testimonials

"An intensely rewarding experience which gave me an insight into how to get under the skin of my characters" 
Katharine Morton, Cambridge

‘I have valued the opportunity of this mentorship immensely and found it an extremely useful process.  Sally’s and my goal for our work together was to take what were essentially poetic vignettes rather than true short stories, and turn them into stories.  The work was challenging but also enjoyable, although sometimes less so when I was at home alone wrestling with an old habit!  Sally has a very warm manner and I always found her criticism constructive and illuminating.  I very much enjoyed working with her and am sorry the mentorship has now come to an end.

Sally and I focused intensively on the mechanics of short story writing, taking my work back to the basics to look at what I do well in my writing and the areas that needed strengthening.  Our aim was not to change my writing ‘voice’ but to look at specific elements of my work and improve their effectiveness.  We worked on plot, characterisation and including more dialogue.  We also focused on structuring my stories and making them less meandering and vague, while constantly looking in detail at the language I was using.

I now have a much greater understanding of how a short story works and have applied this knowledge to existing stories as well as writing new pieces.  Sally has also helped me to identify the recurrent themes in my work, which I am now able to build on to pull my stories together into a cohesive body of work.  From having written a selection of unfinished and unsatisfactory pieces, I now have a small collection of finished stories that I feel confident about sending to competitions and hopefully publishing.’
Anne Prouse, London

‘I think we both found the whole project stimulating and worthwhile, and it was certainly one of the most enjoyable ‘jobs’ I’ve undertaken.’
Jim C Wilson, Mentor and RLF Fellow.

‘I am indebted to my Mentor, Jill Dawson. Our sessions have provided me with a real sense of purpose, and the feedback I have received at each one has been invaluable: constructive, focused and tactful. My Mentor has truly inspired me, and given me the confidence to pursue writing as a career.’ 
Stephanie Cross, London

Having a professional spend time looking at my manuscript and being able to offer advice on all aspects of writing was invaluable - I would highly recommend it to everyone with a manuscript that is not quite there yet - a second opinion (that isn't your best friend or your mother) is incredibly useful - and with this scheme you can always argue your case.’

Victoria Patch, Dartington, mentored by Kathryn Heyman.

The mentoring scheme’s frequent (and much needed) deadlines provided me with stability and focus, as I juggled lecturing, research trips, funding applications, administration work and housing concerns with the main business of writing itself. I looked to both Sally Cline (my mentor) and Jill Dawson (my tutor at UEA who recommended the scheme) as examples of established writers who had managed to balance such issues.  

When Sally Cline and I drew up our contract during the first mentoring session, we agreed to redraft the first section of my three-part novel, The Gossamer Year, to a publishable standard. We also aimed to rework the climactic scenes at the beginning of part three. Each session involved two elements: a critique of a twenty page novel extract, submitted chronologically; and a chance to reflect on a previous submission, redrafted in light of the last mentor meeting. 

Certainly, the first part of my novel has now reached a much higher standard. Sally was both an exacting and supportive influence throughout this rigorous process of reworking. We will redraft the climactic scenes during the last two hours of mentoring. The mentoring has further developed my own critical faculties. I now feel more confident about working alone to improve and complete the rest of my novel. Sally’s advice was particularly useful in encouraging me to concentrate not only on each individual line, but to look more closely at plot, pace, character and overarching structure.

Sally’s generosity, with both her time and experience, provided me with insights into commercial as well as artistic considerations. I now feel better equipped to create and maintain a compelling narrative – although this still remains one of my greatest challenges. She also provided invaluable and patient advice about the synopsis of my novel, helping me to create, eventually, a document that makes The Gossamer Year sound both commercially viable and literary. The mentoring process has ended with me having approached literary agents. Claire Alexander of Gillon Aitken and Kate Jones of ICM have expressed interest and have asked to read the full manuscript once it is completed – a task I aim to achieve by February. 
Emma Sweeney

I found this mentorship invaluable. When I first met Kathryn last May, I had been working on my novel on and off for three years, struggling to make the transition from short stories. I was wallowing around in almost 70,000 words which were not really going anywhere and I’d given myself one last year to sink or swim. Kathryn and I made a plan, set deadlines to keep up the impetus and – with wonderful brio and humour – she encouraged me to be brave, to put aside sentence by sentence fiddling until I had tackled the larger structure of my novel. The focus on plot and structure was just what I needed and, with her consistent support and guidance over the months, I grew confident enough to cut away great chunks and rearrange others, and to keep pushing on. Kathryn is a stimulating and inspirational teacher. At each stage, with clear thinking, infectious energy and enthusiasm, she provided detailed verbal and written constructive criticism, mixed with praise, and she was particularly skilful at prompting me to ask myself questions, about each character and their role in the narrative, about tension and the ordering of scenes. It was exactly what I needed. Kathryn’s guidance helped me to ‘discover’ what my novel was actually about. Well within my target year, the novel was out there in the real world, with an agent. 
Jane, mentored by Kathryn Heyman.

I was lucky enough to be mentored by Sally Cline during the winter of 06/07 and found the process transformative, challenging and utterly essential.  I took a first novel to her which had become bogged in bad habits and ignorance of good technique and with her guidance and firm resistance to all things clichéd I produced a manuscript which has won me a literary agent.  Not only am I now further along the path to being published, I have learnt how to write and how not to write. The insight Sally brought to my work was impossible for me to see alone.  I doubt such strides could have been achieved without her.  She was a joy to work with; fierce, kind and unfailingly positive.  I always left our tutorials feeling buoyed up by her ability to combine honesty with encouragement. She refused to let standards drop.  As a result I have discovered it is always possible to find the right word and impossible to hide a wrong one. I would encourage all first time novelists to work with a mentor.  The worst that can happen is that you will have to rewrite your novel.  The best that can happen is that you will have to rewrite your novel.
Ella Anstruther, mentored by Sally Cline

Jill Dawson has enabled so many new writers, through her work with the Royal Literary Fund and Arts Council England, to write better, and Gold Dust is another brilliant opportunity.  I have had the privilege of working with both Sally Cline and Kate Pullinger.  Not only have they looked after my words but they have looked after me, and these periods of my writing life I shall always be grateful for.'
Miranda Landgraf

Mentoring was just I needed at the time. I was embarking on a new  career (screenwriting) and my mentor pushed me fast through the initial stages of learning how to write - I was truly a beginner. (My sample work must have shown visual promise!) It's a fantastic start to a career in which training is expensive and income elusive, and I was, and am, grateful to have been chosen.  All the best and thank you again for choosing me to gain that first push into a career that, with all its inconveniences, is an ongoing delight.
Sheila Malham, mentored by Ade Solanke

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