Past Mentors
Coco Mellors
Coco Mellors grew up in London and New York, where she received an MFA in Fiction from New York University. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein and Blue Sisters. Her novels have been translated into over thirty languages and are both currently being adapted for the screen. Her non-fiction has appeared in Vogue, The Cut and the New York Times’s Modern Love column.
Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith is an acclaimed poet and NYT bestselling memoirist. She is the author of seven award-winning books: Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Lamp of the Body, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, and Good Bones, named by the Washington Post as one of the Five Best Poetry Books of 2017, Keep Moving, and Goldenrod.
Fatimah Asghar
Fatimah Asghar is an acclaimed poet, novelist, and screenwriter. A South-Asian American Muslim writer, they prioritize story over genre and are the author of If They Come For Us, When We Were Sisters, and the chapbook After. In 2017, they were a recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and listed on Forbes’s 30 under 30 list.
Safia Elhillo
Sudanese by way of Washington, DC, Safia Elhillo is an award-winning poet and novelist. She is the author of the books The January Children, Girls That Never Die, Home Is Not A Country, and Bright Red Fruit. Elhillo received the 2015 Brunel International African Poetry Prize, and was listed in Forbes Africa’s 2018 “30 Under 30.”
Megan Stielstra
Megan Stielstra is the author of three collections: Everyone Remain Calm, Once I Was Cool, and The Wrong Way to Save Your Life. Her work appears in the Best American Essays, New York Times, The Believer, Poets & Writers, Tin House, Longreads, LitHub, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.
Adam Leipzig
Adam Leipzig, a filmmaker and former executive at Walt Disney Studios and National Geographic Films, has been involved in a prolific catalogue of award-winning films and plays, which have won or been nominated for 10 Academy Awards.
Jonathan Katz
Jonathan Katz is an award-winning journalist and author, known for his fearless reporting on politics, history, conflict, and disaster. He earned the Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism for his coverage of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Katz has contributed to major publications like the New York Times and the Guardian, and authored two award-winning books.
Andre Dubus III
Andre Dubus III is a #1 NYT bestselling novelist. His nine books include New York Times bestsellers House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie, a #4 New York Times bestseller and a New York Times “Editors’ Choice.” His most recent novel, Such Kindness, was one of Amazon’s “The Best Books of 2023, Top 100.”
Glory Edim
Glory Edim is an author, activist, and the founder of Well-Read Black Girl, a nationwide book club-turned-literacy nonprofit that celebrates the life changing power of literature. She is the author of Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books that Saved Me, as well as the editor and publisher of award-winning anthologies like On Girlhood, among her myriad other groundbreaking projects.
Sally Bayley
Sally Bayley is a writer of fiction and non-fiction. She is particularly interested in the shifting relationship between genres. Girl with Dove (William Collins, 2018), is a literary coming of age story. It has been lauded as a completely original work that invents a new genre. Sally also hosts and performs the highly successful immersive podcast, A Reading Life, A Writing Life, which offers innovative forms of storytelling set to music and soundscapes as well as creative prompts for writers, readers and creatives. She is currently a Lecturer in English at Hertford College, Oxford.
Stephanie Foo
Stephanie Foo is a critically-acclaimed radio producer and author. She has worked extensively in podcasting, producing for Snap Judgement and This American Life. At TAL she co-produced the project “Video 4 U” which would go on to be nominated for three Daytime Emmy awards. Her 2022 book exploring C-PTSD and the personal effects of generational trauma, What My Bones Know, is a New York Times Bestseller and was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, and NPR.
Marisa Renee Lee
Marisa Renee Lee is a called-upon grief advocate, entrepreneur, and bestselling author of the award-winning book Grief is Love, Living with Loss. A Former Deputy Director of Private Sector Engagement and a Senior Advisor on the Domestic Policy Council under President Obama, Lee regularly contributes to Elle, Vogue, The Atlantic, MSNBC, and CNN and serves as an expert for Ritual's well-being app. Praised by Elaine Welteroth as "the friend we all wish we had in times of need," Marisa is celebrated for her ability to blend research-backed advice with profound empathy. Her insights help others manage the complex emotions of loss and articulate their experiences with empathy.
