Clara Dunn talks about her mentoring experience

Young writer Clara Dunn was still in her last year at Stranraer Academy when she joined our 2017 mentoring intake. Now a student at the University of Dundee, Clara tells us a wee bit about her mentoring experience.

What did you hope to gain from the mentoring programme?
I hoped to gain access to the writing community within Wigtownshire through the mentoring scheme. I also hoped that the mentoring scheme would allow me to make connections which might further my writing career, i.e. put me in touch with authors with connections to agents and publishers.

Did your mentoring help you to achieve this?
The scheme did allow me to meet other writers within Wigtownshire, and my mentor was a great support even after the scheme as I worked on my novels. However, I have not yet been able to build a larger network which includes agents and publishers.

How do you think your writing and creative practice will develop as a result of mentoring?
The mentoring scheme definitely helped me to see that my creative process can involve collaboration/discussion without being compromised. I now share my work-in-progress drafts with willing writer friends and their opinions allow me to see my work from other angles and better it.

How old were you when you took part in the mentoring scheme, and how useful do you think the programme is for young writers in particular?
I was 17 when I took part in the mentoring scheme. I think the scheme is useful for young writers because it gives them a friendly and encouraging adult writer to talk with and to be supported by. The scheme banishes the worry that as a writer you’ll always be working alone.

What are you up to these days?
I'm currently studying English & Creative Writing at the University of Dundee. I write a little bit of everything - short stories were how I started, and I've written two books (both various sub-types of romance, one is to do with sports, one is a crime crossover). I have also been known to write poetry on many subjects, primarily love recently but honestly it varies.