**Applications are Required**

Click HERE to Apply by February 25th, 2024. Early applications are encouraged. Payment plans are available.

The program Will Start on March 4th, 2024

IMPORTANT: Please do not pay for the mentorship until you receive an acceptance notification via email.

Any questions about this mentorship? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us.

Application Process: Complete Application Questionnaire and submit a ten-page writing sample using standard manuscript format to blake@writingworkshopsdallas.com. Please title the email “SAMPLE: 6 Month Novel Mentorship with Kelly Luce”.

The Ideal Applicant has the discipline to be an online student and the desire to complete a novel manuscript during the program. Applicants should have at least 15K words of a novel written (a messy draft is fine) and an outline of the story. The outline can be loose, and can and probably will change drastically over the six months; the exercise is important so that the applicant can picture the entire span of the story. The goal is to have a full novel draft at the end of the six months.

Whether you are still working on your idea or are well into writing it, this mentorship will meet you where you are, and motivate and inspire both beginning and advanced novelists. Writers accepted into the program will already have a basic knowledge of the tools and craft of writing fiction and are looking for an intensive experience without the cost of a graduate program. Interested applicants will understand that growth in craft requires critique, consistent work, and an eagerness to grow. Accepted applicants will agree to be punctual in submission of work. This is in fairness to Kelly, the other students in the course, and themselves.

How It Works:

Upon acceptance into the mentorship program, you will schedule an initial one-on-one call with Kelly to discuss your novel and your goals, allowing Kelly to get a sense of your previous experience and preferences around feedback. Together, you’ll create a work plan for the next six months. This is (with the possible exception of the initial and final consult) a text-based mentorship, ideal for people with unpredictable schedules.

Revision is writing. Revision will be a key part of the mentorship. Writers will get personalized deadlines to turn in new work AND revised work. Each of the four packets due over the course of the mentorship (with the exception of the first) will contain both new and revised work. The bulk of the mentorship will consist of Kelly giving extensive feedback and advice within the manuscript itself, as well as via follow-up emails that will develop organically. Critique will include notes on character, plot, style, dialogue, POV, as well as general feedback on writing tics and areas of natural strengths and weakness. Kelly will recommend craft books or articles that she thinks will benefit the writer.

The number of pages due for each packet will depend on the writer and their project, and will be worked out in the initial conversation. With each packet submission, you will also send an informal letter detailing the craft topics you’re exploring, notes on books you will have read during that month (whether directly related to the project or not), and your areas of concern and victory that month. Sharing your own sense of victory is as important as sharing the areas of challenge.

• One-on-one initial consult via phone, email, or GChat

• Personalized calendar for achieving your project goals

• Accountability

• Access to mentor via email for six months

• Five critiques of new pages, including line edits and bigger-picture notes and questions (done in Microsoft Word using Track Changes)

• Personalized readings and assignments based on your specific development needs

Mentor’s Input:

• Emails that discuss individual monthly goals and progress

• In-line comments and critique on submitted manuscript pages

• Based on each month’s accomplishments, mentor will suggest new readings or exercises to aid in growth

• Available to answer questions and provide encouragement via email

Mentee’s Responsibilities:

• Send pages to mentor based on individual project goals negotiated with mentor

• Process-reflection letter discussing achievements and areas of growth for the month

• Read articles or craft books mentor may assign to aid growth in specific areas

• Participate in email conversation with mentor to review individual progress and areas of growth

Full Tuition for the 6-month program is $4495. Accepted writers must commit to the full six months and meet all assigned deadlines. You can pay the tuition in full or opt for equal monthly payments by selecting Shop Pay Installments or Affirm at checkout. If you decide to create a monthly payment plan using Shop Pay or Affirm, you can do so once you add "Full Tuition" to your cart, enter your contact information, and are on the payment page.

General Dates for 6-Month Novel Mentorship with Kelly Luce:

• Acceptance decisions made on a rolling basis. Early applications are encouraged starting
  

• The application deadline is February 25th, 2024
  

• 3/4 - 9/8 Initial consults via phone/Gchat/email scheduled

• 3/11 Packet #1 Due

• 3/25 Latest you’ll receive feedback from Kelly on Packet #1

• 4/15 Packet #2 Due

• 4/29 Latest you’ll receive feedback from Kelly on Packet #2

• 5/20 Packet #3 Due

• 6/3 Latest you’ll receive feedback from Kelly on Packet #3

• 6/24 Packet #4 due

• 7/8 Latest you’ll receive feedback from Kelly on Packet #4

• 7/29 Packet #5 Due

• 8/12 Latest you’ll receive feedback from Kelly on Packet #5

• 8/19-2/23 Individual wrap-up consults via phone/Gchat/email with Kelly

• Tuition is $4495

• Kelly will accept 4 writers into this one-on-one program.
  

• NOTE: Shifting some dates around may be necessary but any changes will be communicated well in advance, if possible.

Contact us HERE if you have any questions about this mentorship program.

Mentor Kelly Luce is the author of Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail (A Strange Object), winner of Foreword Review’s Editor’s Choice Prize for Fiction, and the novel Pull Me Under (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), a Book of the Month Club selection and one of Elle’s Best Books of 2016. She grew up in Brookfield, Illinois. After graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in cognitive science, she moved to Japan, where she lived and worked for three years. Her work has been recognized by fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Tennessee Arts Commission, Sewanee Writers' Conference, Ucross Foundation, Art Omi, Ragdale Foundation, the Kerouac Project, and Jentel Arts, and has appeared in New York Magazine, Chicago Tribune, The Sun, Salon, O, the Oprah Magazine, The Southern Review, and other publications; her digital short story "Between the Lines" went viral in 2022. She received an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin, where she was editor-in-chief of Bat City Review and editorial assistant for the O. Henry Prize Anthology. She is the editor of the Electric Literature’s Commuter and was a 2016-17 fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In 2023, she was awarded the Wachtmeister Prize from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.