The Mentoring Scheme matches up to 10 emerging writers who live, work or study in the East Midlands with experienced, professional writing mentors for a year of free, dedicated craft and career guidance while they work towards publication of a specific writing project. The goal of the scheme is to support writers in reaching the next stage of their career-whether that is traditional publication of a novel, a spoken word performance debut or premiering a film script-through one-to-one mentorship from an established writer, exclusive writing masterclasses and peer feedback. Over one year, up to 10 chosen mentees will be awarded: 5 mentoring sessions with a professional writer, matched based on their needs; 3 peer network meetings with their mentoring cohort; 3 masterclasses, tailored to the interests of the group; and free attendance to The Writers' Conference 2027. This year, we're partnering with Out-Spoken Press, and as such, we're offering the following bonuses to successful poetry applicants: 4/10 places reserved for poets, access to Out-Spoken's online masterclasses, £100 poetry event bursary for each poet, an additional WEM masterclass dedicated to poetry and mentoring from award-winning poet Anthony Anaxagorou. We choose our mentees through an application process. If you are interested, you will need to enter an extract of your chosen writing project through our submission portal for the chance to be considered. We accept poetry collections, novels, short story collections, scripts and spoken word pieces-see below for exact submission guidelines. Writers must have 80% of their first draft completed to enter. If you do not have 80% of your first draft completed, you will not be considered. Every year, 3 of our 8 chosen mentees will be from a background currently underrepresented in the traditional publishing industry. Click here to find out more and apply: https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/form.aspx?id=rTRM6SB-6g2GM-10v7SzW-4j2398gJU