The mentored Fielding Programme runs September to April each year. If you have a project you want to develop with support from another writer you can book in for one week or more.

You can can come at any time that suits you during these months subject to availability.

A Fielding Week with us will give you valuable space and time to work, as well as some intensive mentoring support and the company of other artists. It can help you get past a block or make progress with a specific aspect of your writing.

If you have a larger project, a longer stay is essential as this enables you to settle into your surroundings and take full advantage of all the support that is on offer. There is time to explore new directions and bring a piece of work to a close.

We can also support projects which span two residential periods. Get in touch with us to discuss what you are working on and how long you think you might need and take a Site Tour to get a closer look at our accommodation and surroundings.

While focusing exclusively on your writing and not on outcomes, Fielding Mentored has nevertheless been part of some wonderful success stories. Here are some of them:

Caroline Brothers – fiction – HINTERLAND (Bloomsbury 2012, nominated for Guardian First Book Award)
Sarah Jackson – poetry – PELT (Bloodaxe 2012, Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize winner 2013)
Emylia Hall – fiction – BOOK OF SUMMERS (Headline, 2012, Richard and Judy Summer Read 2012)
Jacqueline Saphra – poetry – THE KITCHEN OF LOVELY CONTRAPTIONS (Flipped Eye 2011, nominated for Aldeburgh First Collection Prize)

 

Your Mentor

Your mentor for the Programme is writer Polly Clark. Her poetry was short listed for the TS Eliot Prize in 2005, won an Eric Gregory Award in 1997, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and widely published in periodicals and newspapers, including the London Review of Books, The Independent, Poetry Review and Poetry London.

Polly’s third collection of poetry Farewell My Lovely was published by Bloodaxe in 2009. Her first collection Kiss was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and her second Take Me With You a Poetry Book Society Choice. Polly’s short stories are published in the Comma Press anthologies Hyphen and Ellipsis.

In 2012 the first draft of her memoir, Thank You So Much For Writing was one of the winners in a competition to find the best new non-fiction in Scotland. In 2013 she was awarded an artist bursary by Creative Scotland and a grant by the Society of Authors to develop a second work of creative non-fiction, AUDEN & ME. Polly is represented by Jenny Brown at Jenny Brown Associates.

Polly produces the Literature Programme for Cove Park. Polly has tutored for the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Edinburgh University as well as for the Arvon Foundation and the Poetry School, and has also led workshops extensively in universities and schools. She focuses on one-to-one mentoring, believing this is the best way to help another writer make progress. You can find out more about Polly on her website www.pollyclark.co.uk.

Fees

Fielding Mentored costs £495 for one week, which is a full seven-night stay, and includes two hour-long meetings with your mentor and reading of your work before and during your stay. For longer stays, we offer a discount of 10% on this weekly fee.

To discuss your project in advance of booking, contact Polly on 01436 850123 or polly.clark@covepark.org.