She Who Has No Master(s) is initiating a creative writing mentorship program led by and designed for Vietnamese and SE Asian diasporic women and nonbinary writers. The centering of this perspective is important because in most educational settings the focus on subject matter and perspectives of women/nonbinary SE Asian diasporic women is marginal, if not totally unaddressed. In creating educational spaces that center those viewpoints, we create a nourishing space in which aspiring writers can see themselves, explore, and embrace their own particularities, and create more expansively. These mentorships will address both creative and professional aspects involved in the writing life. These offerings fulfill a dire contemporary need in our nation’s current environment for creative writing education.

Mentorship courses will be formatted in a “low-residency” style, of monthly mentorship “packet” exchanges (via email and online i.e. video chat correspondences) between mentors and mentees/writing students, from May to August 2022. For our inaugural year, in order to work within limitations and uncertainties presented by public health concerns, this will be a remote-only mentorship course. Applicants may be located anywhere in the world (but must be willing to schedule with a mentor based in US and Canada time zones).

Mentorship is designed so that each student receives intensive one-on-one guidance from their mentor. Mentees and mentors will also convene online in several group sessions, where mentees will get to interact, share creative work, and discuss aspects of craft with their peers and the other mentors. Mentees should be passionate and committed to exploring creative writing, ready to generate new creative work, engage in revision processes, and capable of working both independently as well as from writing prompts given by mentors. Mentors will work with mentees to tailor creative writing guidance that meets the mentees’ specific interests and needs.

The mentors for our inaugural 2022 mentorship program will be: Diana Khoi Nguyen, Hoa Nguyen, Lily Hoang, and Vi Khi Nao.

If you are selected for a mentorship, you will receive 4 months of tuition-free mentorship, an extremely unique opportunity for mentees to work closely with distinguished, award-winning women writers of the Vietnamese diaspora. Our first cohort will engage 4 students and 4 mentors.