course about creative writing

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Creative Writing courses

Whether you’re looking to develop your own writing skills and editorial practice for your profession or for purely personal interest, our creative writing courses have much to offer you. Choose below from our range of qualifications.

Creative Writing Degrees  Degrees Also known as an undergraduate or bachelors degree. Internationally respected, universally understood. An essential requirement for many high-level jobs. Gain a thorough understanding of your subject – and the tools to investigate, think critically, form reasoned arguments, solve problems and communicate effectively in new contexts. Progress to higher level study, such as a postgraduate diploma or masters degree.

• Credits measure the student workload required for the successful completion of a module or qualification.
• One credit represents about 10 hours of study over the duration of the course.
• You are awarded credits after you have successfully completed a module.
• For example, if you study a 60-credit module and successfully pass it, you will be awarded 60 credits.

How long will it take?

Creative Writing Diplomas  Diplomas Widely recognised qualification. Equivalent to the first two thirds of an honours degree. Enhance your professional and technical skills or extend your knowledge and understanding of a subject. Study for interest or career development. Top up to a full honours degree in just two years.

Creative writing certificates  certificates widely recognised qualification. equivalent to the first third of an honours degree. study for interest or career development. shows that you can study successfully at university level. count it towards further qualifications such as a diphe or honours degree., why study creative writing with the open university.

Since 2003, over 50,000 students have completed one of our critically acclaimed creative writing modules. 

The benefits of studying creative writing with us are:

• Develops your writing skills in several genres including fiction, poetry, life writing and scriptwriting.
• Introduces you to the world of publishing and the requirements of professionally presenting manuscripts.
• Online tutor-group forums enable you to be part of an interactive writing community.
• Module workbooks are widely praised and used by other universities and have attracted worldwide sales.

Careers in Creative Writing

Studying creative writing will equip you with an adaptable set of skills that can give entry to a vast range of occupations. You’ll learn to evaluate and assimilate information in constructing an argument as well as acquiring the skills of creative and critical thinking that are much in demand in the workplace.

Our range of courses in creative writing can help you start or progress your career in:

• Arts, creative industries, culture and heritage
• Advertising, marketing, communications and public relations
• Journalism and publishing
• Public administration, civil service and local government

Looking for something other than a qualification?

The majority of our modules can be studied by themselves, on a stand-alone basis. If you later choose to work towards a qualification, you may be able to count your study towards it.

See our full list of Creative Writing modules

All Creative Writing courses

Browse all the Creative Writing courses we offer – certificates, diplomas and degrees.

See our full list of Creative Writing courses

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Are you looking for the best online creative writing courses? You may have found some promising classes online, but you may also be unsure if the course is actually good. How can you know you’ll benefit from the course without spending your money first?

The good news is, there are creative writing courses out there for everyone, and they’re sure to improve your writing. Even better news, the best online creative writing courses share many of the same qualities.

If you want to learn how to write creatively, or if you simply want to improve your everyday writing, the best online creative writing courses can transform your writing abilities. Let’s explore what you might learn in creative writing classes, and how they help writers of all skill levels.

The Best Online Creative Writing Courses: Contents

What do you do in a creative writing class?

• Reputable Instructor
• Clear Course Description
• Promise of a Great Experience
• Constructive Feedback
• Focus on Craft
• Respect Your Creative Autonomy
• A Writing Community
• Motivate You to Write
• Jumpstart a Writing Habit
• Broaden Your Literary Horizons
• Offer a Healthy Creative Outlet
• Give You Next Steps

How to Make the Most of Online Creative Writing Courses

Every online creative writing class is unique, and different courses emphasize different things. We have classes that are entirely generative, meaning the focus is on writing new poems, essays, stories, or making headway into a novel or memoir project. Other courses might have more of a workshop component, in which you share your work with the class and receive feedback on how to improve your writing.

Some online writing courses also focus on specific skills or types of writing. You might take a class focused entirely on learning the tools for revision, or on learning the elements of fiction writing so you can later employ them in a story or novel.

