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!
Courses and Workshops on Sale Now:
August Courses
Poetry Workshop: Bring Your Poems to Life
with Rosemary Tantra Bensko
Join us for this workshop on creating powerful poems—poems that are clear and organized, fresh and moving, full of life.
Write Your Picture Book!
with Kelly Bingham
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!
Radical Revision: Get Your Poems Published
with Caitlin Scarano
Radically reimagine your poems, by transforming your revision process. Ideal for poets working toward publication.
Nurse Logs: Growing Your Creative Obsessions from Poem to Poem
with Megan Alpert
Find the taproot of your deepest creative fascinations to nurture a body of new poems.
Here, There, and Everywhere: Writing Poetry Through the Senses
with Alexander Shalom Joseph
Craft immersive, emotionally resonant poetry by tuning into the richness of your sensory experience.
Showing vs. Telling: Writing Vivid Descriptions
with Janée Baugher
Learn to render sensory experiences as compelling imagery, transforming general or abstract writing into prose that feels specific, concrete, and alive.
Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, Memoir, Novel, Personal Essay, Poetry, Short Story
Six Flash Essays in Six Weeks
with Rudri Patel
Tell the stories of your life in 1,000 words or less in this generative flash essay workshop.
September Courses
Creative Mindset for Storytellers
with Elle LaMarca
Meet yourself as a writer, learn how to work with resistance and challenges, and gain the confidence to tell your most vital stories.
Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, Lifestyle and Wellness, Memoir, Novel, Personal Essay, Short Story
Plot Your Novel with the Three-Act Structure
with Denise Santomauro
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.
The Craft of Poetry
with Jonathan J.G. McClure
Poetry is alive and well. Contemporary poets can be touching, terrifying, and laugh-out-loud funny. Join us for an exploration of writing and reading poems.
The Hybrid Memoir
with Sarah Rose Nordgren
Bridge your life’s stories with other creative forms, and write memoir that is more layered, more surprising, and more deeply meaningful.
Tragedy + Time: How to Make the Heavy Stuff Light on the Page
with Tawny Lara
Shape the hard stuff into personal writing that crackles with clarity, voice, perspective, and… humor?
In Focus: Writing Short Stories
with Elwin Cotman
Discover the power and impact of the short story form. Explore new ideas freely and begin up to 6 new short stories.
Where the Diary Ends and the Essay Begins
with Shelby Hinte
Start a diary practice and turn it into a mode of writing personal essays in this generative journaling workshop.
Writing Autobiographical Fiction
with Jack Smith
Learn to depart from "what really happened," and write compelling fiction from your own life experiences.
Flash Fiction: The Art of Compression
with Alexander Shalom Joseph
Discover how compression transforms narrative, write with precision, and come away with a portfolio of new flash pieces of all sizes.
Long Story Short: Compressing Life into Meaningful Micro Memoirs
with Gretchen Clark
Distill the spirit of your story in fewer than 500 words. Learn to craft compelling short nonfiction, and write and revise five new pieces of micro memoir.
Surprise! in Poetry: Building Oomph into your Practice
with L.J. Sysko
Explore the power of surprise in poetry, and write new poems that gleam with the unexpected.
Anatomy of a Premise Line: How to Use Story and Premise Development for Writing Success
with Jeff Lyons
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.
Life Writing: Explore Your Lived Experience in Prose
with Kate Potts
Discover how to translate your lived experiences into writing that resonates beyond the self, and create a wealth of new writing.
Warp and Weft: Weaving Free Verse Poetry from Life
with Anna Scotti
Weave everyday events into deftly-written free verse poems in this generative, creativity-centered poetry workshop.
October Courses
Writing the Memoir-in-Essays
with Margo Steines
Learn how to tell your story through the memoir-in-essays, a form that allows writers to interweave the facts of their lives in interesting and evocative ways.
A Poet’s Calling Card: Writing and Composing a Chapbook
with Caitlin Scarano
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
with Briana Una McGuckin
Learn how to write eerie, haunting moods in this comprehensive course on Gothic writing techniques.
Crafting the Poetry Novel for Young Adults
with Kelly Bingham
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!
Death Riding Shotgun: How Awareness of Our Mortality Impacts Poetry
with Lisa C. Taylor
How can your own mortality inform your work? In this 6-week course, you'll use death to inspire and motivate your poetry writing.
