6 weeks: Jan 2 - Feb 12

Face Your Fears: Women Writers Anonymous is a 6-week online creative nonfiction class in which all of the participants are anonymous (with the exception of the instructor). Students will face the stories and situations in their lives that they swore they would NEVER write about, and then not only write them, but also receive feedback based on craft, not content. By the end of the class, students will have a complete draft of their brave essay, as well as the knowledge and skills to help them revise a personal essay in a more objective way.

6 weeks: Jan 8 - Feb 18

Writers often have trouble leading readers from scene to scene smoothly when it requires a change in time or space, large and small. This class will concentrate on learning how to make those transitions in ways that do not jar readers but keep them engaged and well-grounded in essays, poems or stories. Led by Sheila Bender!

3 weeks: Jan 9 - Jan 29

Do you love writing personal essays? Are you looking for personal feedback on your essays? Have you already taken a “how to” class on personal essays and want to start producing more pieces for submission? This class is for you! The value of this class comes with working one-on-one with the instructor on your individual essay(s). For each of the 3 weeks, you submit a new (or revised) essay (500-1,000 words) or re-submit an essay you’ve revised. At the end of three weeks, you will have at least one completed essay ready to go out on submission. Led by editor Kandace Chapple!

4 weeks: Jan 9 - Jan 29

Sports and writing are activities many people do for pleasure or self-fulfillment, but these are also rich areas of personal learning and potential social change. This course is designed to give participants space to write and reflect on their fitness and sports careers, lives, and bodies, and then discuss how sharing these personal stories can create social change. Participants will have access to short lessons, readings, and discussion boards each week, and have the option to submit up to 800 words per week for instructor critique. By the end of the course, participants will have a short piece of writing to share with a broader audience. Led by Dr. Anne Greenawalt, editor-in-chief of Sport Stories Press!

6 weeks: Jan 10 - Feb 20

Have you always wanted to write a novel but don’t know where to start? This class is aimed at writers of all levels who want to deepen their understanding of plot, narratives, and structures. Through a range of lectures, masterclasses, live Q&A sessions, and structural analyses, students will learn a number of different narrative structures, experiment with new frameworks, and understand which methods work best for them as a writer. Led by award-winning author Madeline Dyer.

8 weeks: Jan 10 - Mar 6

Have you always wanted to write a YA dystopian novel but need help fine-tuning your idea? Got an idea for a YA dystopian novel, but have no idea where to start with the actual writing of your book? In this eight-week course dystopian novelist Madeline Dyer will take you through the steps involved in crafting a dystopian novel. Each week will focus on a different aspect of writing the dystopian novel, and you’ll be provided with learning materials such as lectures, excerpts, links, and more, all of which you can access in your own time within that week. Every week also contains an assignment where you’ll get individual feedback from Madeline, including chapter critiques.

4 weeks: Jan 9 - Jan 29

Students learn unique and creative ways to fit writing time into their busy lives, including how to set achievable writing goals, how to create a Writing Action Plan, and how to manage distractions and interruptions. By Kelly L. Stone, author of Time to Write: Professional Writers Reveal How to Fit Writing Into Your Busy Life, Thinking Write: The Secret to Freeing Your Creative Mind, and Living Write: The Secret to Inviting Your Craft Into Your Daily Life.

3 weeks: Feb 6 - Feb 26

Have you ever wanted to see your essay in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book? (Who hasn’t!) It might be their book on dogs, angels, grandmas, kids or cats... Chicken Soup for the Soul always has a rotating list of themes for their next book – and your essay could be included! In this class, we will talk about guidelines, tone and voice, and students will write essays to submit to Chicken Soup’s latest upcoming themes (they have several themes with a submission deadline coming up – a perfect time to take this class and work toward a deadline.) It’s time to go for it!

5 weeks: Feb 10 - March 10

Have a favorite historical era? Love to research and read and write about different time periods or future worlds? Both historical fiction and time-travel stories keep pages turning by exploring worlds unlike our own. At the same time, these stories resonate with timeless characterizations that underscore the deeper struggles and joys of being human in any era. As Guy Vanderhaeghe has said, “History tells us what people do; historical fiction helps us imagine how they felt.” In this five-week class, we’ll discover the exciting diversity of settings, characterizations, and genres that encompass both historical fiction and time-travel/sci-fi/fantasy narratives.

6 weeks: Feb 20 - Apr 2

You’ve heard “show don’t tell” over and over and still writing group members, instructors and editors ask again for details that appeal to the senses, details that allow the reader to live the experience you are writing. Why as writers do we forget to provide the images and specifics and instead write broadly and bump the reader out of the experience they are having? Let’s find the answer and what to do about it for producing evocative, compelling writing. Led by Sheila Bender!

4 weeks: Feb 27 - Mar 26

Writing Is Revising: How to Become a Better Editor is a 4-week online class in which participants will learn and practice different skills, tips, tricks, and perspectives on the process of revising—which isn’t just about commas and grammar rules you learned (and promptly forgot) way back when. Making revisions is its own type of creative process and it’s where the real writing happens. Anyone can write, but the key to being a successful writer, is being a great editor of your own work. Whether publication is your main goal, or perhaps it’s just figuring out how to best convey what goes on inside your head, editing is what separates piles of word vomit from well-polished (and published!) tidy lines of words.

12 weeks: Feb 28 - May 22

This 12-week course introduces students to storytelling in all its forms, examining flash fiction, short stories, novels, poetry, screenplays, personal essays, and memoirs. Each week includes an assignment, and across the course, students will write in each of these forms. Personalised feedback from the instructor will be provided on every assignment. We also have a total of three weeks across the course dedicated to learning the universal elements of story and writing craft, and the final week allows students to specialise in a chosen form and further develop a piece of their writing. At the end of this course, students will have produced a portfolio of various forms.

4 weeks: Apr 10 - May 7

The body is an unavoidable fact of our lives. As writers, we also know that the need to write is also an unavoidable fact of our lives. In this four-week class, students will read a variety of authors to explore the different ways that the body can be a part of our writing. Participants will be provided with 2-3 essays to read every week that will get us to explore different narrative structures. We'll also look at a number of craft techniques such as juxtaposition, tone, use of metaphor, integrating research, and gestures that can all influence the essay in subtle, yet very significant ways. The goal of this workshop is to discover how the way we decide to tell a story is just as important as the story itself. Led by Chelsey Clammer!

The writer Brenda Miller coined the term Hermit Crab essay to suggest that non-fiction writing can be structured by borrowing a form we are familiar with from other writings that are not considered essays: prayers, bus schedules, recipes, how-to manuals or tv scripts to name a few possibilities. The idea is that by borrowing the structure (braiding, collaging, poetic language in related novel essay forms) and filling it with what we want to evoke about our personal experience we come upon surprises we might not have found otherwise. In this course, we will read a variety of essays and participants will write one of their own each week for response from the instructor and classmates.

4 weeks, multiple dates

Nonfiction for children and teens lines the bookshelves of libraries and bookstores, fills magazines and e-zines and is used in classrooms around the world. The first step in taking your place in this market is learning to do the research. That may sound relatively simple, but done right it includes researching markets and possible topics as well as locating accurate source materials. This course will help you develop the skills you need to take on these tasks with confidence.