Krishan Trotman
Krishan Trotman is the Vice President and Publisher at Legacy Lit, an innovative imprint she founded under Hachette Books in 2020. Legacy Lit is committed to elevating issues, authors, and communities often overlooked, championing equality, equity, and inclusion through its mission-driven commercial works. The imprint seeks to provide a platform for voices that challenge and enrich our cultural dialogue.
Since joining Hachette Books in 2016, Trotman has collaborated with authors who are candid, bold, and unafraid to challenge the norm. Her impressive portfolio includes a range of award-winning and New York Times bestsellers, featuring works by figures such as Congressman John Lewis, journalist Stephanie Land, and MSNBC political analyst Malcolm Nance. Krishan is also the co-author of the Queens of the Resistance series and has been featured in top publications and media outlets, including The New York Times, Essence Magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, Shondaland, and CSPAN.
Heather Aimee O’Neill
Heather Aimee O’Neill has worked with hundreds of novelists, memoirists, short-story and essay writers in her roles as the assistant director of the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop and as an independent editor and writing coach. She helps writers start, finish, polish, and find publication for their work. Many of her students and clients have gone on to publish with major publishers, including Viking, W.W. Norton, Harper Collins, Double Day, Flatiron Books, and Simon & Schuster, among others.
Ben Taub
Ben Taub is a staff writer at the New Yorker. He has written for the magazine about jihadism, crime, conflict, climate change, exploration, and human rights, on four continents and at sea. In 2020, he won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, for his work on the lasting effects, on former detainees and guards, of American abuses in Guantánamo Bay. He has also received a National Magazine Award, two consecutive George Polk Awards, a Livingston Award, a Robert F. Kennedy Award, an Overseas Press Club Award, and other honors, and his work has appeared in recent editions of “The Best American Magazine Writing” and “The Best American Travel Writing.” Taub also received the ASME Next Award for Journalists Under 30, and was named one of Forbes's 30 Under 30 in Media.
Ryan Calais Cameron
Ryan Calais Cameron is an award-winning writer, actor, and theatre-maker. His credits include: Paramount, Sky Studios, West End’s Bush Theatre, Royal Court, BBC3, and C4, among others. His play, For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy made an extended run on the West End and was nominated for "Best New Play" at the Olivier Awards.
Doreen St. Félix
Doreen St. Félix is a writer from Brooklyn. She was formerly editor-at-large for Lenny Letter, a newsletter from Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, and has been on staff The New Yorker since 2017, where she has served as the television critic since 2019. Previously, she was a culture writer at MTV News. Her writing has appeared in the Times Magazine, New York, Vogue, The Fader, and Pitchfork. St. Félix was named on the Forbes “30 Under 30” media list in 2016. In 2017, she was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary, and, in 2019, she won in the same category.
Jenny Zhang
Jenny Zhang is the author of the story collection Sour Heart and the poetry collection My Baby First Birthday. Her work appears in The New York Times, Poetry, Harpers, N+1, Best American Poetry, and other publications. She’s written television and film for A24, HBO, Netflix, Apple, and Amazon.
Jake Brunger
Jake Brunger is a musical theatre writer, screenwriter, and lyricist. Jak’s stage adaptation of The Great British Bake Off received four stars in The Times, The Telegraph, The Observer, and Daily Mail and recently played a limited 12-week season at the Noël Coward Theatre in London’s West End. His debut feature film Love Sarah reached #1 at the New Zealand Box Office and #4 at the Australian Box Office. It was released on Netflix in July 2022 reaching #5 in Netflix’s Top 10 Films.
Rebecca Abrams
Rebecca Abrams is an award-winning author, journalist and literary critic. She teaches creative writing at the University of Oxford and is the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford. Her debut novel, Touching Distance won the MJA Open Book Award and was shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize for Literature. Her non-fiction works include Woman in a Man’s World, The Playful Self, and When Parents Die. A former columnist for The Daily Telegraph and feature writer for The Guardian, she is the recipient of an Amnesty International Press Award and is a regular literary critic for The Financial Times.