Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program - NEW MENTOR APPLICATION

Thank you for your interest in serving as a mentor for the 2025 Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program.

Now in its thirteenth year, The Adroit Journal’s Summer Mentorship Program is an online program that pairs experienced writers with high school and secondary students (students in grades 9-12) interested in learning more about the creative writing processes of drafting, redrafting, and editing. 

The 2025 program will mentor in the literary genres of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. The aim of the mentorship program is not formalized instruction, but rather an individualized, flexible, and often informal correspondence. Poetry mentorship students will share weekly work with mentors and peers, while prose mentorship students will share biweekly work with mentors and peers. 

We are very proud of our alumni. Students have subsequently been recognized through the National YoungArts Foundation & United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts designation, the National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and the Foyle Young Poet of the Year Awards, among many others. Click here to view the mentorship alumni college list.

Mentor apps will be considered on a rolling basis. We will close this portal once we are full.

The program will last from June 16, 2024 until July 28, 2025.

Mentees will possess firm work ethic and some familiarity with the writing and workshop process, and will be comfortable with receiving (and, to some extent, giving) commentary and critique. Participation in this program (whether as a mentor or a mentee) is not a route to publication in the journal. Ultimately, each year our goal is to provide a safe space where teenage writers with potential may blossom into writers with the ability to explore and discuss, the courage to delete and leap, and the determination to apply what they discover to future writings.

About the Mentors

The ideal mentor is organized, knowledgeable about either contemporary poetry or prose, able to work well with others, and plans to be available to their mentee for the duration of the program—late-June to late-July. More than anything else, an Adroit mentor is responsive and present with their mentees.

Mentors will have the opportunity to revise and add to a model syllabus in their genre (provided by the Program Director), or using an outside syllabus that corresponds with the Mentorship’s deadlines. Mentees will be assigned to mentors by the Program Director based on aesthetic fit. Each mentor will be paired with two mentorship students.

Mentors will be paid a $300 stipend for their participation in the 2025 program.

The Nuts and Bolts - The Application

Applications for this year’s mentor seats consist of three mandatory parts—an Adroit Statement (length is up to you, but we hope to get a sense of your voice and interests as a mentor), a Writing Sample, and a Curriculum Vitae. The Adroit Statement should detail the applicant’s specific interest in working with The Adroit Journal's program—what is it about our program and mission that piques your interest? How would you spend your time with us and with your mentees?

Praise from Previous Mentors

"Being a mentor for the Adroit Journal's Mentorship Program for high school students is extra rewarding because the writers selected are already so talented and hungry to learn, hungry to be in a conversation about literature, hungry to make art. I loved working with my mentee who not only talked to me about poetry, but about what it means to be Asian American (she was Asian Canadian). It was rewarding to be able to impart any knowledge or experience I have accumulated to someone much younger than I am.  I wish I would have had such a program when I was younger."

Victoria Chang, Poetry Mentor

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"Mentoring was a wonderful experience—my mentee was an incredible writer, both funny and serious (I had to remind myself she was only in high school!). My Google hangout sessions—during which we discussed not only her writing but A Separate Peace and computer learning--were one of the highlights of my week."

Ben Hoffman, Fiction Mentor

Praise from Previous Mentees

"This mentorship program was truly a remarkable experience. Not only were the mentors and mentees professional and thorough, they were open-minded to my ideas and ideologies, my beliefs and personal predilections. They didn’t rewrite my work for me but pushed me towards discovery and revision through their thought-provoking questions about imagery, form, and syntax."

Alex Greenberg, Mentee '15

Five-Time Commended Winner, Foyle Young Poet of the Year Awards

Publication in Columbia Poetry Review, Florida Review, Salt Hill, Third Coast, Washington Square, and elsewhere

Additional Links

Click here to visit the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program online.

Click here to learn more about The Adroit Journal.

Please direct any additional questions to the Program Directors, Kate Gaskin and John Allen Taylor, at mentorship@theadroitjournal.org.