LOTTERY JACKPOT WINNERS often find themselves inundated with a multitude of new “friends” the minute their names are given out. The winners of this year’s New Writing Ventures awards, announced this week, will find themselves similarly richer in pocket and in friendship. The prize awards £3,000 to writers previously unpublished in the categories of fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry and grants each their very own mentor.

Established three years ago, the competition aims to discover and foster new writers of all ages and backgrounds. This includes those just embarking on a career and authors who have published works in the past but are now attempting to write in another genre. For example, last year’s winner in the category of creative nonfiction had spent 57 years as an actor; Bernard Kay, whose varied career included appearances on the original Doctor Who.

Kay, who started his career as a newspaper reporter, hadn’t written since he left journalism to take up acting nearly 60 years ago. “I realized that acting was a lot less hard work than writing,” he says of the career change. But, after hearing about the competition, Kay decided to dust off his pen and notepad. “I dug up a bit of my past,” he says “and it became the first chapter of my autobiography, Maybe a Bastard”. The book is now being optioned by several agents.

For any writer, winning a bit of cash is a good incentive to keep on scribbling. But Kay points out: “As an actor there is always someone kicking you in the bum, making you learn your lines et cetera. But as a writer, there is no one. It’s just you and that blank screen.”

Prize funds help, but guidance from someone who has “been there, done that” can take an author’s work to the next level. Rather than simply throw cash at talented individuals, New Writing Ventures aims to help them cultivate their work throughout the following year through the addition of a mentorship scheme.

“The idea is that the prize is in-depth guidance,” says Rebecca Swift of The Literary Consultancy (TLC) a manuscript consulting agency that offers editorial advice to authors. The winning writer selects an established author in their genre to become their mentor. “If they request Ian Rankin, it might not be possible, but we do our best to schmooze him on their behalf,” says Swift.

“We want to provide the most cutting-edge, in-depth trajectory for a writer to test out that what they’re doing is the best it can be,” says Swift. Kay says he profited greatly from being paired with William Fiennes, celebrated author of The Snow Geese: Fiennes “smacked my wrists when I needed it, and when he had something to say about my work, said it without offence.” This year, through an online scheme, the winning writers submit six 10,000-word pieces to their mentor. The work will be critiqued over several weeks and returned with tailored remarks and advice. Mentors and pupils can modify the relationship on their own terms but the structured internet-based correspondence has a specific function. According to Swift, the online relationship creates an intentional remove between the parties that aids the process instrumentally. “You can get to like each other too much,” she says, “and then the critical eye goes out the window.”

Kay, who is now finishing his autobiography and simultaneously working on a thriller, says he would never have started writing again had it not been for the prize offered by New Writing Ventures and the sounding board of his mentor.

Even the established writers who win this competition in a new field that they haven’t been previously published in find mentorship a welcome boon. Says Swift: “Everyone needs an inspirational ear.”

The winners

AZMAR DAR, 32

Category: Fiction

After studying English and Classics, Dar became a playwright. She lives in Hayes and has three children. The Secret Arts is her first novel.

“I really want to focus on fiction once I’ve finished my current play. The mentoring will be useful to make do the work.”

SUZANNE JOINSON, 33

Creative nonfiction

Born in Crewe, Cheshire, in 1974, Joinson works in the literature department of the British Council.

“Since winning I have already been approached by five agents! There are hardly any opportunities for new writers so this is extremely significant for me.”

JEMMA BORG, 36

Poetry

Since reading zoology at Oxford and gaining a doctorate in genetics, Borg has worked as a teacher and an environmental campaigner. Her poems have been published in a number of anthologies.

“Winning is a great boost to my confidence. You don’t give yourself the label of ‘writer’ until someone gives it to you.”

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