In short, the best online writing courses typically include the following:

• Lectures and discussions on a topic of creative writing craft.
• Assignments that help you generate new work or revise old work.
• Opportunities to give and receive feedback with your fellow classmates.
• Feedback on your work from the instructor, who themselves is a successfully published author of the type of writing you’re producing.
• A weekly video call. Some courses, including ours, are entirely text-based and asynchronous, but many classes meet at least once a week on Zoom.

In addition to all of this, you will make new friends and connections in the best online creative writing classes. Writing is often a lonely experience for writers, and the bonds you make in creative writing workshops can last a lifetime.

12 Things to Look For In the Best Online Creative Writing Courses

The best online creative writing courses will sharpen your writing skills, help you find your confidence, and introduce you to new communities of writers. How do they do it? Here’s 12 things to look for to make sure you’re spending your money on the right online writing class. 

1. The Best Online Creative Writing Courses Have a Reputable Instructor

Your course is only as good as the instructor who teaches it. For online writing classes to teach you the craft, they need to have reputable, trustworthy instructors. A great instructor will also be empathetic, community-oriented, adaptive to your writing needs, and a great writer themselves.

A great instructor will also be empathetic, community-oriented, adaptive to your writing needs, and a great writer themselves.

Do some research on the course instructor: they should have a terminal degree in their field (M.A., M.F.A., Ph.D., etc.), as well as a significant publication history. A reputable instructor will make all the difference in your course: as part of their education, the instructor should have undergone dozens of writing workshops, submitted to countless literary journals, and had their work scrutinized by critics and book lovers alike.

In order for an instructor to help you develop your creative writing skills, they need to be successful on their own. The best instructors are what make the best online creative writing courses.

2. The Best Online Creative Writing Classes Have a Clear Course Description

What does the course teach you, and what will you learn week by week? In addition to listing a reputable instructor, the course description should tell you exactly what you’ll gain from taking the course.

In addition to listing a reputable instructor, the course description should tell you exactly what you’ll gain from taking the course.

Be sure you know exactly what you’re getting out of your online creative writing course, including what you might learn and write in the process. Consider what will help you the most as you embark on your writing journey: entering a course with certain goals or learning objectives will help you make the most of the course’s lectures and writing assignments.

There should be no ambiguity: if you’re paying for the course, you deserve to know exactly what you’re paying for. And, if you have questions, ask the program administrator before you enroll. They should be happy to hear from you!

3. The Best Online Creative Writing Classes Promise a Great Experience

The best online creative writing courses prioritize one thing: YOU! Your learning, your goals, and your writing should be at the center of your experience. And, your course should guarantee that experience.

The best online creative writing courses prioritize your learning, your goals, and your writing.

Creative writing classes can be a risk, since they probably won’t confer university credit and you probably haven’t interacted with that instructor before. You want to be confident that your learning is guaranteed, otherwise you’ll only waste your time, money, and creativity.

Before you enroll in an online writing course, look to see if the program administrators have a student promise . Your experience in the course should be the number one priority of the instructor and administrators; otherwise, you’re better off looking elsewhere for the best online creative writing courses.

4. The Best Online Creative Writing Courses Offer Constructive Feedback

In addition to useful lectures and assignments, creative writing courses give you access to helpful, instructional feedback. Most instructors hold Masters or Doctoral degrees in English or creative writing and, as a result, they have ample knowledge of what works in literature, as well as tons of experience in giving feedback.

Creative writing courses give you access to helpful, instructional feedback.

In the best online creative writing classes, an instructor will both inspire you to write and guide you towards being a better writer. Their feedback will cover the many aspects of great writing. For example, your instructor might comment on:

• Unclear language
• Ideas that need to be expanded
• Sentences that are too wordy or passive
• Opportunities to use more engaging vocabulary
• Places to improve writing structure
• Grammar and spelling corrections

Finally, an instructor will tell you what you are already doing well in your writing. When you write a really great metaphor , use interesting word choice, or find a moment of great insight, your instructor will tell you—highlighting the creative writing skills you have already mastered.

