Breakthrough Writers' Programme

Our exciting programme of free scholarships, courses and mentoring opportunities for under-represented writers.

Opportunities

Explore the Breakthrough opportunities currently open for applications.

Scholarships

Our scholarships support writers who might not otherwise have the opportunity to attend our selective-application writing courses.

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Mentoring

Four talented under-represented writers will receive nine months of mentoring from a published author, plus a tutorial with a literary agent. 2024 mentoring programmes to be announced soon.

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Story so far

Meet the talented under-represented writers we've been working with through our free courses, scholarships and mentoring.

Our objectives

Our objective is to seek out talented writers, who would not otherwise have joined our creative writing courses and give them the best of our tuition and mentoring, delivered by successful author-tutors, literary agents and publishers. We will draw on our expertise to help writers maximise the potential of their works-in-progress and pitch them with confidence to the book industry.
Types of opportunities. We run regular specialist writing courses with free places for all students involved, individualised one-to-one mentoring with published authors as well as sponsored scholarship places for under-represented writers to join our elite six- and three-month selective-entry courses.
Who are we supporting? We hope to address many barriers to entry faced by different under-represented groups. Each writing opportunity offered has a clear eligibility focus. Some current and past focuses of the programme have included reaching out to writers of colour, disabled writers, LGBTQIA+ writers and writers with low income.
Free for all the writers taking part. The central programme of intensive courses and mentoring for under-represented writers is funded in full by the Curtis Brown Group and Curtis Brown’s literary agents. Many of our scholarships are funded by our valued partners – whether individuals or corporate sponsors. We launched this programme in 2021 and aim to run it for at least three years.
More 2024 opportunities to be announced.

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Breakthrough Writers' Programme

Opportunities

Scholarships

Mentoring

Story so far

Our objectives

Scholarships

Mentoring

Story so far