Course Sales and Promotions

Enroll in online creative writing courses with Writers.com, and take the next step on your writing journey with support from our award-winning instructors and welcoming community.

You’ll get regular instructor feedback on your work, ongoing collaboration with other committed writers, and a nourishing and supportive course structure.

Learn from published authors who have spent decades perfecting their craft, and are dedicated to supporting you and your work. Don’t miss out: find the online writing course for you today!

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Courses and Workshops on Sale Now:




October Courses

Plot Your Novel with the Three-Act Structure

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October 29 | 6 Weeks | $445$380Save 15%!

The 3 act structure gives us the scaffolding we can hang our stories off of. Come away from this class with a fully plotted novel and a plan to write it.

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The Lyric Essay: Invitation to Play

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October 29 | 10 Weeks | $595$510Save 15%!

Create dynamic, genre-bending works of musical prose in this playful and exploratory lyric essay workshop. 

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November Courses

30 Super-Short True Stories in 30 Days

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November 1 | 4 Weeks | $395$340Save 15%! | NEW!

Write a flash nonfiction piece every day! Sharpen your skills, build momentum, and leave with a stack of pieces to publish, polish, or expand.

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Write into Mystery: Writing Flash Memoir on Wonder and the Unexplained

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November 2 | 4 Weeks | $345$295Save 15%!

We often encounter wonder, mystery, and the unexplained in our everyday lives. Turn those experiences into flash essays in this community-centered course.

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An Insider’s Guide to Publishing

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November 5 | 4 Weeks | $345$295Save 15%! | NEW!

Demystify the publishing process for your novel or memoir. Master book publishing's practical essentials, and come away with a polished query letter and the confidence to move your work into the world.

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Observing What’s Vivid in Prose and Poetry

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November 5 | 4 Weeks | $345$295Save 15%!

Learn how to spotlight beauty through fresh, vivid, and surprising language, in this four week mindfulness writing course.

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Plot Your Novel

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November 5 | 8 Weeks | $545$465Save 15%!

Over eight weeks, you'll develop a solid basis in the fictional elements—protagonist, setting, secondary characters, point of view, plot, and theme—while you develop the outline of your novel. You'll receive feedback at all stages from your fellow writers and your instructor.

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Poetry Workshop: Bring Your Poems to Life

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November 12 | 8 Weeks | $545$465Save 15%!

Join us for this workshop on creating powerful poems—poems that are clear and organized, fresh and moving, full of life.

The Stories of Your Life: Personal Essays and Creative Nonfiction

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November 12 | 10 Weeks | $645$550Save 15%! | NEW!

Discover the unique power of the personal essay to explore your life experience, and come away with a wealth of new writing.

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Tightening the Screws: How to Build Tension in Fiction

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November 12 | 4 weeks | $345$295Save 15%!

Hook your readers! Discover what tension is and how it works to keep readers emotionally invested, and write four tension-filled scenes from a new or existing project.

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Anatomy of a Premise Line: How to Use Story and Premise Development for Writing Success

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November 24 | 5 Weeks | $395$340Save 15%!

The premise line is the only reliable tool that can tell you, BEFORE you start writing, whether or not your story will “work.” In this class participants will learn how to master the process of premise line development—the essential first step in any book or screenplay’s development process.

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December Courses

Show and Tell: How to Write Captivating Memoir and Nonfiction

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December 2 | Single-Day Webinar | $115$100Early Bird: Save 15%!

Your true story of healing or transformation can captivate and empower your readers. Learn how to balance showing the vivid details of your own journey with telling the broader themes for readers to apply in their own lives.

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A Poet’s Calling Card: Writing and Composing a Chapbook

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December 3 | 8 Weeks | $545$465Early Bird: Save 15%!

The poetry chapbook gives poets the chance to make a small, artful collection around a poetic obsession. Learn how to craft yours in this 8 week chapbook intensive.

Dread and Desire: Gothic Fiction Techniques to Lure and Horrify Your Readers

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December 3 | 6 Weeks | $445$380Early Bird: Save 15%!

Learn how to write eerie, haunting moods in this comprehensive course on Gothic writing techniques.

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Flash Fiction: Writing the Short-Short Story

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December 3 | 10 Weeks | $755$645Early Bird: Save 15%!

Write 1–3-page flash fiction in this online course with Barbara Henning, drawing on classic, poetic & experimental elements. Read the form’s masters.

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The Wandering Heart: Tales of Connection

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December 3 | 3 Weeks | $295$255Early Bird: Save 15%!