5. The Best Online Creative Writing Courses Focus on Craft

You might be wondering how creative writing classes are different from high school English. The big difference is that, where a typical English class focuses on basic grammar and literacy skills, creative writing classes focus specifically on craft.

Creative writing classes focus specifically on craft: the elements of language and storytelling that make a work of prose or poetry successful.

What is creative writing craft? Craft involves the elements of language and storytelling that make a work of prose or poetry successful. Focusing on craft is how creative writing classes primarily improve your writing.

Your writing class might focus on the structure of a short story, the different types of literary devices , the importance of effective word choice , or the elements of storytelling . A writing class should break down successful works of literature into the components that make it work, giving you the tools to practice your own creative writing skills.

Additionally, craft-focused writing helps you with everyday writing. From improving your vocabulary to structuring an email, the creative writing practice translates to improved writing in every aspect of your life.

6. The Best Online Creative Writing Classes Respect Your Creative Autonomy

One of the benefits of creative writing classes is the perspective you get from different writers. No two writers are working on the same projects, and in your course, you’re likely to work with students of different genres and writing styles.

your creative authority should be respected no matter how new you are to creative writing.

With so many different writing philosophies in one class, the new ideas you encounter can help strengthen your own writing. But in the worst-case scenario, a student or instructor might try to force their writing philosophy onto you. This is always unfair, as there is no one-size-fits-all writing advice, your creative authority should be respected no matter how new you are to creative writing .

For example, let’s say you’re writing a poem about your childhood cat, and the instructor thinks it should be a poem about your experiences growing up. No matter how many times you explain you want this poem to be about your cat, the instructor keeps telling you to write more about your childhood. By ignoring your goals for the poem, the instructor is not respecting your creative autonomy, because they think they know your writing needs better than you do.

No matter where you are in your writing journey, you are a writer, and you deserve respect and compassion as such. Every writer is on a constant journey of growth and discovery; your instructor and course should acknowledge and respect that. In your course, you will encounter many different ideas, but you should also encounter the freedom to accept or reject those ideas. It’s your writing: you get the final say!

7. The Best Online Creative Writing Courses Foster a Writing Community

A creative writing course fosters a creative writing community . This community gives you the motivation to create, as it creates a safe environment to experiment, take risks, and grow in your writing practice.

A writing community gives you the motivation to create, as it creates a safe environment to experiment, take risks, and grow in your writing practice.

For even the most solitary of writers, writing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Participating in a community of word enthusiasts can jog your creativity and give you useful feedback on your work. Additionally, the feedback you provide other writers in the community also helps you learn. It’s a self-fulfilling, self-sustaining process, where members of a writing group can continuously grow, improve, and fine-tune their love of the craft.

In fact, well-known authors throughout history have been a part of valuable writing communities, such as The Beat Poets, Stratford-on-Odeon, and other famous writing groups .

When you enroll in creative writing classes, you also take part in a writing community. Foster relationships, make new writing friends, and forge your own writing group—it may one day be famous, too!

8. The Best Online Creative Writing Classes Motivate You to Write

Writing is a skill that you can only develop through practice. For anyone just starting on our writing journeys, the best online creative writing classes keep you motivated and accountable.

The best online creative writing classes keep you motivated and accountable.

Every instructor works differently, but you can expect the following in a creative writing class:

• Creative writing prompts
• Daily journaling assignments
• Helpful revisions
• Inspirational readings
• Ideas to combat writer’s block
• Different opinions on how to write creatively

Some courses are even designed to motivate you, such as our course Write Your Novel! The Workshop With Jack . Sometimes, the biggest struggle is simply to begin, and creative writing courses help you do that.

9. The Best Online Creative Writing Classes Jumpstart a Writing Habit

The best online creative writing courses will get you into a writing habit. By combining lectures with thought-provoking assignments, one of the primary goals of a writing course is simply to get you writing.

