2026 AHWA MENTORSHIP PROGRAM IS OPEN FOR APPLICATIONS
The AHWA Mentorship Program is now open for applications for 2026 which will run a little later than usual from September to November 2026.
Please submit your details via the application form and include a sample of your writing for assessment. Please read all the details below before applying.
APPLICATIONS CLOSE at midnight SUNDAY 16th AUGUST.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
The AHWA Mentorship Program runs from August to October each year.
The program provides the opportunity to work closely with one of our highly qualified mentors on an approved project. Successful applicants will be matched for a three-month period of one-on-one development and guidance to develop and progress their accepted work. Applicants must be an existing AHWA Member or become one via our Membership page before applying for the program.
Overview
The AHWA Mentor Program offers AHWA members the opportunity to learn more about their craft and improve their skills. The things a mentee can learn in a mentorship can range from pitching a story idea, drafting a novel or short story, critiquing existing work, or publishing, depending on the available mentors in the program. There are many benefits, and each mentorship will experience different things.
The greatest gifts an experienced industry professional can give (as a mentor) are their time and expertise – to share the things they have learned. A mentee will get the most benefit from the program by carefully considering feedback, communicating in a timely fashion, completing any exercises set, and respecting the Mentor’s time by not making excessive demands. The more a mentee puts into their mentorship, the more they will learn.
Details of the mentors and their areas of interest are shown below.
Program Details
All information submitted to the mentorship convenor is confidential and will only be used to match mentees with mentors in the AHWA Mentor Program
Eligibility
The program is only open to financial members of the AHWA; committee members are eligible to apply. Application is free.
Cost
- The cost to the Mentee is $175.00. The AHWA uses member funds to add a further $125 to this in order to pay the mentor an honorarium of $300 for their time and effort. This is not a paid position for the mentor; the honorarium payment is not representative of the real value of the Mentor’s time and effort.
- Once the mentorship is confirmed, payments will be received/made through PayPal.
Application process
- Mentees can only apply for the program during the open period.
- Mentees can apply for the AHWA Mentor Program by filling in an application form and providing a sample of their writing, artwork, or other details as requested.
- Once submissions are closed, the reading period will take approximately two weeks.
- This program has limited places, and not all applications will be successful. Applicants are encouraged to reapply in the following years’ programs.
- At the conclusion of the reading period, the mentors will advise the convenor of selections, and mentees will be contacted with offers.
- If an applicant declines, the mentor will choose another mentee who will be offered the mentorship.
- Submission requirements for successful applicants will vary depending on available mentors.
Payment
- Once all offers are accepted, the Mentorship Convenor will advise the successful applicant how to pay via PayPal.
- Once the payment of $175.00 is confirmed, the convenor will introduce the mentor to the mentee, and the mentorship will commence.
- Payment will be made to the mentor at the beginning of the program.
Midway check-in
The program convenor will check in with both the mentor and mentee to see how things are going around the midway point. At this check-in point, the mentor will be sent a mentee evaluation, ready to start compiling for the program’s close.
When the mentorship is complete
- At completion, the mentor will be asked to write a short evaluation for the mentee, and the mentee will be asked to provide a testimonial about their experience for the AHWA to use for promotion purposes.
- A feedback request will also be sent to both parties. A note for the mentee: A Mentor is not a teacher. They won’t correct or mark work, but they will give feedback to help you improve your craft. A mentor guides you towards your goal, but it will be up to you to get there. Time is limited so it is useful to have specific questions or areas you wish to work on in mind. If there is something niggling you about your writing, make sure this is one of the first things you ask.
Contact us
If you have any queries or concerns about any aspect of the program, please contact us at australasianhorror@gmail.com.
2026 MENTORS
ALAN BAXTER is a multi-award-winning British-Australian author of horror and weird fiction. This Is Horror podcast calls him “Australia’s master of literary darkness” and the Talking Scared podcast dubbed him “The Lord of Weird Australia.” He’s also a martial artist, whisky-soaked swear monkey, metalhead and dog lover. He writes his darkly strange tales deep in the valleys of southern Tasmania. Find him online at ww
Alan is interested in mentoring flash, short, novella or novel projects.