Wander through the rooms of your own life to discover stories of deep connection, reconnection or loss of connection and fashion your findings into stories suitable for blog posts, essays, short memoirs, short plays, scenes in screenplays, or chapters of novels.

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Move Your Writing Forward: The Art of the Bullet Journal

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December 6 | Single-Day Webinar | $115$100Early Bird: Save 15%!

Want to have a productive new year? Set up your bullet journal in this one day live workshop.

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Find Your Poetic Wellspring: Writing the Poems that Matter

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December 10 | 6 Weeks | $445$380Early Bird: Save 15%! | NEW!

Discover—or rediscover—your poetic vision, and the root of what drives you to write your most powerful poetry.

Poem Revision Intensive for Intermediate to Advanced Poets

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December 10 | 4 weeks | $345$295Early Bird: Save 15%!

Discover crucial craft techniques to refine and evaluate key aspects of your poetry, and develop final, submission-ready versions of a dozen poems.

Sacred Vision: Writing Spiritual Poetry

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December 10 | 4 weeks | $345$295Early Bird: Save 15%! | NEW!

Elevate your writing by developing the transcendent vision of a poet, and produce striking and publication-worthy poems.

Writing Unconventional Women

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December 10 | 8 Weeks | $545$465Early Bird: Save 15%! | NEW!

Move past common tropes to craft unique, fully realized female characters who are true to their own voices and stories.

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Crafting the Poetry Novel for Young Adults

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December 17 | 8 Weeks | $545$465Early Bird: Save 15%!

Even if you’ve never written poetry before, you can begin the rewarding process of crafting a poetry novel for Young Adults. Is there a market for novels written in verse? Are they well received? Yes, there is, and yes, they are!

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Writing Mindfulness: Sensual World/Poetry Mind

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December 17 | 4 Weeks | $345$295Early Bird: Save 15%!

A four-week class, melding the language mind with the sensual: How to turn detailed observation into a poem. With Marc Olmsted.

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January Courses

30 Scenes in 30 Days: A Writer’s Sketchbook

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January 2 | 4 weeks | $395$340Early Bird: Save 15%!

Create your own sketchbook in words. Guided by daily prompts and instructor feedback, write 30 new creations to develop, revise, or simply enjoy.

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From Writing Circles to Poems of Gratitude & Hope for the New Year

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January 2 | 4 Weeks | $345$295Early Bird: Save 15%!

Want to move forward into the new year with gratefulness and clarity for 2026? Join us for 4 weeks of writing about gratitude and hope.

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Late the Sweet Birds Sang: Generative Poetics for Writers in Mid-Life & Beyond

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January 2 | 4 Weeks | $345$295Early Bird: Save 15%! | NEW!

Harness the depth and wisdom of your lived experience in this generative course for poets 45 and older.

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Reignite: 12 Weeks of Creative Self-Discovery

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January 2 | 12 Weeks | $495$425Early Bird: Save 15%!

Ignite your creative spark! Building from the groundbreaking process in The Artist’s Way, we’ll supercharge your creative journey with community support and inspiring writing exercises.

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Thirty Days of Flash Memoir 

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January 2 | 6 Weeks | $395$340Early Bird: Save 15%!

Transform your personal experiences into art. Enjoy inspiration, encouragement, and support as you write flash memoir daily across six weeks.

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Writing the Short Story

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January 2 | 10 Weeks | $645$550Early Bird: Save 15%!

Create new work with fresh language, universal themes, sustained mystery and memorable characters. Stimulate your imagination.

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Creative Nonfiction and the Personal Essay

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January 7 | 10 Weeks | $645$550Early Bird: Save 15%!

Gretchen Clark pick axes her way into the volcanic marriage of real life and fiction. Weekly writing with incisive feedback.

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The First Fifty Pages of the Novel

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January 7 | 10 Weeks | $645$550Early Bird: Save 15%!

The first 50 pages sets up plot, characters, and voice, and it lays the groundwork for your book's overall structure and success. Receive critical, supportive feedback on your book's start from novelist Sandra Novack.

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The Joy of Poetry: A Beginner-Friendly Workshop

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January 7 | 6 Weeks | $445$380Early Bird: Save 15%!

Have you wanted to get into poetry, but don't know where to start? Learn the craft from the Joy of poetry herself in this welcoming workshop.

Write Your Memoir in 16 Weeks: Bring Your Story to Life

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January 7 | 16 Weeks | $995$850Early Bird: Save 15%! | NEW!

Write your memoir in 4 months. Discover the heart of your story, and submit up to 3,000 words each week for feedback.

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I Walk the Line: Lines, Stanzas, and the Music of Poetry

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January 14 | 8 Weeks | $545$465Early Bird: Save 15%! | NEW!

