Mentoring from the Co-Founders of Weatherglass
Writing is hard. It provides not just a creative challenge but a psychological challenge too: you often feel alone, you may also have to deal with rejection, writer's block, a sense that it's all pointless anyway. You also have to deal with your own thoughts - which aren't always helpful to the job in hand. What our mentoring programme will provide is a forum for writers to discuss any and all issues they have with 'the writing life': how to develop a healthy relationship with your own creativity, how to manage expectations, how to understand what you want from your work. More practical things too: how to develop a writing schedule, how to unblock yourself, and - crucially - how to identify what you want to write about and why.
Damian and Neil are experienced writers who between them have faced most of the problems a writing life has to offer in both emotional and technical terms. Their mentoring service aims to support you in all aspects of the writing of literary fiction, from starting a novel to fixing specific problems.
At present these sessions are only available online, but face-to-face meeting where possible will be available in the near future. Mentoring sessions cost £55* per hour with a 1p-per-word reading fee for submitted text, with the first 1000 words free per 1 hour booked. If you would like an introductory 15 minute session to explain your needs and to see whether we are a good fit, this will be charged at £20 and deducted from the first session, should you wish to continue.
*cost in other currencies will be charged at the exchange rate of the day.
Neil Griffiths is author of three novels: Betrayal in Naples (Penguin), winner of the Writers’ Club First Novel Prize, Saving Caravaggio (Penguin), shortlisted for the Costa Best Novel 2007, and the critically acclaimed As a God Might Be (Dodo Ink). He is the founder of the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses, and co-founder of Weatherglass Books.
Damian Lanigan was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford. He worked for some of London's top advertising agencies before moving to New York and starting to write. He is the author of two novels including Stretch, 29, five plays including Dissonance and Testament, sold his own TV show Sharing to Jimmy Fallon / NBC, won the New York TV Festival with his pilot Hamsters and has had series on BBC radio and television. He has also done some acting, playing, amongst other roles, a corrupt CEO, a failed documentarian, Charles Cornwallis and God. He is the co-founder of Weatherglass Books.