DEBORAH SHELDON is a multi-award-winning author and anthology editor from Melbourne, Australia, who writes across the darker spectrum of horror, crime and noir.
Deb’s award-winning books include the novella Redhead Town, and collection Perfect Little Stitches and Other Stories. Her award-finalist books are the novels Nightmare Reef, Bodily Harm, Cretaceous Canyon, Body Farm Z, Contrition, and Devil Dragon; the novella Thylacines; and the collections Figments and Fragments: Dark Stories, and Liminal Spaces: Horror Stories.
Deb’s short fiction and poetry have been shortlisted for numerous awards too.
She has won the Australasian Shadows ‘Best Edited Work’ Award three times: for Midnight Echo 14, and for her anthologies Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies, and Killer Creatures Down Under: Horror Stories with Bite.
Deb’s other credits include TV scripts such as Neighbours and Australia’s Most Wanted, feature articles, non-fiction books (Reed Books, Random House), award-nominated poetry, prize-winning stage plays, and award-winning script editing and medical writing.
Visit Deb at http://deborahsheldon.wordpress.com
Deb is interested in mentoring short story, novella or novel projects, and would like to help writers who lack confidence and need a cheerleader.
KAARON WARREN is a twice Shirley Jackson award-winner wh has published six novels and eight short story collections. She’s sold over 200 short stories to publications big and small around the world and has appeared in Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best anthologies. Her novel “The Grief Hole” won all three Australian genre awards. She has lived in Melbourne, Sydney, Fiji and Canberra and her most recent novel is “The Underhistory”, from Viper Books/Allen and Unwin. She won the inaugural AsylumFest Ghost Story Telling Competition in 2022.
You can find her at https://kaaronwarren.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @kaaronwarren
Insta: Kaaron_Warren
Kaaron is interested in mentoring up to 10,000 words of a novella or novel.
J. ASHLEY-SMITH is a British–Australian author of dark fiction and co-host of the award-winning podcast Let The Cat In. His first book, The Attic Tragedy, won the Shirley Jackson Award. Other stories have won the Ditmar, Australian Shadows and Aurealis awards. His collection of strange, sad, unsettling stories, The Measure of Sorrow, was shortlisted in the ACT Literary Awards, Highly Commended in the ACT Book of the Year Awards, and won the Ditmar Award 2024 for Best Collection. He lives with his wife and two sons beneath an ominous mountain in the suburbs of North Canberra, gathering moth dust, tormented by the desolation of telegraph wires.
Preference is for short fiction up to novelette / short novella length, but will consider longer novellas and novels (at a stretch) if the project is right.
I’m particularly interested in character-led/character-rich stories, and real-world settings with speculative/supernatural elements. I’m open to most genres, but particularly quiet horror and weird fiction. Not interested in hard sci-fi or extreme horror.
I’m interested in helping mentees bring characters to life, making stories tight and compelling, and keeping the heart of the story (and characters) in focus to build emotional resonance. I’m interested in story structure, finding the voice of your story, building reader interest and engagement through story dynamics, and connecting with the deepest, most hidden parts of yourself to generate meaningful ideas.
In terms of the mentor/mentee relationship, I’d like to connect with mentees who have a clear idea of what they want to improve or get out of the mentorship, and to work closely with them to achieve that.
EUGEN BACON is an African Australian author. She is a Solstice, British Fantasy, Ignyte, Locus, Foreword Indies and BSFA Award winner. She’s also a twice World Fantasy, Shirley Jackson and multi-Aurealis Award finalist, and a finalist in the Philip K. Dick Awards, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award (for her novel Serengotti), and the Nommo Awards for speculative fiction by Africans. Eugen is an Otherwise Fellow, and was announced on the honor list for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’. Danged Black Thing made the Otherwise Award Honor List as a ‘sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work’.
Visit her at eugenbacon.com.
I am especially interested in works relating to cultural, gender or other diversity, engaging with whichever form of difference, but all are welcome! The right mentor/mentee relationship is one of partnership and mutual respect.
SHAYNE ARMSTRONG is an award-winning Queensland screenwriter and script editor. With his writing partner SP Krause, he penned the thriller DEEP WATER (2025) directed by Renny Harlin and starring Ben Kingsley and Aaron Eckhart, the supernatural thriller THE DARKNESS (2016) produced by Blumhouse/Universal and co-written with director Greg McLean, the acclaimed thriller ACOLYTES (2008) starring Joel Edgerton, and the creature-feature BAIT 3D (2012).