Make your poems sing. Work with sound and words, pacing and stillness, to reach your readers in more meaningful and enduring ways.

In Brief: Explorations in Short Story Forms

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January 14 | 10 Weeks | $645$550Early Bird: Save 15%!

Explore the intricate world of short prose forms. Experiment with story forms from one-syllable micros to full-length short stories, and complete seven new story drafts.

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Publication-Ready Prose Poetry

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January 14 | 6 weeks | $445$380Early Bird: Save 15%!

Elevate your unique voice as a prose poet, and catch the attention of top literary magazines and anthologies. 

True Stories, Well Told: The Art of Essay Writing

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January 14 | 8 Weeks | $545$465Early Bird: Save 15%!

Explore the literary essay - from the conventional to the experimental, the journalistic to essays in verse - while writing and workshopping your own.

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Humor Is The New Black!

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January 21 | 4 Weeks | $345$295Early Bird: Save 15%!

Ready to add a splash of fun to your writing life? Join us for a four-week humor writing class. We’ll read. We’ll laugh. We’ll write. We’ll experiment.

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Poems of All Sizes: Haiku, Tanka, and Japanese Poetic Forms

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January 21 | 3 1-Day Workshops | $345$295Early Bird: Save 15%!

Explore the history and poetics of Japanese poetry forms, and write haiku, tanka, renga, haiga, and linked verse poetry.

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Write Your Picture Book!

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January 21 | 6 Weeks | $445$380Early Bird: Save 15%!

Picture books have changed greatly over the last few decades, and the market is wide open for fresh ideas. Join us in this six-week intensive where we’ll take that idea of yours and turn it into a manuscript!

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Write Your World: Express Your Creativity through Article Writing, Blogging, and Essays

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January 21 | 6 Weeks | $445$380Early Bird: Save 15%!

Want to write your world, your way? Join us for this six-week program on article writing, blogging, and essays.

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Writing the Memoir-in-Essays: 8-Week Workshop

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January 21 | 8 weeks | $595$510Early Bird: Save 15%!

Discover the rich hybrid form of the memoir-in-essays, and write full essays as you move toward a completed manuscript.

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Writing with Consistency and Courage

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January 24 | Single-Day Webinar | $115$100Early Bird: Save 15%!

What makes a successful writer? It's not talent, craft, or even the right connections—it's consistency and courage.

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Finding Freedom in Traditional Poetic Forms: Haibun, Sonnet, Ghazal, and Pantoum

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January 28 | 4 Weeks | $345$295Early Bird: Save 15%! | NEW!

Discover the freedom that emerges from working within—and sometimes breaking—the rules of four timeless poetic forms.

February Courses

The Story of Us: Write Personal Essays on Love and Relationships

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February 4 | 5 Weeks | $395$340Early Bird: Save 15%!

How do you distill the complexity of (modern) love into language? Learn how in this workshop, where you'll transform your lived experience of romance into an essay. 

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Lapses, Flashes, and Fragments: How to Write Through Challenging Memories

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February 11 | 6 weeks | $445$380Early Bird: Save 15%!

Shape your difficult life experiences into a compelling memoir. Discover how to find and share your story's pivotal moments with power and authenticity.

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Opening the Door to Poetry

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February 11 | 8 Weeks | $545$465Early Bird: Save 15%!

How do we use poetry to express life's marvelous complexity? Learn how to control language beyond the "ordinary" and discover the many possibilities of poetry.

Six Flash Essays in Six Weeks

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February 11 | 6 Weeks | $445$380Early Bird: Save 15%!

Tell the stories of your life in 1,000 words or less in this generative flash essay workshop.

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The Checklist: Perfect Your Novel’s Opening Pages

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February 11 | 4 Weeks | $345$295Early Bird: Save 15%!

Nail your opening pages! Apply the 11 core elements your novel opening must get right, and hook readers and agents into your story.

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The Watching Eye/Thinking Mind: Writing Flash Fiction

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February 11 | 10 Weeks | $755$645Early Bird: Save 15%!

In this ten-week workshop with poet and novelist Barbara Henning, write tiny fictions while experimenting with first and third person points of view and analyzing how point of view affects the craft of fiction writing. Barbara will provide practical instruction and assignments, suggestions for revision, and lectures and and articles.

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From Memory: Writing Fiction or Memoir from Lived Experience

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February 18 | 6 Weeks | $445$380Early Bird: Save 15%!

In this course, you'll use a nearly infinite resource—your own memory—to craft compelling fiction or nonfiction stories.

