2026 ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship Program Open for Applications
September 2, 2025—The American Literary Translators Association is delighted to announce that the 2026 Emerging Translator Mentorship Program submission portals are open!
The ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship Program is designed to establish and facilitate 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. The emerging translator is expected to choose a project that can be completed in that time, and they will only be advised on that particular project. ALTA’s Emerging Translator Mentorship Program was founded by former ALTA Board member Allison M. Charette. Since its inception, the program has supported over 90 translators working from over 30 languages.
All mentors and mentees meet via video conference at the beginning of their mentorship in February, and continue their work through individual meetings either in person, over Zoom, or by phone. A minimum of six meetings is expected during the first nine months of the mentorship. The mentorship will feature a presentation of the mentee’s work in a reading at the annual ALTA conference in the fall and conclude with the opportunity to submit work to our “First Look” program for possible publication.
For more information, please see our website for details, along with introductions to former mentees and their accomplishments.
The following 13 mentorships are available in 2026:
- Children’s Literature from a South Asian Language with Lawrence Schimel
- Korean Prose with Janet Hong
- Korean Poetry with Jack Jung
- Japanese with Takami Nieda
- Kannada with Deepa Bhasthi
- Literature from Taiwan with Lin King
- Malayalam with Jayasree Kalathil
- Marathi with Sachin Ketkar
- Polish with Bill Johnston
- Sinhala with Liyanage Amarakeerthi
- Swedish with Rachel Willson-Broyles
- Poetry from Hong Kong with Jennifer Feeley
- Prose from Hong Kong with Jacqueline Leung
Read about the 2026 mentors on our website.
The mentorships are offered by ALTA in partnership with the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, the Polish Cultural Institute New York, the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Global, the South Asian Literature in Translation (SALT) Project, the Swedish Arts Council, the Taiwan Academy of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, and the Yanai Initiative.
Applications must be submitted online through our submission platform by November 30, 2025 at 11:59pm PT. View ALTA’s Submittable page for application instructions.
For further information on eligibility requirements, visit our website (information on the mentorships is at the bottom of the page).
The timeline for the 2026 Mentorship Program is:
- September 2, 2025: Submissions open
- November 30, 2025: Submissions close
- Late January, 2026: Selected mentees notified
- Early February, 2026: Selected mentees announced
- Early February, 2026: Mentorship Program begins with a virtual meeting
- Fall 2026: Mentorship reading at ALTA49 conference (October 21-24, 2026 in Portland, Oregon)
- December 2026-January 2027: First Look Program
Please see our website for information about how to apply to the program, and direct any questions to ALTA Senior Program Director Kelsi Vanada at Requires JavaScript.
