We are now in the eighth year of our partnership with The Writers’ Prize, through which talented First Story students benefit from working one-to-one with an acclaimed writer from The Folio Academy. This year, we are delighted that four aspiring young writers and First Story alumni will be participating in the year-long programme.
Folio Academy Mentorships are an incredibly valued progression route for alumni of First Story’s Young Writers Programme. The scheme enables a select number of young writers to continue to pursue their creative writing ambitions with First Story, developing their craft and strengthen their voice with one-to-one support from an established writer.
We are always so excited to see the calibre of the mentors curated by The Folio Academy. Here are this year’s exciting pairings:
Caroline Bird is a poet and playwright. Her selected poems, Rookie (2022), and The Air Year (2020) are two of Carcanet’s most popular books of the present decade. She won the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2020, and has been shortlisted for a number of prizes including the T.S Eliot Prize, the Costa Book Awards, the Ted Hughes Award, the Polari Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize. A two-time winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award, her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes was published in 2002 when she was fifteen. She won a Cholmondeley Award in 2023. Her seventh collection, Ambush at Still Lake, was published in June 2024. Caroline will be mentoring Malu from Holland Park School.
Will Burns was born in London and lives in Buckinghamshire. He is the author of two poetry collections, Country Music and Natural Burial Ground, and one novel, The Paper Lantern, for which he was named as an Observer debut novelist of the year in 2022. He is a long-time contributor to the online nature-writing journal Caught by the River and an editor at Rough Trade Books. Will will be mentoring Rose from Eden Park High School.
Guy Gunaratne is a British novelist and playwright based in London. They have been awarded numerous prizes including the Dylan Thomas Prize, Jhalak Prize and Author’s Club Award. Their novels have been longlisted for the Booker Prize, the Goldsmith’s Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and have been translated around the world. They served as Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge from 2019 to 2022. Guy Gunaratne is the current Editor-in-Chief at the Jhalak Review. Guy will be mentoring Zaynab from St Paul’s Way School.
Joelle Taylor is the author of 4 collections of poetry. Her most recent collection C+nto & Othered Poems won the 2021 T.S Eliot Prize, and the 2022 Polari Book Prize for LGBT authors. C+nto is currently being adapted for theatre with a view to touring. She is a co-curator and host of Out-Spoken Live at the Southbank Centre, and tours her work nationally and internationally. She has judged several poetry and literary prizes including Jerwood Fellowship, the Forward Prize, and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. Her novel of interconnecting stories The Night Alphabet was published by Riverrun in 2024. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the 2022 Saboteur Spoken Word Artist of the Year. Her most recent acting role was in Blue by Derek Jarman, which was directed by Neil Bartlett and featured Russell Tovey, Jay Bernard, and Travis Alabanza. Blue sold out its run across the UK and more dates are expected for the future. Joelle will be mentoring Shah from George Green’s School.
Each pairing will work together over the course of the academic year to develop a project of the young writer’s choice. Corresponding regularly online and meeting in person, the mentors will provide personalised feedback and support. There will also be an opportunity for the mentees to perform their work publicly, with a celebratory event at the London Library in 2025.
Read more about last year’s Folio Prize Mentorships showcase.
It’s so motivational, so inspiring to have someone by your side who is a writer. I think even big writers, even people like Sam, need that support sometimes. The mentorship made me realise that you can’t backbone everything by yourself; having that fallback, having that support, that’s how you keep going.
SARAH, Folio mentee 2023/24
The Folio Academy is a group of more than 300 outstanding writers. Each year the Academy selects four of its members to become mentees to First Story alumni. Previous mentors include Fiona Benson, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Rachel Long, Will Harris, Adam Foulds, AL Kennedy, Alice Jolly, Evie Wyld, Francesca Beard, Joe Dunthorne, Kamila Shamsie, Louise Doughty, Lucy Caldwell, Nikesh Shukla, Ross Raisin, Sharlene Teo, Sam Byers, Frances Leviston, Momtaza Mehri, Diana Evans, Emily Berry, Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Peter Hobbs, Samantha Harvey and Sunjeev Sahota.
The Folio Academy Mentorships are supported this year by Amazon Literary Partnership.
Inua Ellams announced as First Story Ambassador