Writers.com

Writers.com is an online creative writing school that runs small, instructor-led classes in fiction, novel writing, short stories, memoir, personal essay, poetry and writing for stage and broadcast. It is for adult writers at any level, from someone writing for the first time to a novelist revising a draft. The homepage calls it "The First Writing School on the Internet" and says that since 1995 writers from over two hundred countries have visited the site and thousands have completed its online classes. Its instructors are described as "all published, working writers with teaching experience," and the homepage calls the school "a warm, welcoming space for all writers."

How a class works

Each class is fully digital, and a laptop or tablet is all a student needs. The school says it is reachable 24-7 from any internet connection and that what it offers writers is "inspiration, direction, community and deadlines." The homepage describes the format: "Each class provides written lectures, projects and assignments, and discussion forums where you'll share your work with the instructor and the other students." The center of it is feedback. In the homepage's words, "a teacher offers insights on every project you submit," and those critiques "help identify the patterns that can plague even the most talented and experienced writers."

Groups are kept small, which the site says keeps classes "lively and intimate," and it frames the school as "a rock in a sea of audit-only and feedback-light classes." Courses come in three delivery types, each marked on the course card:

• Text-Based: lectures, assignments and discussion in writing, with no set meeting time. The contact section notes that many courses are completely text-based.
• Text and Live Video: the same written structure plus scheduled live sessions.
• Video-Based: for example a pair of single-day webinars.

Each card also shows a level, mostly "Open to All," with some classes marked Intermediate, and the start date, length and price.

The course catalog

The schedule is organized by genre: Fiction, Novel, Short Story, Stage and Broadcast, Creative Nonfiction, Personal Essay, Memoir, Poetry, and Lifestyle and Wellness. The homepage lists upcoming courses starting on September 30 and through October, for example:

• Anatomy of a Premise Line with Jeff Lyons, 5 weeks, $395, text and live video, on developing the premise line for a book or screenplay before writing.
• Life Writing: Explore Your Lived Experience in Prose with Kate Potts, 10 weeks, $645 or $550 on sale, text-based.
• Warp and Weft: Weaving Free Verse Poetry from Life with Anna Scotti, 6 weeks, $445, already full with a waitlist.
• 30 Super-Short True Stories in 30 Days with Blaise Allysen Kearsley, 4 weeks, $395 or $340 on sale, a flash nonfiction piece every day.
• Writing the Memoir-in-Essays with Margo Steines, 2 single-day webinars, $195.
• A Poet's Calling Card: Writing and Composing a Chapbook with Caitlin Scarano, 8 weeks, $545 or $465 on sale, intermediate.
• Dread and Desire, on Gothic fiction techniques, with Briana Una McGuckin, 6 weeks, $445 or $380 on sale.
• These Fragments: From Journal Pages to Personal Essays with Rudri Patel, 6 weeks, $445 or $380 on sale, on turning journaling into personal essays.
• Writing the Short Story with Rosemary Tantra Bensko, 10 weeks, $645 or $550 on sale.
• Writing What Arises: Sensual World/Poetry Mind with Marc Olmsted, 4 weeks, $345 or $295 on sale.

Testimonials name other courses that run on the schedule, including a 16-week Novel Writing Intensive, Write Your Memoir in 16 Weeks!, Finding Confidence in the Braided Essay, Intro to Fiction Writing, Write Again, Write Your First Chapbook, and 30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing Japanese Poetic Forms. The faculty list runs to dozens of instructors.

Pricing

Writers.com sells each course separately, and every course card shows its price. On the current schedule prices run from $195 for the two-webinar memoir course to $645 for a 10-week class, and several courses carry a "Save 15%!" sale price. Courses can be bought as gifts, an On Sale section collects discounted classes, and the site publishes a refund policy.

Private classes, coaching and editing

For writers who would rather not share work with a group, Writers.com offers private classes: "just you - or just you and a friend or two - working with the instructor." There are also self-guided courses and live workshops on the menu. One-to-one coaching and editing are separate services, and the homepage says "it's highly recommended you take one of our classes first."

Support and community

The school leans on its human touch. "When you send us an email, you'll always hear back from a real person, not an auto-responder," the homepage says, and during a class the team is available seven days a week for problems or questions. Contact runs through a form on the site. The homepage adds that "Over a third of our alumni return to take a second class with us, and some have been taking our classes for 20 years or more."

Student comments are specific. Barbara Ginsberg, after Write Again, wrote that "Amanda Oliver is an outstanding teacher" and praised "the user-friendly course interface." Selene Rising says that because of her teacher and the 16-week memoir class she finished "a memoir that was 15 years in the making." Melissa Dy-Liacco says the 16-week novel intensive helped her create a zero draft of her novel. Nabila Zahur, a novelist, writes that she managed "to revise and rewrite the first half of my novel during this course," and Fred Lindgren notes that his instructor "matched her level of critique to the level of the participant."

The school is open about age as well: a guide on the site says Writers.com "has students taking our classes well into their 70s and 80s; a few are even older."

Who it suits

Writers.com suits an adult who wants a structured class with real critique on every assignment: a beginner who needs a first deadline, a memoirist or novelist who wants a long intensive to finish a draft, a poet putting a chapbook together, or a returning writer who wants a gentle start. The text-based classes fit any time zone and schedule, and the live-video classes add face time for those who want it. The per-course pricing and published schedule make it easy to know what a class costs and when it starts.

It is a creative writing school; the homepage itself points anyone who wants business or technical writing toward other sites. Popular classes can fill, as the waitlisted poetry course shows, so it pays to enroll early.