By Angeline Boulley
I applied for the year-long mentorship through the We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) nonprofit organization in October 2017 and was not selected.
As any writer knows, rejection is part of the process. Every rejection hurts, some more than others. This one was not so bad. Something about it felt hopeful. I sensed I was a contender and that it just hadn’t gone my way in this instance.
Nearly a year later, after a major revision and working with a freelance editor, I was encouraged to try again. I dusted off my WNDB application, reread my writing sample from 2017, and saw my growth.
As a writer, I hover between extra confidence (“My manuscript is fantastic and I must remember that one high school anecdote for when Terry Gross interviews me on Fresh Air!”) and zero confidence (“No one will ever read this or be moved by it. Who am I to even try?”).
So, in an extra-confident moment in October 2018, I applied again for the WNDB Young Adult Mentorship Program. And then my confidence went on hiatus. Doubt crept in. My manuscript is dark. Wherever the line is in YA literature, my story surely crosses it. It is not everyone’s cup of tea. Would my sample pages resonate with any of the mentors?
I’d read the bio sketches of the three YA mentors and one, Francisco X. Stork, stayed with me. I read his most recent book, Disappeared, which dealt with siblings grappling with drug-related criminal elements in their town. I connected with his stories and his writing.
In December 2018, I received an email notifying me that I had been selected for a WNDB mentorship in the Young Adult category and my mentor would be Francisco X. Stork!
The year-long mentorship began in January 2019. Francisco and I communicated via email. He read my full manuscript and offered to provide feedback in sections. He also wrote about his experiences as a writer, working with editors and publishers. Sometimes we communicated every week and other times we both had work, travel, family, and other commitments that took priority.
