Funds For Writers and Absynthe Muse Create Mentor Program for Juvenile Teens

As a former juvenile delinquent who aspired to be a writer I wish there had been a program like the following for me in the 80s as I lived in a group home.

Funds For Writers, a writing website, is involved in a mentoring program in conjunction with the teen website Absynthe Muse working with teen writers.

A juvenile court school in California has asked if the organizations could pair writing mentors with some girls who are in juvenile facilities due to hard times in their lives.

Since they are confined most do not have access to Internet and the correspondence would have to be conducted via postal mail.

"Such a simple process as mentoring could make a difference in the direction these girls take with their lives," said a librarian involved in the project.

A crash course for mentees has been created and the program is up to 125 mentors. Applications for mentees came flooding in in August, according to Funds For Writers.

Hope Clark, editor of Funds for Writers and Elisabeth Wilhelm, editor of Absynthe Muse joined together to create the juvenile mentoring project.

Information shared between mentor and mentee includes first name, interests, what the mentee hopes to achieve with the four-week program, a description of the kind of writing the mentee does, a description of the ideal mentor from the mentee's perspective, what the mentee wants to learn that is new regarding writing, what they'd like to improve on, three questions the mentee wants answered about writing, if the mentee has ever had their work critiqued, what kind of feedback is wanted, how often the mentee wants to be in touch with the mentor, and a writing sample submission.

On the mentor application mentors talk about their writing experience and their specialty.

According to Absynthe Muse, medical studies have proven that working with young people keeps you young.

"The young adult can get support from a bona fide experienced writer from their computer chair," says staff.

Clark and Wilhelm say they make no money off of the program. Mentees are ages 16 and over unless the program receives special parental permission.