MA courses in Creative Writing do not always offer the amount of consultation hours that writers would ideally like, or feel they need.  Other mentoring schemes exist but may use inexperienced writers as mentors, or be conducted via email with no face-to-face meetings, or be aimed primarily at young writers. There is no age barrier to Gold Dust. Mentors include two professors in Creative Writing and mentors who have taught on MA courses at UEA, Birkbeck, Goldsmiths, University of Sheffield, Anglia Ruskin and Leicester de Montfort University. Many have been Royal Literary Fund Fellows.

Gold Dust is unique in offering new writers ten hours of individual consultation time with an established writer, usually spread out over a period of a year.  Meetings take place in either London, Oxford, Manchester or Cambridgeshire. Travel is at the new writer’s expense.  In between times the mentor writer reads work in progress, for a further total of ten hours. 

The fee is £2300, payable on acceptance to the scheme (please note: some mentors charge VAT at 17.5%).  The scheme is competitive, and work is accepted on the basis of the promise shown. Judges assess the quality of the work submitted and mentors are involved in the final decision. Limited places are available. Please ensure at the time of application that you have funds available to pay, should you be offered a place. If you are offered a place which you do not then take up, you will not be able to reapply. Gold Dust does not guarentee publication but mentors are happy to advise about this and may at their discretion suggest agents or avenues to explore.

We do our best to accomodate requests for particular mentors. Please state your preferred mentor when applying. All Gold Dust mentors are established authors with at least five published works to their credit (often many more than this). We only use as mentors the named writers on this site. If an applicant has a request for a particular writer who does not currently work for Gold Dust, we may be able to arrange that.

“if you are accepted and want to take part you must travel to one of the six places to meet your Mentor - London, Cambridgeshire, Manchester, Oxford, Bath or Edinburgh.  You must also cover your own travel costs.

Gold Dust also offers help with screenwriting, for film and TV and have two hightly experienced mentors in these fields.

Gold Dust Writing Scheme regrets but it does not at present offer mentoring to poets.

How do I apply?

Please send three chapters and brief synopsis of the work in progress (novel, stories or life-writing) and your name, address and email address to :
GOLD DUST
PO Box 247
Ely
CB7 9BX

or use the application form here.

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