Enroll in a Writers.com online personal essay writing course, and explore this direct, flexible, and intimate form of literary expression.
You’ll get weekly instructor feedback on your work, ongoing collaboration with other personal essay writers, and a supportive course structure that will help you deepen and grow as an essayist.
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 personal essay writing class for you today!
Upcoming Online Personal Essay Writing Courses
January
Writing Autobiographical Fiction With January 13, 2021 $315 | 8 Weeks Learn to depart from “what really happened,” and write compelling fiction from your own life experiences. |
Creative Nonfiction and the Personal Essay With January 20, 2021 $360 | 10 Weeks Gretchen Clark pick axes her way into the volcanic marriage of real life and fiction. Weekly writing with incisive feedback. |
In Your Own Words: Transforming Life Into Memoir and Fiction With January 27, 2021 $350 | 8 Weeks Learn how to draw inspiration and material from your life experiences or those of people you know, or want to know, to craft compelling, publishable memoirs, personal essays, autobiographical novels and short stories, and/or narrative poetry. |
February
Creating the Visual Journal With February 3, 2021 $315 | 8 Weeks Go beyond narrow definitions of “journaling” to include visual images and let writing give what is seen a new voice. Surprise yourself. |
Next-Level Creative Nonfiction: Elevating Essays, Memoir, Travel Writing & Literary Journalism With February 10, 2021 $360 | 10 Weeks Elevate your memoir, travel writing, literary journalism, & lyric and personal essays. |
March
Plumbing the Past: Turning Life Experience into Poetry, Flash and Creative Non-Fiction With March 10, 2021 $250 | 4 Weeks Dig deep into personal ritual while studying narrative poets, short fiction and non-fiction authors, and food writers. |
Let’s Get Personal: The Art and Craft of the Personal Essay With March 17, 2021 $350 | 8 Weeks Draw inspiration and material from your life experiences or “real life” people you know to craft compelling, publishable personal essays. With author Margo Perin. |
May
From Journal To Poem Or Prose: The Chronology Of Mind With May 12, 2021 $430 | 10 weeks Gather material through writing and experimenting with journaling, researching and taking notes to develop into poems or prose works. |
Unscheduled Online Personal Essay Writing Classes
Browse our full personal essay offerings below. Let us know which personal essay writing courses you're interested in, and we'll contact you with dates when we're ready to put them on our calendar.
Banish writer’s block, unearth fresh ideas, and sharpen your storytelling ability with the practice of fast, timed writing.
Take a four-week writing adventure deep into the core of your story, to find the true theme of your personal essay, short story, or short memoir.
Turn your experience into fiction, autobiography, or creative memoir. Bring forward stories with a powerful truth at their core. Instructor Anya Achtenberg.
For writers of memoir, creative nonfiction and fiction, with some experience. Particularly helpful to writers in the midst of a longer work.
Make science come alive through storytelling. Write about any area of science, nature and the environment or health and medicine.
Fiction or nonfiction? Article, short story, or how-to book? Do you want to write for children, teens, adults? There is a type of writing that is best suited for you, and the discovery process can be an adventure.
Have a grand time with specific physical exercises that honor your health, generate imaginative ideas, explore deeply and make your creative writing entertaining.
Have a grand time with specific physical exercises that honor your health, generate imaginative ideas, explore deeply and make your creative writing entertaining.
Can you translate the movement of a dance into a poem? What happens when you write a story in the form of a multiple-choice quiz? Learn to take your work in rich and unexpected new directions by subverting and blending genre conventions.
Do you collect cookbooks, love to cook, or religiously read anything about food? This course is for you. With award winning writer Jennifer Billock.
Create your blog, brand it, create engaging content and successfully promote posts. Taught by journalist, writer and photographer Jessica Festa.
From branding to search engine optimization and advertising, this course puts bloggers on the path to earning an income through their blog.
Join us for this insightful four-week “get the writing done” program, give and receive thoughtful comments from your fellow writers and the instructor, and enjoy heaps of encouragement and writing wisdom along the way.
No experience is too small or mundane to serve as a foundation for extraordinary poetry and short fiction.
“Who are you to want to write?” Someone great, that’s who! Politely ask Mr. or Ms. Fear to step aside while you sign up for this fun, freeing and functional adventure.
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.
As a prison volunteer for 20 years, Gloria Kempton has met many anti-heroes. In this course, you’ll receive feedback on your story antagonists.
Explore the literary essay – from the conventional to the experimental, the journalistic to essays in verse – while writing and workshopping your own.
Explore non-traditional and imaginative ways to tell your stories with this ten-week writing course online. Creative nonfiction teacher Gretchen Clark provides detailed feedback on weekly writing assignments that emphasize creative freedom.
For any writer wanting to root writing in vision and vision in the body: for poetry, fiction, essay, memoir & pleasure.
Join Susan in two writing circles each week: intimate spaces for writers to free-write together, saying yes to whatever shows up, followed by group read-arounds. These writing sessions are spontaneous, intimate, freeing, and transformative.
Expressive writing can be a powerful elixir for what ails you. Learn and practice tools for writing expressively, including two virtual writing circles each week, turn raw writing into poetry or prose, and come away with a better understanding of how writing can lead toward wellness.
Articles on Personal Essay Writing
Why Take an Online Personal Essay Writing Course with Writers.com?
- We welcome writers of all backgrounds and experience levels, and we are here for one reason: to support you on your writing journey.
- Small groups keep our online personal essay writing classes lively and intimate.
- Work through your weekly written lectures, course materials, and writing assignments at your own pace.
- Share and discuss your work with classmates in a supportive class environment.
- Your course instructor will offer you direct, personal feedback and suggestions on every assignment you submit.