young and emerging speculative fiction mentorship
Mentorship Applications are now closed.
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Fantastic Queensland is offering a professional mentorship for a young and emerging speculative fiction writer in 2005-06.
Numerous organisations offer mentorships for young and emerging writers. The Fantastic Queensland mentorship is designed specifically for writers of speculative fiction. Many existing mentorship programs don’t provide speculative fictions writers with access to potential mentors who write in the field.
The successful applicant for this mentorship will work closely with an experienced genre mentor for 20 hours over up to six months. The successful applicant will also receive free membership to the 2006 National Science Fiction convention – Conjure, and be invited to read and participate on a panel at the convention.
To be eligible to apply, you must:
• be aged 18 to 30 inclusive (turning 31 no earlier than May 1, 2006)
• have no more than two books published (or you can be unpublished)
• have no more than five short stories published in professional markets (ie markets paying five cents a word or more)
• have a substantial work of speculative fiction in progress completed to at least first draft stage
• be a Queensland resident
If you’d like to apply, please download the full application details and the application form.
Applications close at midnight, Friday October 07, 2005.
Queries and applications to mentorship@fantasticqueensland.com
This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Your potential mentors
Rowena Cory Lindquist (Visit her site)
Writing as ‘Cory Daniells’, Rowena Cory Lindquist is published internationally in long and short fiction. Her fantasy trilogy The Last T’En was published in Australia, the US and Germany. She has written more than 25 children’s books published in Australia, France and Korea. She has published numerous short stories including work in the award-winning anthology Dreaming Down Under and Aurealis magazine. She is currently convenor of the EnVision Manuscript Development Workshop. In 2001 she established “ROR: wRiters on the Rise” an annual residential workshop for professional writers.
Rowena has previously worked as a mentor with the Queensland Writers Centre. She has run workshops for schools, the QWC’s Young Adult Master Classes, Romance Writers of Australia, libraries, and, state and national writing conferences. In 2001, 2002 and 2003 she was convenor of the Aurealis Awards, as well as being a panel chair and judge.
Geoffrey Maloney (Visit his site)
Geoffrey Maloney’s short stories have appeared regularly in Australia’s leading speculative fiction magazines since the early 1990s. He has had over fifty short stories published and his work has been nominated for four Aurealis Awards and regularly appears on the Year’s Best honourable mention lists in the United States. In 2000 he won the Aurealis Award for best fantasy story for ‘The World According to Kipling’. His first collection, Tales from the Crypto-System was published by Prime Books in the United States in 2003. In 2001 he edited Nor of Human… the first anthology of speculative fiction from Canberra authors. As associate editor, Geoffrey is currently working on a new anthology – The Devil in Brisbane – with the internationally acclaimed Serbian author, Zoran Zivkovic.
Previously Geoffrey has undertaken a number of activities to help young and emerging writers. He provided support and editorial advice on K J Bishop’s novel The Etched City which was nominated for a 2003 World Fantasy Award. He was able to provide early advice on structural issues and put Ms Bishop in contact with overseas publishers. He currently acts as a mentor to several developing Australian writers, providing structured feedback on their stories and assisting with line editing to ready their stories for submission. He is assisting one author to prepare a collection of stories for overseas publication.
Marianne de Pierres (Visit her site)
Marianne de Pierres is published in the UK, US and Australia. Her first novel, Nylon Angel, was published by Orbit Books (UK) in January 2004, followed by sequels, Code Noir and Crash Deluxe. Her novels have been translated into German, Thai and Hebrew. She has published over a dozen short stories in Australian and international markets and has been nominated for an Aurealis Award for best short fiction. She has mentored emerging novelists at the EnVision Manuscript Development Workshop in 2003 and 2004 and has served as a peer judge for the Aurealis Awards (national literary achievement awards for speculative fiction).
Marianne has also critiqued manuscripts by professional peers at ROR: wRiters on the Rise in 2001 and 2003. She has been a guest of the Brisbane Writers Festival, Tasmanian Writers Festival, the National Speculative Fiction conference and the Summer of Speculative Fiction. In December 2004 she sold her fourth novel, the first in a four-book series, to Orbit Books (UK).
