.co.uk or by phone on 07816 662350.