Two Days Left to Apply for an ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorships

Recently, ALTA announced a new mentorship program to support emerging young translators working in Catalan, French, and Polish. This program—which is sort of like the one that BCLT does in Britain—provides emerging translators with the opportunity to work one-on-one with an already established translator over the course of a year. It’s probably the best possible way to improve your skills, especially when the three translators doing this are Ronald Puppo (Catalan), Alyson Waters (French), and Bill Johnston (Polish).

So, if you’re a young translator working in one of these languages, you should definitely apply by the July 15th deadline.

Here’s a link to the page where you can apply and get some additional information. And here’s some of the specifics of how the mentorship will work:

The ALTA Mentorship Program is designed to facilitate and establish a close working relationship between an experienced translator and an emerging translator on a project selected by the emerging translator. The mentorship duration is one year, and the emerging translator is expected to choose a project that can be completed in a year’s time and will only be advised on that particular project.

The mentor and mentee will meet at the beginning of their mentorship at the annual ALTA conference, and continue their work during the rest of the mentorship year, either in person, over Skype, or by phone as appropriate. A minimum of six meetings is expected for the course of the year. The mentorship will conclude with a presentation of the mentee’s work at the next annual ALTA conference. A number of magazine editors have agreed to review submissions directly from mentees at the end of their mentorship year, and to work with them on potential future projects. The award covers travel to the ALTA conference at the beginning of the mentorship.