Roads to Revelation: Write 6 Essays in 6 Weeks
with Colin Corrigan
Explore diverse approaches to essay writing, hone your voice, and develop moments from your life into six brand-new essays.
From Writing Circle to Poems of Kindness, Wonder, Connection & Joy
with Susan Vespoli
Explore the power of joy, kindness, and community in this four week poetry workshop.
Opening the Door to Poetry
with Jude Nutter
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.
Story Lab: The Story-Subplot Connection
with Jeff Lyons
Subplots are key to maintaining narrative pace and tension in a story. Drive your story forward with this deep dive into the elements of good storytelling.
The Body and Soul of Your Memoir: Shape, Focus, and Write Your Memoir
with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Unearth your memoir's soul (its main focus and calling) and body (its organization and structure) as you write toward a completed draft.
Tales From The Memory Palace: 6 to 250 Word Memoirs
with Giulietta Nardone
If you want to be an in demand storyteller in the digital age, you need to get in, get out and get going. In this "short" four-week memoir writing adventure, you'll learn to scope out, swoop down and snatch up important memories from your life then speed write them into miniature masterpieces.
Writing to Heal: Exploring Trauma and Truth on the Page
with Laura Cathcart Robbins
Discover how writing can help us heal. We'll explore personal storytelling to make sense of difficult experiences, and find the seeds of meaning and connection within them.
Creative Nonfiction, Lifestyle and Wellness, Memoir, Personal Essay
November Courses
Plumbing the Past: Turning Life Experience into Poetry, Flash and Creative Non-Fiction
with Tina Barry
Dig deep into personal ritual while studying narrative poets, short fiction and non-fiction authors, and food writers.
The Healing Power of Poetry
with Joy Roulier Sawyer
Poetry heals. Journey alongside several poets whose works resonate with a variety of healing themes, and learn how to use craft elements as healing tools.
Poetic Prose & the Prose Poem
with Barbara Henning
Explore the border between prose poetry and flash fiction. For writers of fiction, poetry, essay and memoir.
January Courses
30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing Japanese Poetic Forms
with Miho Kinnas
Enjoy a month of creativity, and develop a unique collection of new poetry, by immersing yourself in Japanese poetic forms.
I Walk the Line: Lines, Stanzas, and the Music of Poetry
with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Make your poems sing. Work with sound and words, pacing and stillness, to reach your readers in more meaningful and enduring ways.
Mastering the Manuscript: Completing a Full-Length Poetry Manuscript (from Start to Finish)
with Ollie Schminkey
In this generative course, you'll write the bulk of the poems you'll use in your full-length manuscript, and learn how to structure them into a collection.
The Watching Eye/Thinking Mind: Writing Flash Fiction
with Barbara Henning
In this eight-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.
February Courses
The Magic of Flash Nonfiction
with Tamara Dean
Tell your stories quickly and stylishly in this short form creative nonfiction workshop, where you'll come away honing the magic of flash nonfiction.
Crafting Poems in Form: Rhyme, Meter, Fixed Forms, and More
with Jonathan J.G. McClure
Working within the guidelines of a fixed poetic structure can make your poetry more creative, not less. Find freedom in form in this 8 week workshop.
Write Your Novel in 16 Weeks!
with Briana Una McGuckin
In this generative novel writing course, we'll go from writing a strong beginning to writing "The End" on your novel's first draft.
Writing with Consistency and Courage
with Tamara Dean
What makes a successful writer? It's not talent, craft, or even the right connections—it's consistency and courage.
Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, Lifestyle and Wellness, Live Workshop, Memoir, Novel, Personal Essay, Poetry, Short Story
From Memory: Writing Fiction or Memoir from Lived Experience
with Chin-Sun Lee
In this course, you'll use a nearly infinite resource—your own memory—to craft compelling fiction or nonfiction stories.
Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, Memoir, Novel, Personal Essay, Short Story
April Courses
30 Poems in 30 Days
with Ollie Schminkey
This National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo), build community and get feedback on your work while writing a poem every day.
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!













