Horror and thriller feature projects in development include HEADLESS for producer Chris Brown (STING, BEASTS OF WAR) and directors The Spierig Brothers (PREDESTINATION, JIGSAW); THEO for producer Kristian Moliere (THE BABADOOK) and director Kiah Roache-Turner (WYRMWOOD, STING, BEASTS OF WAR); and BLACK CREEK for Kristian Moliere and Grant Hardy (Monster Pictures).
Writing under the penname TJ Park, they also released the horror novel UNBIDDEN with Harper-Collins. They won Best Short Film AWGIE for the sci-fi thriller RARER MONSTERS and the John Hinde Award for Excellence in Science-Fiction Writing twice.
Shayne is interested in mentoring someone in screenwriting (short, feature, and television).
JAN-ANDREW HENDERSON is the author of 40 children’s, teen, YA and adult fiction and non-fiction books – published worldwide by Oxford University Press, Collins, Hardcourt Press, Amberley Books, Oetinger Publishing, Black Hare Press, Random House, Black and White Publishers, Mladá Fronta, Black Hart, Three Ravens and Floris Books. Shortlisted for seventeen literary prizes and winner of the Doncaster Book Prize, the Aurealis Award and the Royal Mail Award.
Jan runs Green Light Literary Consultants. Professional member of the Institute of Professional Editors. Assessor/mentor for the Queensland Writers Centre and HWA. Owner of UK’s largest ghost tour operator – City of the Dead.
https://www.janandrewhenderson.com
https://www.greenlightliteraryrescueservice.com
https://www.cityofthedeadtours.com
Jan-Andrew is interested in all areas of mentoring but is highly experienced with short stories and novels, particularly in YA horror.
TESTIMONIALS
“My mentorship with Alan Baxter exceeded my expectations in every respect. Alan’s generous time and effort took me from an idea and a couple of draft chapters to a completed first draft of a 90,000 word novel in just three months. Alan’s knowledge and experience was invaluable in helping me realise my dream of completing my first novel. It was a little disconcerting when he told me “Chapter 17 is great, and it’s where your story really starts!” but he was 100% correct and the finished draft was so much better for it. If you are serious about taking your writing to the next level, apply for the AHWA Mentorship program.” – Paul Sheldon
“The mentorship program has been a big part of some big things that have been happening. Getting mentored by Kaaron has been phenomenal. To have someone of her calibre pulling my work apart has been an absolute privilege, and more than that, by the end of the process to have her tell me that things I have written are good and most of what she’s read just needs tweaking… it makes it all worth it. I’ve been working on this story for around four years now, and in a few hours of Kaaron’s time, she’s set it on the path I’ve always wanted it to be on. And it’s now had written interest for adaptation from a producer that I suspect any horror writer in Australia would love to have interest from.” – Bernie Rutkay
“My AHWA mentorship with Greg Chapman was a rewarding and invaluable experience. Greg’s patience, encouragement, and advice helped me to develop one of my short stories into a novella. As a writer, I often struggle with seeing the little problems with my work, however, Greg was able to shine a light on them, and guided me towards the right direction. He helped me understand my characters and the world in which they live. He dispelled those niggling thoughts of not feeling like a good enough writer and gave me confidence in my own ability. While I still have a long way to go with the novella, Greg’s assistance helped me figure out the bones of my story, and why I started writing it in the first place. I managed to write 21,000 words out of a planned 25,000! Highly recommended!” – Claire Fitzpatrick
“While I’ve taught writing courses before, the AHWA Mentorship Program has been my most satisfying experience. I enjoyed an intense, fun, and organic twelve-weeks with my mentee, the talented Geneve Flynn. Together, we dug into her stories, dissected them, and built them up again. Exploring and explaining the craft of writing in such detail reminded me why I can’t stop playing with words: it’s brain candy. I very much hope to participate in future programs.” – Deborah Sheldon
“The AHWA writing mentorship with Deborah Sheldon has been an invaluable experience. In ten years of studying writing and editing craft, I don’t think I’ve improved as swiftly or as markedly as during those four months of intensive learning. Deb helped me to see the gaps as well as the strengths in my writing and has helped me to approach my process from different angles, reviving my enthusiasm and confidence in becoming the writer I always dreamt I would be. Deb was an utter delight to work with, bringing humour, years of experience and a no-nonsense work ethic to this crazy profession. I highly recommend applying for an AHWA mentorship to any writer looking to raise their writing to the next level.” – Geneve Flynn
