CWA MENTORING PROGRAM

CWA's new Mentoring Program is free and for CWA members only. The purpose is to provide counseling guidelines and a structured process for members to find mentors. Its main goal is for individuals to get one-on-one advice on various professional writing matters.

All CWA members are encouraged to sign up to be mentors. Simply write your areas of expertise on the mentor application form and submit it to the Mentoring Chairperson. The list of available mentors will be posted and updated continually for any CWA member to consult when important needs arise. Mentors are not obligated to accept every request.

Suggested mentoring topics include: refining query letters, analyzing a contract, wording "difficult" letters such as those requesting payment or protesting copyright infringement, preparing text for web pages, designing and writing copy for a brochure, organizing a book proposal, writing media releases, etc.

• Program Guidelines
• Committee
• Application to be a Mentor
• Mentors Available

PROGRAM GUIDELINES

1. Mentoring will be informal, primarily by e-mail, with arrangements made between Mentor and Applicant.
2. Neither the CWA president nor the Mentoring Committee will take responsibility for matching Applicants with Mentors, nor will they monitor the actual mentorship. CWA will also not be responsible or liable for any business conducted by the Mentor and Applicant.
3. This program is open only to CWA members in good standing.
4. Mentors should be willing to provide a full report of the mentorship, on request, to the Mentoring Committee.
5. Applicants should provide an evaluation of the mentorship within a month of its conclusion. This evaluation is to be emailed to the Committee Chair.
6. Mentors will be allowed to take on more than one Applicant at a time, but will communicate with each Applicant separately.
7. Potential mentors will announce their willingness and availability to the Mentoring Chair, who will forward descriptions of qualified mentors to the webmistress so they can be posted on the CWA website. Mentors no longer available should advise both the Mentoring Committee Chair and the webmistress of this so their listings can be removed.
8. Mentorships will be for one month at a time, subject to extension by mutual agreement. Mentors only commit for one month, and may decline an extension in order to allow other applicants to take advantage of the program.
9. Mentors will not be paid. They may, however, enter into a separate relationship with an applicant to provide more hands-on guidance and/or editing. But this relationship will not be part of the CWA Mentorship Program, and neither CWA Council or the Mentoring Committee will be involved in any negotiations concerning this, or disputes arising from it. The Committee advises applicants to engage in a non-paying CWA mentorship before hiring a paid mentor, so that the applicant knows what to expect and will not be disappointed with the subsequent results.
10. A CWA member could serve as both a Mentor in one area of expertise and an Applicant in another.
11. The Applicant will retain full copyright and all other rights over any ideas and/or written work submitted to the Mentor; nothing from the Applicant may be used by the Mentor, or shared with an outside party (within or outside of CWA) without the express permission of the Applicant.
12. The Applicant should not expect the Mentor to do any rewriting or substantive editing or to find markets for the Applicant's work;
13. Mentors may consult the Mentoring Committee or its chairperson at any point, either with questions, suggestions about how the program might be modified (if they found it didn't work as well as they had anticipated) as well as comments afterwards about how the mentorship went. Program ideas from mentors and applicants are welcome.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Committee Chairperson
Barbara Florio Graham
Email: mentoring@catwriters.org
www.SimonTeakettle.com
Simon Teakettle Ink
200 Charles Street, Gatineau, Quebec J8P 3X4 Canada

Committee members:
Clea Simon:
Email: cleas@earthlink.net

MENTORS AVAILABLE

Need a mentor? Any CWA member can apply for mentoring assistance on any professional writing topic, simply by choosing from our list of mentors and contacting potential advisors directly.

• Ballner, Maryjean
  Email: maryjean@dogandcatmassage.com
  Web site: www.dogandcatmassage.com
  Area of Expertise: Publicity, Self-promotion, Dog and Cat Massage, Animal Shelter - Socializing Cats, Scared Cats

• Bonham, Maggie
  Email: skywarrior3@aol.com
  Web site: www.shadowhelm.net
  Area of Expertise: Author of 12 books and tons of articles, I can offer encouragement and general mentoring.

• Church, Christine
  Email: literate-feline@snet.net
  Web site: www.christinechurch.net
  Area of Expertise: Style and Voice (Fiction and Nonfiction); Building fictional worlds; Building fictional characters

• Commings, Karen
  Email: commings@paonline.com
  Web site: www.paonline.com/commings
  Area of Expertise: Magazine article or column writing; organizational skills; arranging life to make writing and meeting deadlines possible

• Davis, Christine
  Email: davis@lightheartedpress.com
  Web site: www.lightheartedpress.com
  Area of Expertise: Producing hardcover, 4 color giftbooks, printing overseas, building screened outdoor kitty playgrounds! Lighthearted Press prints 4-color gift books, all hardcovered with dustjackets. If anyone has questions about printing off shore (we print in Hong Kong), printing costs, working with customs, 4-color direct-to-plate concerns, etc. I'd be delighted to share our experiences.

• Graham, Barbara Florio
  Email: simon@storm.ca
  Web site: www.SimonTeakettle.com
  Area of Expertise: Self-publishing, copyright issues, negotiating contracts with magazines
  Note: not available until fall 2004

• Harris, Dena
  Email: ddharris@triad.rr.com
  Web site: www.denaharris.com
  Area of Expertise: Public Speaking coaching, speech writing.

• Reynes, Andrea
  Email: animalrey@netway.com
  Area of Expertise: I can offer assistance to beginning or intermediate writers about: fine tuning the final draft-what to look for; organizing the research process; writing an interesting how-to article.

• Shaw, Fran Pennock
  Email: franshaw1@juno.com
  Area of Expertise: How to write a magazine query letter, how to write a press release, how to conduct a focused interview, how to organize your ideas into saleable topics.

• Shojai, Amy D
  Email: amy@shojai.com
  Web site: www.shojai.com
  Area of Expertise: preparing nonfiction book queries and proposals, finding research resources, networking, preparing for media (radio, tv, in person) interviews, etc.

• Stowe, Betsy
  Email: calico2@zoominternet.net
  Area of Expertise: Poetry