some mentorship program transparency!
my approach to reading subs for Round Table Mentorship & reflections
Per my previous post, I am a Round Table Mentorship 2026 mentor, and now that this year’s mentees have been announced, I am thinking about how it felt being on the other side applying for mentorships.
There’s so much uncertainty. What does it mean to not get requests? What does it mean to get a request, but no feedback? What does this feedback mean? Did mentors actually read my whole query? Did they read my shitty synopsis? Did they read my pages? How many pages? Oh, a mentor is asking whether I’d be open to changing xyz. IS THIS A SIGN? Or are they asking loads of people? Are the mentors actually evaluating every submission? Why is my stomach aching waiting for announcements—oh, that’s why, there’s a gigantic ulcer in it, haha!
I remember feeling grateful for and fascinated by every peek I got to have behind the curtain. So, I wanted to write about my experience reading RTM subs to hopefully shed just a little light on mentorships.
(Disclaimer: I am just one girl and my experience / approach shouldn’t be extrapolated to anyone else or taken as indicative of mentors / agents / publishing professionals as a whole!)
first steps: deciding which fulls to request
In RTM, mentees are given the option to list up to six mentor preferences, AKA, to submit to directly. So my first act was to go through every submission that listed me as a mentor choice. Why? Well, for one, we had a lot of applications and I had to start somewhere. For another, these applicants selected me because they’d identified something about me or my wishlist that suggested we’d be a good fit.
I read the logline (1 sentence pitch) & query for every app in search of premises that piqued my interest. Mostly I was looking for books that I could see myself picking up from a shelf and reading—which is highly subjective!—but I was also quickly evaluating whether or not I would be a good fit as a mentor.
I did not mind unpolished query letters! I just needed to get a sense of a story’s character and stakes from them.
I did not read the synopsis unless I was on the fence. (I prefer to not be spoiled.)
Once I separated those apps into Yes/No piles, I dipped into the sample pages for the apps in the Yes pile. First and foremost, I was looking for voice and prose that I connected with, because that’s not something I feel capable of mentoring. For one, while there are some general no-nos for prose, what counts as “good” prose is highly subjective. For another—apologies if this is harsh—I don’t believe that prose can be mentored. I think it has to come through lots of experience and personal exploration.
This is not to say that I was looking for something pristine on the line level. I didn’t mind typos or grammar errors at all. However, if the pages were so “first draft” that the narrative became confusing on a line-by-line basis, that was a no, because:
It’s difficult to figure out big-picture issues if there’s a lot of surface clutter.
It hard to evaluate how polished the author can be, and I don’t have the bandwidth to line edit a manuscript top to bottom.
And honestly, these were the two main factors that I considered while requesting fulls: premise and voice; that somewhat ineffable tug of attraction towards a story.
After sending out that first round of full requests, I dipped into the pool of applications that hadn’t specified any mentor preferences, filtering by genre and reading loglines. My internal plan was to go wider after that, look at applicants who’d subbed to other mentors, but I found my mentees before reaching that point.
evaluating fulls & making choices
While reading fulls, I continued to look for that tug of attraction—the pull to find out what happens next—while also forming thoughts on what didn’t work and whether I had a vision for how to solve these issues.
It’s kind of a tricky business. The story needed to do enough right that I wanted to read on, but not be so polished that I couldn’t find anything to critique. It needed to have flaws that I could identify—rather than just “this could be better but I’m not sure how”—and I needed to feel sure that these flaws were objective rather than subjective and that my critique wasn’t coming from my personal tastes or how I’d write the story. I needed to have a vision for how to fix these flaws, this vision needed to align with the author’s style.
What do I mean by vision? That’s best illustrated by how my eventual two mentee picks made me feel:
Although I restrained myself from making any notes on sample pages and even full manuscripts, because I knew once I started I wouldn’t stop, I was brimming with so many ideas for these stories that I just had to start making comments.
I wanted to read on so badly, and not just for the story itself, but to see how the rest of it would tickle my editor brain and whether my vision would continue to mesh well with the story. It got to the point where I was losing sleep because I was buzzing with ideas.
Most of the time, when I offer feedback, I write up my notes and yeet them and don’t think too much about whether the author implements my suggestions. That’s their business! I’ve done my part. But for these two books, I wanted so much to brainstorm and discuss and work together with the authors.
It was important, though, to confirm that my critique and vision were valid and I wasn’t just running away with my own wild ideas. I sought out the other mentor who also requested the two stories I vibed with, and we had lengthy discussions about them. (A good amount of backstage discussion occurred between the mentors!)
We (and many other mentors) also identified key revision ideas that the authors might balk at and messaged them through the program to confirm they’d be open to such revision ideas. Thankfully, both of them were, and Natalie (the other mentor) and I aligned so well on our visions that we decided to co-mentor both mentees!
strategy (?!) for applying to mentorships
Unfortunately, I am just one pretty busy person, and it wasn’t possible to evaluate every application on a completely equal basis and read all materials thoroughly. However, I have a couple suggestions for what can help an application stand out / make sure it’s evaluated fully:
List mentor preferences! It can be overwhelming to go through so many mentors’ wishlists, but putting in that work makes it more likely the right eyes will land on your application. (In the mentor chat, we did shout out notable applicants for other mentors to consider, but of course everyone has limited time and energy.)
An eye-catching title & logline helps! On the mentor side, we see apps in a notion board, and the group view (where we see all the stories that fit the criteria we’re filtering for) only shows the title, age, genre, and logline for each app.
Polish the query! It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should clearly display the main character, what they want, and what’s in their way. Showing an understanding of industry standards is a bonus; it lets us know you’ve put in the work.
a few reflections
One of my cats decided to lie on my back and I am slowly asphyxiating, so my brain is not working very well. Here is a hodgepodge of reflections in no particular order:
I need to narrow down my wishlist more! Though I opened to YA, I ended up realizing I have become too removed from the genre and annoyed by publishing’s demands on YA fantasy (whyyyy are inciting incidents happening on the first page?!) that I’m not confident my feedback would help more than hinder.
Being chosen or not chosen REALLY is not about how good the book is! Between a polished story that doesn’t need much revision versus one that needs more, I’d chose the one that needs more work—because that’s what I’m there for, to guide a writer through a revision they wouldn’t be able to tackle on their own.
Giving feedback is hard! I understand why agents don’t often give personalized rejections and why so many rejections cite “voice.” A lot of the time it really is just personal preference! Even if it’s not, it takes a lot of thought & time to articulate a feeling of wrongness into constructive criticism and agents have so many queries to read. Also, I wouldn’t want to lob feedback at a writer that could lead to significant revisions unless I’m very, very sure that my opinion is helpful.
It makes sense that agents / editors don’t read every slush pile sample or requested manuscript in full. Beyond time constraints, there’s that thing again. Voice. Industry professionals are experienced enough to know whether a book has that spark of connection early on. Also, if a craft problem is present in the opening pages—which are usually the most polished—these issues are likely to continue through the book.
Hopefully this provides some transparency! The process of reading subs and writing up my mentees’ edit letters has also gotten me into a craft talk kind of mood, so I’m hoping to write more newsletters about writing craft this year. Feel free to comment with ideas, or vote on what you’d like to read about most:
Thank you for this behind the scenes look from the mentor POV!
Thank you so much for sharing this!