Ten local writers have been named as the first winners of First Chapter, the new mentorship programme established by the Emirates Literature Foundation with Seddiqi Holding.
The winners – announced at a ceremony at LitFest a couple of days ago – were selected from an open call which produced 120 applicants.
First Chapter claims to be the first global standard mentorship programme in the region for aspiring writers; it aims to identify and nurture emerging writing talent from the UAE, enabling the successful participants to hone their skills through one-to-one sessions with a roster of established authors. Each winner was chosen by their mento “because they could see their potential and felt they would be able to help them reach it”.
As well as the one-to-ones – a total of six hour-long sessions at a mutually agreed time and date through the year-long programme – the First Chapter ELF Seddiqi Writers’ Fellowship involves a total of 40 hours of guided learning in the form of workshops, meetups and talks that aims to cover all stages of writing, publishing and promoting a book. There’s also a voucher for access to short online courses from two partner providers, the Gotham Writers Workshop and the Faber Academy, which will allow participants to take a class in specific writing-related subjects.
All this sounds like an excellent package. The programme will also provide introductions to international agents, editors and publishers. This could be useful, too, though it’s been estimated that globally fewer than one percent of submitted manuscripts make it to publication …
The winners:
- Moxie Anderson chosen by Mark Billingham
- Sara Hamdan chosen by Yrsa Siggurdottir
- Yi-Hwa Hanna chosen by Patrick Gale
- Mustafa Alrawi chosen by Ali Sparkes
- Zana Bonafe chosen by Shobhaa De
- Reem Hameed chosen by Greg Mosse
- Kate Tindle chosen by Annabel Kantaria
- Huda Al Rawajfa chosen by Shahad Al Rawi (Arabic)
- Mona Al Ali chosen by Taleb Al Refai (Arabic)
- Sara Al Abdullah chosen by Najwa Bin Shatwan (Arabic)
The standard of the applicants apparently surprised the judges – “we knew that there was an amazing pool of talent in the region, but we were really astonished by the extremely high calibre of the submissions,” said Ahlam Bolooki, Festival Director of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.
“It means that some very accomplished writers were not selected, although they are of a publishable standard, and we are intending to put some classes in place to help this group too.”
That sounds promising. And the First Chapter programme seems to be here to stay, for the immediate future at least: Seddiqi Holding has signed up with ELF for five years’ sponsorship “with the aim that the Fellowship will create a notable pool of authors based in the UAE, with audiences all over the world”.
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