You’ll gain the most from your creative writing courses if you block out the time to write every day.

To make the most of your creative writing classes, try to find time to write every day. It’s best to write at the same time every day, but if your schedule doesn’t allow this, sneak time where you can.

Here are some ways you can steal time as a writer:

• Journal for 15 minutes before you go to bed.
• Write while you wake up with your morning breakfast or coffee.
• Keep a journal on your phone during work and lunch breaks.
• Write on your commute to and from work. If you’re driving, consider keeping an audio journal, where you write by speaking into your phone’s recording device.
• Write on your phone while running on the treadmill.
• Put pen to paper while taking a bath.

These ideas won’t work for everyone, and it all depends on your schedule and lifestyle. Nonetheless, you’ll gain the most from your creative writing courses if you block out the time to write every day, no matter how brief that time is. And, your course should help you find the time to write!

10. The Best Online Creative Writing Courses Broaden Your Literary Horizons

You need to read great writing to produce great writing. The best online creative writing courses will introduce you to great literature, giving you additional opportunities to explore the writing craft.

The best online creative writing courses will introduce you to great literature, giving you additional opportunities to explore the writing craft.

In creative writing classes, you might read both classic and contemporary literature. As writers, it’s good to have knowledge of both worlds. Classic literature introduces you to the bedrock of modern writing, including the devices and rhetorical strategies that make for effective poetry and prose.

Contemporary literature, on the other hand, gives you a glimpse into today’s literary zeitgeist. It’s important to understand today’s publishing landscape and the type of work that’s being published, even if you don’t intend to write like contemporary authors.

In fact, it’s better if you don’t try to write like anyone else! Reading other writers shows you what works in literature and what doesn’t, giving you opportunities to experiment with form and style. But, at the end of the day, your writing is for you, not for publishers or particular writing schools.

Use your creative writing classes as opportunities to explore literature, experiment with words, and discover what you’d like to write yourself.

11. The Best Online Creative Writing Classes Offer a Healthy Creative Outlet

Creative writing classes offer a healthy outlet for your creativity and emotions.

A healthy writing space can supplement your emotional health and wellbeing.

How is that so? With a space to put thoughts to paper, many writers inevitably reach breakthroughs about their own feelings and experiences. This is true regardless of whether you write poetry, fiction, plays, articles, or creative nonfiction.

Now, even the best online creative writing courses can’t replace the benefits of therapy. But, a healthy writing space can certainly supplement your emotional health and wellbeing. Between the prompts, community, and writing habits that a creative writing class fosters, you’re sure to come away from your course with renewed emotional health.

12. The Best Online Creative Writing Courses Give You Next Steps

Your education doesn’t end at the end of your course. If anything, the best online creative writing courses are only the beginning of your writing journey!

The best online creative writing courses are only the beginning of your writing journey!

The best online creative writing courses give you opportunities for continuous growth. Those opportunities can take many forms, such as: a list of literary journals to submit to, further readings on a topic of interest, future creative writing classes, or even simply the instructor’s email.

If you’re ready to move on to the next level of your career, your instructor should provide you with next steps. And if you crave more learning, ask the instructor!

A creative writing course is much like life: the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. Being an active participant will teach you as much about creative writing as the instructor will, because engaging with language is how you grow as a writer. Actively working with suggestions and ideas, keeping a daily writing practice, and offering other students constructive feedback will all boost your creative writing skills.

A creative writing course is much like life: the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.

Additionally, do your research before you enroll in the course, or you might end up taking a class that isn’t suited to your needs. Look up the instructor for the course, their teaching style and previous publications, and how much experience they have as a writing coach. If they don’t seem well suited towards your learning style, they might develop your creative writing skills, and they won’t be worth the cost.

Find the Best Online Creative Writing Courses at Writers.com!

Are you looking for a writing community? Are you ready to get writing? Check out some of the upcoming courses at Writers.com , the oldest creative writing school on the internet.

Sean Glatch

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530 Best Creative Writing Classes in 2024

Showing 530 courses that match your search.

