The Australian Haiku Society (AHS) is excited to be offering three mentorships as a trial programme from September this year. This is a new initiative of the AHS and the trial will help us to develop an even more substantial mentorship programme in the future.
- The trial mentorships are aimed at Australian-resident novices and less-experienced haiku poets, to develop their haiku further and learn more about haiku — in particular, contemporary English Language Haiku.
- Priority will be given to poets who don’t have easy access to haiku communities, such as those living in rural and regional areas.
- We are offering each mentee six sessions of up to 1 hour duration with a single mentor during the trial period of September to December 2025. It may be possible to extend a mentorship by mutual agreement with your mentor at the conclusion of the trial period.
- We anticipate that the mentorships will primarily be conducted by video calls, email exchanges or by other means by mutual agreement between mentor and mentee.
- Mentees will need to commit to the process and submit draft poems in good time for discussion at each meeting after the first introductory meeting.
Unfortunately, we only have capacity for three mentees at this stage. As this is a trial, successful applicants will need to provide timely and constructive feedback to help shape future offerings.
Interested Australian-resident poets will need to complete the application form and submit it by Tuesday 9th September 2025, 8am AEST. There is no cost involved. (Applications have now closed.)
The three available mentors are:
Maureen Sexton
Maureen lives in Perth, Western Australia on Whadjuk Noongar land. She began her love affair with haiku over 25 years ago, and completed an intense mentorship with Australian haiku pioneer John Bird in 2007. She founded the West Australian Paperbark Haiku Group (previously Mari Warabiny) and co-founded Creatrix Haiku Journal (online). Her haiku has been published in national and international journals and anthologies. She co-administers the Australian Haiku Society Facebook group page and finds haiku writing to be particularly meditative, healing and inspiring, and a way of keeping herself calm and in the ‘now’. She also enjoys incorporating her art and photography into the creation of haiga.
Rob Scott
Rob Scott has been writing haiku for nearly 30 years. He has published two major collections, and his poems have appeared in journals and anthologies around the world. In 2014, Rob completed his Master’s thesis entitled The History of Australian Haiku and the Emergence of a Local Accent, presenting a paper on his findings at the Second International Haiku Conference (2015) in Krakow, entitled Australian Haiku—Is it a Thing? He recently co-edited ‘Under the Same Moon’, the Fourth Australian Haiku Anthology. He currently lives in Melbourne and is the convenor of the Fringe Myrtles haiku group.
Leanne Mumford
Since 2012 more than 250 of Leanne’s haiku have been published in various Australian and international journals and anthologies. Her haiku ‘wind song’ won a Touchstone Award for Individual Poems 2019. A keen traveller, Leanne’s haiku often reveal a strong sense of place. Aided by her interest in landscape photography, nature observation is a strong theme of Leanne’s haiku output. Her mentee will benefit from Leanne’s firm grounding in contemporary English-language haiku topics through her involvement with organising Haiku Down under in 2022 and 2024, moderating at Inkstone Poetry Forum and roles in AHS. https://lemumford.id.au/
Australian Haiku Society 