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Good on a Sentence Level

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February 22 | 1-day Workshop | $115$100Early Bird: Save 15%!

Discover the art of the finely crafted sentence, and transform good writing into great writing.

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March Courses

Shape Your Stories: Write Five Styles of the Personal Essay

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March 5 | 6 Weeks | $445$380Early Bird: Save 15%!

Craft powerful nonfiction essays! By exploring five exciting essay forms, you'll learn to bring the stories of your life alive on the page. 

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About Our Online Writing Courses

We've been offering writing classes online since 1995 to all kinds of students. Whether you're completely new to the Internet (back then, everyone was) or more experienced learning online, our writing courses will be a great fit for you.

Online Course Platform

We offer our classes through an online course platform called Wet Ink. It's designed to be simple and usable for people without a technical background. You'll be sent instructions for joining your class in Wet Ink on the day it begins.

Weekly Assignments

Most classes are structured around weekly assignments: once each week, the teacher emails or posts a lecture to the list that includes a writing assignment, and the students complete the assignment and send it to the list. This means that the teacher and all students in the class see all completed assignments.

The instructor writes his or her feedback on the assignment and sends it back to the list, and students are encouraged to offer feedback on each others' work.

Additionally, some classes are set up as workshops, and are organized around feedback on student manuscripts.

There are no specific times that you must be online. This allows you to work on the class material at your convenience: it's the ideal way to take a class.

Class Discussion and Connection

The list also hosts class discussions about lessons, assignments, and writing in general. The more interaction among students, the more valuable and enjoyable the class. We offer guidelines to keep dialogue supportive and beneficial, and no negative or abusive behavior is allowed.

Writing can be a lonely pursuit, and it's often difficult for writers to make contact with each other. Part of our reason for being here is to change that. We encourage class members to develop ongoing correspondence in which they can share their work. Often a sense of community forms, and some groups have continued to work together long after the class is over.

With the odd "anonymous intimacy" of the Internet, it's easier to take chances in your writing, and to be honest and thoughtful in your criticism of others' writing. First-time students in our online writing courses are often surprised how much they learn, and how much they enjoy the experience.

If you have further questions, browse the Writers.com FAQ.

Our Online Writing Class Format in Detail

Most of our courses take place on an online learning platform called Wet Ink. We also offer some workshop-style courses through Zoom, which will be clearly marked in the course description. The details below are for our Wet Ink-based courses.

When you enroll in one of our online writing classes, we'll send an email confirming your participation. On the start date of the workshop, your instructor will send a welcome letter explaining how to access the Wet Ink classroom.

You'll access the entire course within Wet Ink, including:

  • Reading lectures
  • Starting or joining discussions
  • Submitting assignments each week
  • Commenting on other students’ work
  • Receiving direct weekly feedback on your work from the instructor

When the course wraps up, we’ll send you a questionnaire about your experience in the course.

You won't need to be online at a particular time or day. In general, you should plan to check in with the course at least a few times each week.

Thousands of our alumni have returned to study with us again, and some have been with us since the beginning in 1995. We hope you’ll become part of the Writers.com community, too.

Questions about our online writing courses, our community, or anything else? Email us at writers@writers.com, please!

What Sets Our Online Writing Courses Apart

At Writers.com, we have 25 years of experience offering the best writing classes online. Many elements set our courses apart:

  • Our instructors are gifted, experienced teachers who are writers themselves. They also care about their students and the progress they make. Any good "school" or workshop can teach you the craft of writing; we offer personal attention and inspiration as well.
  • Each instructor develops his or her own courses. Unlike other online writing schools, we have no prepared, prepackaged classes randomly taught by just anyone who has the time to teach it. You know exactly who your teacher will be before you ever register, and you'll receive feedback from that teacher on your writing.
  • We accept a maximum of 12 students per class in most classes. You will never be a face in the crowd in a Writers.com class.
  • We take your work seriously, but we also have fun. Some of our classes are rigorous and intense. If you want to be a professional writer, you need a tough, but supportive, environment. We have that. But we also offer other classes that are a chance to experiment, learn for the sheer joy of learning, explore new ideas, and discover new pathways.
  • Our classes fit into your daily life – no matter what time zone you are in.
  • If you are able to visit websites, you can participate fully in our classes. The course software is simple to learn and designed for learners of all kinds across the globe.
  • Writers.com is operated by a small, dedicated staff of human beings who genuinely want to help you meet your writing goals. Having a technical problem, or finding that a course isn't the right fit for you? Contact us and we'll work it out, person-to-person.

Join one of our writing courses, and experience the Writers.com difference for yourself!