Craft of Fiction Workshop: Plot + Structure

Attic Institute

Find your way into your characters’ motivations, interiority, and relationships in this generative workshop for short story writers and novelists. We’ll create complex characters through in-class writing, discussion of short story and novel excerpts, and reimagining in-progress and new work. Open to all writers.

Website: https://atticinstitute.com/node/2870

Categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Book, Fantasy, and Science Fiction

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2025 Year-Long Creative Nonfiction Writing Project with Sun Yung Shin

The Loft Literary Center

This online course focuses on developing craft in creative nonfiction through writing, reading, and workshopping. Participants will engage with guest authors and publishing professionals, enhancing their writing skills in various aspects while refining their unique voices.

Website: https://loft.org/classes/2025-year-long-creative-nonficti...

Categories: Nonfiction

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Writing the Memoir 101

Writer's Digest University

This course teaches structuring personal stories into a memoir, developing storytelling skills, and includes writing assignments with instructor feedback. It covers personal memoir types, character roles, organizing material, crafting scenes, writing opening pages, and finishing strategies.

Website: https://writersdigestuniversity.mykajabi.com/writing-the-...

Categories: Book and Memoir

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Writing the Mystery Novel

The course includes six weekly sessions that cover essential aspects of mystery writing. Each session features lectures, creative exercises, and personalized feedback on writing assignments.

Categories: Fiction

Prerequisites: None

Accordion Books as Writer's Playground

A workshop focused on creating accordion fold books, integrating image and text, and promoting creative exploration with basic supplies provided. Participants will engage in prompt-based writing and hands-on book-making.

Website: https://www.porchtn.org/class/accordion-books-as-writers-...

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How to Write and Draw a Graphic Memoir

This course teaches the process of creating a graphic memoir, including selecting personal life events to share, maintaining privacy, and communicating with family. No professional art skills are needed, as participants will learn to express their stories visually.

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Tap Your Creative Vein: Understanding Your Inner Artist

The Writing Barn

This course offers a 2.5-hour session focusing on understanding your inner artist, setting goals, and creating a structured literary life. Participants will receive guidance on their unique passion and purpose, motivational inspiration, and access to community resources.

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Zine Scene: Your Voice, Your Story

Denver Writes

This hands-on workshop teaches participants about zines, their history, and how to create their own. Writers will blend poetry with graphic art to produce a booklet that reflects their personal story or theme.

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Poem or Picture Book: Writing the Lyrical Children’s Book

Literary Arts

This workshop explores the intersection of poetry and picture books through collaborative study and practical tools. Participants learn to make their picture book texts more lyrical and enhance the visual appeal of their poetry.

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Resistance Smackdown: A Creative Writing Restoration Workshop

Writing Pad

This workshop focuses on overcoming writing resistance, offering tools for time organization, daily writing routines, and establishing support networks. It is applicable to various genres including blog, essay, memoir, nonfiction, novel, poetry, screenplay, and TV pilot.

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Create: Free Draft Generator with Camille Cabrera

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Categories: Fiction, Short Story, Essay, Memoir, Nonfiction, and Poetry

What is creative writing?

Creative writing is often best understood through a description of what it’s not : it is not business, journalistic, academic, or technical writing. 

Here is what creative writing is : it is the art of telling stories through written mediums. To many people, the novel is the most obvious form of creative writing, but it can also be found in essays, screenplays, poetry, memoirs, and much more. 

As you can imagine, one of the common threads that connects all forms of creative writing is, well, imagination. In fiction, this is embodied in the creation of the story itself; in nonfiction, it’s inherent in the way that the author chooses to present (and engage with) facts and real events to create a compelling narrative. 

Why is creative writing important?

We might as easily ask: why is it important to tell stories? Because that’s just what people do. It’s our way to make sense of the world and ourselves, and share it with others. History abounds with the art of the story. Look anywhere on a world timeline, and you’ll find examples of creative writing fulfilling our need for creative expression, from Homer’s epics in 800 B.C. to Dante’s inferno to modern essays shared on the Internet today. 

