Private Poetry Mentoring
Work 1-on-1 with a master poetry mentor
Have you…
Assembled a group of poems that you’d like to organize and polish into a book?
Selected some poems you’d like a second set of eyes on before submitting them to a contest, residency, grant, or MFA application?
Arrived at a point in your artistic development where you want to work closely with someone who can come to know your strengths and weaknesses and hold you accountable to them?
You’ve arrived at the right place. We’ve vetted a consortium of master poetry mentors who want to help you succeed.
Read our mentor’s teaching statements to discover
their unique sensibilities, influences, and areas of interest.
Testimonials
“Signing up for private mentoring with Josh has been extremely important to my development as a poet. He is patient and painstaking, loves detail and is happy to polish and stretch a poem until you are completely satisfied with it. And then some more, if he feels you should be challenged to go even further.”
“Lissa was nothing short of amazing - perceptive, empathetic, and wise. I was (and still am) astounded and thrilled that she was able to take the 100+ poems I sent her and work with me to wrestle them into a book. She took care to let me keep my own voice but was never hesitant to (kindly) note what should and should not be included. She also went far beyond what I expected and encouraged small and large changes; every piece in the book is better than it was in its original form. I cannot recommend her highly enough - for me, she was the mentor/guide/editor that I hope all poets will be able to experience.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed the mentoring process with Tina Barry. She was thorough, quick to respond and read the manuscript thoroughly for sound, movement and fit. I trust her eye and ear completely for in every case where a suggestion was made, it was from a carefully considered viewpoint. I highly recommend her! She is a treasure and a gift.”
“I am honored and delighted to have worked with Kim Noriega, whom, as mentor and coach, helped shape an unruly batch of poems into a coherent manuscript of what I hope will become my second published poetry collection. She’s smart, direct, funny, and empathetic. She knows poetry in a very broad sense and was able to understand my work with all its quirks and multiplicity of styles, while at the same time gently noting where things might have, shall we say, gone astray. If you’re on the prowl for a mentor, Kim is a terrific option.”
“I have loved working with Josh. He is very thorough in his critiques, providing specific and detailed suggestions. It is obvious that he has read each poem many times before offering insightful comments. He is supportive through multiple revisions, which I have found particularly helpful. He also has made suggestions for reading poems and poets. This has improved my understanding of contemporary poetry. Mentoring, especially with Josh, has been the right next step for me. ”
How Our Poetry Mentoring Works
You’ll share your poems with your mentor in Wet Ink, the only online platform designed exclusively for writing, where your mentor will provide generous line-by-line comments, holistic overviews, and weekly check-ins, either in Wet Ink, Zoom sessions, or over the phone.
If you’re working on a manuscript, mentors offer both large-scale suggestions—with an eye toward your manuscript's theme, tones, scenes, and characters—as well as line-by-line commentary on poems where there's need for it. You’ll also work together on organization, titles, and cohesion, and your mentor will provide suggestions for where to submit your manuscript when you’re done.
Pricing
Mentorships begin at the hourly rate of $75, which includes a critique of up to three pages of your poetry. From there, each mentor has established their own rate for chapbooks (up to 30 pages) and full-length manuscripts (up to 70 pages).
Duration
Chapbook engagements last 4-6 weeks.
Full-length manuscript engagements last 6-8 weeks.
