Mentor of the Year Award

HWA’s Mentor Program is available to all members of the organization. This popular program pairs a newer writer with an established professional for an intensive four-month long partnership. For new writers, the Program offers mentees a personal, one-on-one experience with a professional writer, tailor-made to help them grow in their writing and teach them how to better market their work. For experienced writers, the Program allows mentors a chance to pay forward the experience and encouragement other writers gave them when they were starting out. In addition, there is the added benefit of growing as a writer oneself through the act of teaching others. In short, the Program benefits all who participate, regardless of their roles.

Inaugurated in 2014, the Mentor of the Year Award recognizes one mentor in the Mentor Program who has done an outstanding job of helping newer writers. The award is chosen by the current chair of the Mentor Program.

Past Recipients:

2022 – Dave Jeffery
2021 – Michael Knost
2020 – Angela Yuriko Smith
2019 – Lee Murray
2018 – JG Faherty
2017 – Angel Leigh McCoy
2016 – Linda Addison
2015 – Tim Waggoner
2014 – Kathryn Ptacek