Nothing suggests that it will ever disappear, either! In fact, creative writing is arguably even more important in the age of AI, in which we must continue to tell powerful human stories instead of outsourcing such a fundamental task to soulless machines. 

How do creative writing courses teach creative writing?

If you’ve decided that you want to invest in your own creative writing, that’s great! Get ready to embark on a lifelong learning path. Like all art forms, creative writing is a skill that you must constantly train in order to improve. 

Learning creative writing, of course, can be as simple as you want. All you need is pen and paper — or, these days, a computer with a writing app. 

You can also take a creative writing class if you’re interested in a certain writing topic, or if you simply want an experienced instructor to point out the way for you. A course can fast-track your writing progress by teaching you something about the art of writing in one day that might otherwise take a year for you to pick up by yourself. They also often specialize in a specific area of creative writing, for instance:

• Character development, i.e. the way that characters change from beginning to end of a story.
• Genre conventions and tropes, i.e. what conventions you should write to in a certain genre — and what you can (and perhaps should) subvert.
• Story structure, i.e. the order of plot points and key events that a story should take in order to be compelling.
• Writing voice, i.e. the unique writing style that only you can bring to a story. 

Because there are thousands of aspects to creative writing, there are thousands of creative writing classes. That’s why we built this directory of the best creative writing courses. We’ve made it filterable by genre, price, and more to make it easier for you to find the perfect class for your needs. 

But what are the best creative writing classes?

The best creative writing course depends on you , and your own profile! We always recommend that you thoroughly do your research to personalize your choice for yourselves. 

With that said, below are some recommendations to kick you off. 

The best creative writing classes for beginners

If you’ve got a book idea, and you’re willing to invest some money to write it, then Reedsy’s How to Write a Novel could be a great place for you to start. Over three months, this full-fledged course will take you step-by-step from your idea to your first draft — and give you a supportive writing community to boot. 

💲 Cost: $1,000+  👨‍🏫 Type: Video

The best in-person creative writing classes 

Gotham Writers, the biggest adult-education writing school in the US, is based in New York City and offers in-person classes. With self-paced courses, write-ins, and several free events per term, it emulates the university feel wherever possible.

💲 Cost: $165 - $450  👨‍🏫 Type: In-person

The best free creative writing classes 

Reedsy Learning is composed of bite-sized modules that are emailed to you once a day for ten days. They can be read in five minutes — and best of all, they’re free! Each module is packed with practical tips, additional resources, and exercises to sharpen your skills. 

💲 Cost: Free  👨‍🏫 Type: Email

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Online courses in creative writing

Part-time study in creative writing

Develop your creativity with an Oxford University short course or award programme.

Need an extra push to finish your novel, poem or play? Completely new to the world of creative writing? Want to improve your analytical reading skills? No matter where you are in your writing journey, or where you are in the world, there is a part-time course to suit you.

Short online courses

Our short online courses in creative writing include live-time weekly classes, day and weekend schools and flexible online courses.

Credit earned from our short online courses is transferable towards our Certificate of Higher Education - a part-time undergraduate course in which you study a main subject discipline but also undertake study in other academic subjects.

Browse short online courses in creative writing

Diploma in Creative Writing

Our two-year, part-time Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing allows you to strengthen your ability in four major areas of literary activity — prose, poetry, drama and analytical reading — as well as the chance to specialise in the medium of your choice. You can now opt to take this course mostly online.

Find out more about the Diploma in Creative Writing

Upcoming courses

Advanced creative writing (online).

• Wed 08 Jan 2025 – 21 Mar 2025

Trollope, Eliot, Dickens and Hardy: Reading Victorian Fiction (Online)

Writing lives (online), contemporary british fiction (online).

• Mon 13 Jan 2025 – 28 Mar 2025

Critical Reading (Online)

Literature, creative writing and film studies

Online courses in literature, rita mccormick, tessa fenley, student spotlights.

