Great! Are you referring to the anthology to come out after mentorship stories are completed? Or are you talking about the mentorship program?

Elanhil just asked if he could ask Scott Appleton to be a mentor. I said yes though I haven't read any of his stuff, but I believe Rob Treskillard had high praise for him. If you know of an author you'd like to ask, let me know, and we'll go from there. I doubt I'll say no, but I'd like to know before you ask.

Both, if that's possible, Tim? Or am I getting confused.

Well, I think I'm going to go out on a limb and do this....and try to keep writing my own book at the same time.

For the submissions for the contest, do they have to be new stories, or can they have been used for something else before? I gave my one and only short story to Airianna to use on the blog, but it hasn't been posted yet, and it won't be on the schedule until at least October.

Would I be able to help read the submissions for the contest as well, as long as I didn't vote for my own?

Does the entry have to be fiction? I wrote a creative non-fiction ... thing. It's like a drabble or a free form essence map or a poem, but it's about 450 words.

I'll send one in; I wrote a Sci Fi one not too long ago, it needs some work but it's probably about 1k words, is that long enough?

It involves analyzing style, writing skill, genres, and publication credits (if any). Or, I think it does.


I saw mentioning style in the bio, how will that work?

* To apply, attach your best 7500 word or less short story to an email to [email protected]. In the body of the email, write a short bio of your writing achievements, style and goals for the next year or so. (this will help with placement)

I have a question. Do the stories submitted for the contest have to be a specific genre?

I like to say that I found my niche a while back, but I'm too big to fit in it. My style? Whatever I want to do, that I do.

So, do I need to be doing anything yet?

I forgot about this & lost the thread.

If you're still thinking about inviting professional authors, I'd go for Ted Dekker, actually. <grin>

But I think most/all professional authors are long shots and you're going to have to ask a lot of authors to get a few yes's.

I would too, but Dekker's probably quite busy. We should certainly ask him if he'll give us an endorsement when we have an anthology, though.

Haha, yeah. That's true. Mostly. I can think of worse answers but not that you'd get from Ted Dekker.

I still can't believe that I'm going to meet Ted Dekker AND Bryan Davis within three days of each other RIGHT HERE in my town...

Ok guys, let's reel this back in. About asking people to endorse the anthology, let's not get ahead of ourselves. That's at least a year from now. Dekker and Lee are super busy this year writing all three Book of Mortals books, so let's not even bother making them tell us no. If we get mentors outside of HW, they aren't going to be authors working on major publishing contracts.

If we get mentors outside of HW, they aren't going to be authors working on major publishing contracts.

Mr. Appleton,

I am Caleb Joyce; you might recognize my name from an interview I conducted with you awhile back for intothebook.net. I would like you to know that our readers all enjoyed the interview, and we got much positive feedback to your answers. Thank you for your cooperation on that project.

Today I'd like to come before you with another request. I am also a 'Marcher Lord', or a leader of the Fantasy Forum of holyworlds.org. Holy Worlds is trying to organize a Mentor-ship program to help young authors grow and improve their writing.

We are basing our program off of Port Yonder Press's program, http://portyonderpress.com/TEAMPYP.aspx . We will divide one year, 2012, into four parts. Three months each for writing stories from 1,000 words, 2,500 words, 5,000 words and 7,500 words. At the end of the first month, the people who you are mentoring would turn their stories in to you. The second month the mentored would of adapt the work per your critiques and share it with their team members before turning in again to you at the end of the month. Same thing for the third month, with final submissions going to the leader of the project (and maybe other people depending on how large a group we have.)

A major difference between this and the PYP groups is that each quarter for PYP groups they reasearch GENERAL markets to submit to. The market for this HW Mentorship Program is more akin to Splashdown Books, which is open about their love for Christ, but varies in terms of how much Christianity is included in their works. The other thing is that there are not many markets out there for Speculative Christian Fiction, so we may end up keeping the accepted stories each quarter and then publishing them at the end of the year in an anthology, or publishing the best of each quarter.

(please note that these details have not been set in stone yet, and your role as a mentor might be slightly different than outlined here)

We need Mentors, and we would be honoured to have you join the program as a Mentor. If you are interested please contact me no later than November 1st, so we can know if we can plan on having you as a mentor.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email, and God bless,
Caleb Joyce

Hi Caleb,

This does sound like a fun opportunity. However, before committing to it I would need a few more details. I maintain a very busy schedule between book signings, school appearances, and writing. How many young authors would I be mentoring? Reading several 1,000-word stories would not be difficult, but once it gets to 7,500-words that is a sizeable chunk of writing. Would I be line-editing their work in Word, or simply a critique/evaluation of each story with suggestions for improvement? Would I be working with one young author at a time, or several?
If you can clear these things up for me I can more thoroughly consider your request.

God bless!

At the end of each month, have all team members submit their story to their mentor for suggestions/thoughts. In between, group members will submit to each other for feedback/critiques.