“It was a pleasure to work with Dominique Davidson, providing an AWHA mentorship of her middle grade manuscript, Resting Earth. Using Skype, email, and a system of manuscript annotation and line-editing, Dominque fully revised the work, and it is now ready to go out, with her query letter prepared, and a list of potential publishers for her to submit to established. Dominique was fully committed to the process and extremely hard working. She was highly professional in her approach, considering my critique with an open mind, checking out links and sites I suggested for further training, and implementing those new techniques in her narrative. Obviously, we both did a lot more than the 10-15 hours of work allocated by the program! The end result is a highly engaging, spooky little middle grade tale, slightly darker than a Goosebumps story and with a wonderfully creepy sense of place. I’m excited to watch Dominique’s writing career progress as a result of this AHWA mentorship jump-start. She thoroughly deserves every success.” – Lee Murray
“For me, the opportunity to be mentored by award-winning Australian author Kaaron Warren was worth every penny. For Kaaron to read my story, offer great feedback, tips, and encouragement, was simply priceless and has increased my confidence no end. I aim to complete the novel with Kaaron’s guidance at the forefront of my mind. Thanks Kaaron, and the AHWA for the opportunity!” ‒ Steve Dillon
“Participating in the 2017 AHWA Mentorship Program was a wonderful opportunity and I can’t thank the generosity of my Mentor, Lee Murray, enough. There are so many ways that the mentorship encouraged me and made me feel that I could write and my story was worthwhile. I would encourage anyone who wants to write to apply. I’d completed my Professional Writing Diploma, but my writing lacked polish and style. I was good but not great and not really sure how to go about improving my work to a publishable standard. The Mentorship Program provided an affordable alternative to embarking on another course and in retrospect provided me and my story with individual focused attention that no course can provide. The opportunity to workshop my creation, have an experienced writer read, comment, re-read and comment was invaluable. Lee’s advice and guidance was priceless. I rewrote much of my 20,000 words over the three-month period, but my story was all the stronger for this. Lee was amazing, she gently provided constructive comments which enabled me to progress and improve my writing and consequently the story. The experience was invaluable and will stand me in good stead for the future. I feel truly blessed to have had this experience.” – Dominique Davison
“The AHWA’s Mentor Program has become the backbone of my writing career. I can attribute all my publication successes and my recent Australian Shadows Award win directly to the lessons I learned from my mentor. I joined the Program back in 2012, at a time when I was very much the novice—I’d dabbled in stories for years, but had only recently begun taking the craft seriously. I was, however, failing to complete work and struggling to find my voice as a writer. Joining the Mentor Program, I thought, would both force me to write to deadlines and allow me to maybe learn from one of the Australian horror élite. It was the best career decision I ever made. As with many new writers, I was afraid of failure—of my work being judged as tripe, of being exposed as an upstart who jokingly thought he had talent. I needn’t have worried. Kaaron Warren, one of the stalwarts of Australian Horror, was the most nurturing of mentors. She saw potential in my work and helped mould two of my short stories into pieces of which I am still immensely proud. My craft improved immeasurably in the short time I was with the Program. And as a result of the work we did, I achieved my first two story sales in the years following. My mentor taught me how to trust my instinct, listen to my inner voice and take chances with my stories. But most importantly, she showed me that I was capable. Without her, I think I would still be floundering in the quagmire of incomplete drafts and utterly lacking in self-confidence. If you want to write good horror, join the Mentor Program. If you want to make a lasting mark on the genre, join the Mentor Program. If you want to learn career changing lessons from the best authors in the industry, join the Mentor Program. And if all you want to do is finish a story and know that you can do it too, join the Mentor Program. ‒ Matthew Morrison, 2018 Shadows Award winner
