January 10th
20 Places to Find Online Courses for Writers
The good thing about the Internet is how you don’t have to leave the house to learn. While it’s nice to be able to take courses at one’s local college, time and money are sometimes an issue. Don’t let either keep you from excelling at what you do. Here are some great places to find courses for writers. Some are free and some are a lot of money, but they’re all available to us online.
- Writers Online Workshops - Presented by Writer’s Digest, Writer’s Online Workshops offer courses for writers of all levels. Courses include basic grammar, form and creativity, getting started in writing, fundamentals of various niches, query letters, book proposals and so much more. Courses aren’t cheap some run to $300 or more, but they’re all worth it.
- Gotham Writer’s Workshop - Just about every New Yorker knows about the Gotham Writers Workshop, and now classes are available online as well, but act now because they fill up quickly. Prices aren’t discounted just because they’re online, however. Courses can run to $500.
- Writers.com -Classes - Again, kind of pricey, but a good variety of classes for all levels and niches.
- Writers Village University - The prices here are a little more reasonable. A Yearly membership is $69, or you can pay $11 a month if you prefer to pay as you go. There are over 250 writing courses available and you’re welcome to take as many as you like for that fee.
- About.com Distance Learning offers a listing of free online writing courses.
- Write 101 Offers free online writing tips and tutorials.
- Ringer’s Secret School of Writing - I don’t know much about Ringer’s but it’s rather reasonable compared to some of the others, $65 gets you one semester.
- Writers College - Offers a variety of courses at a variety of prices. Courses run from one week to six or eight weeks and costs upwards of $35 per course.
- Absolute Write University - A name many of us are familiar with, Absolute Write also offers online courses. They also offer a flexible payment plan and personal attention from your instructor. The courses I see range in price from $175 - $250.
- Coffee House for Writers - Another respected name offering courses for writers. Courses last for several weeks and average about $80.00
- Suite 101 - Suite 101 offers a variety of general interest courses at no cost, including some writing courses.
- Grammar and More - Currently offering a free course entitled, "Make Your Voice Heard and Express Your Ideas Effectively."
- Free or Affordable Classes - Lists several writing courses.
- Storymind at the Writer’s Channel - Allows you to play free e-courses or download them at a cost.
- Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy offers a free online course.
- Inter-Biotec offers a free Biomedical writing course.
- Online English Grammar is a free online reference and guide for English grammar, writing, punctuation and more.
- Writer’s Helper - Free courses for writers.
- Writing.com - Free online writing courses.
- Writer 2 Writer offers several courses for writers.
This list is by no means complete. Feel free to add your own places to enroll in online writing courses in the comments.
Good luck,
Deb
Posted
on
Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 11:29 pm under
Thanks, Deb. Professional development is something I seem to neglect, and this a good reminder.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:05 amThanks for the great list!
January 11th, 2008 at 1:11 amJust wanted to mention to everyone that mediabistro.com also offers online classes, though they tend to be on the pricey side of the scale as well.
January 11th, 2008 at 1:39 amDeb if you check out Christina Katz’s Writer’s on the Rise site, she too offers classes: http://writersontherise.com.hosting.domaindirect.com/classes.html#Short
January 11th, 2008 at 2:36 amThanks for the great list, Deb!
Don’t forget to poke around in your own backyard, too. I just found out that my local community college offers a slew of online writing classes for about $80 a pop, which is much cheaper than some others I’ve seen.
January 11th, 2008 at 2:42 amPoynter.org’s News U! http://www.newsu.org/
Classes range from free to cheap, and many of them are less about the nuts and bolts of crafting a sentence and more about being a good journalist, so I’m not sure how much value a problogger would get from the classes. I personally took a great free course about working with sound. It came with an interactive sandbox where you could mix sound clips to create a good segment that would hypothetically be thrown up on your newspaper’s website or into a podcast.
Thanks for the list!
January 11th, 2008 at 3:53 amSee why I love you guys? You’re terrific, keep them coming!
January 11th, 2008 at 4:17 amThere are also some good courses online from ed2go. I took 2 last summer, and you can get a lot out of them, as long as you are willing to do some work (not much … 5-10 hours/week).
The cost directly through ed2go is around $119 for a 6-week course, but you can probably get it cheaper through a local college. I paid $79 each for both of my classes.
http://www.ed2go.com/cgi-bin/ed2go/newofferings.cgi?dept=PW
January 11th, 2008 at 4:24 amHas anyone taken a Writer’s Online workshop? I’d be curious if they felt it was worth the cost and how much they got from the class. I really want to start working on some fiction and am looking at workshops for that, so for me this was perfect timing! THANKS!
January 11th, 2008 at 4:35 amTimes may have changed, but years ago Writer’s Village let you take one course free to see if you liked their format. I took one and really liked it.
January 11th, 2008 at 5:48 amThanks for the list, Deb. We get asked often if we know good writing courses, and most of those I’ve found online for distance education are for creative writing or fiction writing.
When someone needs to improve the dangling participle or the perfect past tense, then those courses ain’t work squat.
I’ve been meaning to do this and I’m grateful you saved me the work. Link-out upcoming.
January 11th, 2008 at 6:47 am[…] need to read this post and damned […]
January 11th, 2008 at 7:01 amI’ve taken a couple of courses from Barnes & Noble University, too. They’re free, and occasionally have some good writing courses.
January 11th, 2008 at 10:55 amI though I’d heard that B&N University was discontinued. I’ll have to go look to be sure, but last time I went to look for classes with them I couldn’t find anything and then saw a posting on a discussion board that they’d gotten rid of it because of a lack of interest.
January 11th, 2008 at 6:47 pmBarnes & Noble University has been discontinued. It was a great place to learn, tuition was free, but you had to buy books.
January 11th, 2008 at 6:51 pmWhen B&N University first started my boys were really little. I used it to keep my brain from atrophying since I had stopped working to stay home with them. I loved being home with them, but after the sleep deprivation fog lifted, I needed something to challenge me. I took courses on The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Shakespeare, Organizing Your Life (finished the course, yet the concept didn’t stick with me!), and a couple of others. It was great, and I always bought the books from ebay if I could to keep the cost to a minimum.
I was sad to see it go. Now there are simply book clubs that you can join.
January 11th, 2008 at 8:06 pmHey, thanks Nikki and thanks Deb, for listing these opportunities.
I’m pleased to announce that I am offering one full scholarship for all four of my Writing and Publishing the Short Stuff classes this year.
Feel free to come by and grab the application!
January 11th, 2008 at 10:19 pmIt’s not a writing course, but James Chartrand’s “Write for the WEb” eBook is a great resource for new writers. It’s also a great resource for those who are new to writing for the Web instead of print. He even offers a satisfaction guarantee. I think you can get it at: http://www.jcme.ca/ebook.html
January 12th, 2008 at 3:12 amAnother interesting resource is MIT OpenCourseWare. All of the courses are free, and here is a link to their Literature curriculum:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Literature/index.htm
MIT offers over 1800 courses in a variety of genres.
January 12th, 2008 at 11:28 am[…] http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com/places-to-find-online-courses-for-writers/ […]
January 13th, 2008 at 7:30 amI teach a popular online course for authors — “Book Publicity 101: How to Build Book Buzz.” The next course is Feb. 4-29 and there’s still room. Learn more at www.buildbookbuzz.com.
January 26th, 2008 at 1:12 am[…] last, courtesy of Freelance Writing Jobs, 20 more course offerings, with little overlap because this list includes courses that cost […]
February 8th, 2008 at 5:45 pm