Help

Book a free one-to-one online meeting with a Royal Literary Fund (RLF) Writing Fellow to get help and advice to develop your writing.

Each session lasts 50 minutes, and you’ll need to be a registered Reader based in the UK to take part.

RLF Fellows are professional writers, who will be in touch ahead of your session to find out more about your enquiry. They may ask you to send a short sample of your writing before you meet.

The sessions are advisory, designed to help you develop your writing and editing skills; the Fellows won’t be proofreading or copy-editing your work.

You can book your appointment using the links below. These links take you to the RLF’s booking system, which is different to your British Library Online Account. You will be emailed a joining link ahead of your appointment. 

New appointments become available every week on a rolling basis, so please check back if you can’t book right away.

Martyn Crucefix, poet, reviewer and blogger
Appointments take place on Mondays
Book now 

Simon Booker, author and screenwriter
Appointments take place on Tuesdays
Book now

The RLF Fellowship scheme

Launched in 1999, the RLF Fellowship scheme was set up originally to place established writers in universities and colleges throughout Britain with the aim of fostering good writing practice across all disciplines and media. Prior to lockdown, the Fellows offered sessions in the Humanities 1 Reading Room of the British Library; we are now able to offer the service online. Whatever you’re writing – whether fiction or non-fiction, poetry or prose, biography or memoir, an academic thesis or something more personal – as long as you hold a British Library Reader Pass, and are in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man, you’re welcome to approach the Fellows for advice on any aspect of your writing craft.  

Martyn Crucefix

Martyn Crucefix is a poet, reviewer and blogger. He has published 12 original collections, most recently Cargo of Limbs (Hercules Editions, 2019; photographs by Amel Alzakout), a powerful re-purposing of lines from Virgil’s Aeneid, exploring the plight of refugees in the Mediterranean. O. at the Edge of the Gorge, a crown of sonnets evoking the ancient and modern landscapes of Italy (illustrated by Phyllida Bluemel) is published by Guillemot Press. The Lovely Disciplines (Seren Books) was published in 2017. Martyn has won prizes in many competitions, an Eric Gregory award and a Hawthornden Fellowship. He works as a tutor with the Poetry School and has sat on the Poetry Society’s General Council.

Martyn has also developed a career as a translator of poetry. Most recently, These Numbered Days, a translation of the work of Peter Huchel, originally written in the German Democratic Republic during the 1960/70s, was awarded the 2020 Schlegel-Tieck Translation prize and is published by Shearsman Books. His translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies (Enitharmon) was shortlisted for the Popescu Prize in 2007. His version of the ancient Chinese philosophical classic, the Dao De Jing, was published in 2016.

Complementing his writing, Martyn has worked successfully as a teacher of GCSE and A level English, for fifteen years as Head of Department. The challenges and anxieties of putting pen to paper in an academic environment are problems he well understands and, drawing on his experience, he is adept at finding solutions.

Simon Booker

Author and screenwriter Simon Booker writes novels and prime time TV drama for the BBC, ITV and US TV. His latest book, Three’s A Crowd, asks the question: ‘What happens when an estranged father and son unwittingly fall in love with the same woman?’ Without Trace was published by Bonnier Zaffre in 2016 and is the first in a series of psychological thrillers featuring Morgan Vine, a single mother and investigative journalist obsessed with miscarriages of justice. Kill Me Twice (Bonnier Zaffre, 2017) is the second in the series.

Simon’s recent credits also include Animal Instinct, a 2018 Audible Original audio drama starring Brendan Coyle (Downton Abbey). The e-book is published simultaneously by Canelo.

Simon’s TV credits include BBC1’s Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Holby City and The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries starring Diana Rigg and Neil Dudgeon; ITV thrillers The Stepfather and The Blind Date; and Perfect Strangers, the CBS romantic comedy starring Rob Lowe and Anna Friel. He has written many plays for BBC Radio 4, worked extensively as a producer in television and radio and as a journalist.