Online Creative Writing courses

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Illustrating and Writing a Children's Book

Discover the world of picturebooks and learn how to tell stories with text and images.

Writing Exercises: From the Blank Page to Everyday Practice

Engage in creative writing exercises that document and generate ideas, and transform it into a regular practice.

Writing a Novel Step by Step

Learn the keys to writing a novel and stimulate your imagination with practical exercises that connect you with your inner world.

Script Writing for Movies and Television

Discover a creative method to start telling your audiovisual stories.

Creative Writing for Beginners: Bringing Your Story to Life

Learn how to sketch with words and use the details of your imagination to write a memorable story.

Reading for writing

Reading is a crucial ability for any writer. improve your reading to improve your writing..

Introduction to Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy

Discover how to develop your ideas and build literary worlds with writing structures and techniques that can transport your readers.

Travel Journaling: Document Feelings and Memories

Learn to create travel journals that document your thoughts and feelings through writing, observation, and scrapbooking.

Script Writing for Comics: Explore Visual Storytelling

Learn to create professional scripts for comic books and graphic novels featuring scene descriptions, characters, and dialogue.

Psychology of Characters in Stories

Learn to bring fictional characters to life with psychological writing resources and tell stories in the media of your choice.

Introduction to Narrative Writing

Learn everything you need to know to start writing memorable stories, step by step.

Creating Children's Stories

Delight young readers with stories inspired by their day-to-day life and awaken the writer within you.

Narrative Techniques for Children’s Books

Learn the basic components of a story to create tales for children.

Memoir Writing: Write a Personal Story for a Universal Audience

Learn how to write a compelling personal narrative by exploring different literary devices and story structures.

Creating and Publishing a Children's Story from Scratch

Learn to develop and launch a children's story step by step, from the initial idea to the publication plan.

Short Story Writing: Create Fiction from Personal Experience

Learn how to write stories that captivate readers by building a narrative with elements of fiction.

Cookbook Writing: Tell Stories Through Recipes

Take readers on a journey of culture and flavor by creating a cookbook that combines recipes with storytelling.

The Art of Creative Writing: Learn Storytelling Techniques

Explore fundamental writing structures to create a compelling narrative roadmap through storytelling devices and character development.

UVA Fairfax Campus : Opening February 2025

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Creative Writing (Online)

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About the program

This weeklong course does two things:

1) It creates the space and time to explore a topic, idea, theme, or subject of exploration, of your choice. This could be a work of art, an experience, a big question, or something else entirely. What matters is that this topic matters to you.

2) In writing about your topic through accumulative, scaffolded in-class writing sessions and workshops—as well as through outside individualized consultations with the instructor—you will learn how to interest a reader in your topic, and walk away with a set of transportable skills and strategies about how to make writing work for you.

Outline of Concepts

• What is “good” writing? The stories we tell and how we tell them
• What is a writers’ workshop and what is it not?
• What are the elements of craft and style?
• How do we revise our writing and embrace the process?

By thinking about writing as a form of experimentation—with its own hypotheses, processes, and communities—you will be able to explore your ideas, find your words, and as a result, your writing process. You’ll leave the class with a polished, dynamic piece of writing and an excitement about the whole process!

This course will meet each day from 9:00AM -11:30AM EST (Monday-Friday). The instructor will have 1:1 sessions with each student to offer personal feedback. Tuition cover materials and meals (lunch/snacks).

Meet the Instructor

Get to know Instructor Leanne Tankel here.

Stories from Last Summer…

• Mirror by Anderson Recker
• The Tightrope Between Worlds by Bella Pettit
• Losing Everything by Elizabeth Cuthbertson

Skills you will learn

• Understand the writing process - and how to tailor it to your own writing
• Learn about genres of creative nonfiction writing
• Learn how to give and receive thoughtful feedback
• Learn about audience and rhetorical intention
• Set and achieve writing-specific goals

Please note: All information is subject to change at the discretion of UVA Northern Virginia.