What’s it like to learn with AWC?

I've already been recommending the course to my friends. I really learnt a lot. I think the best parts were the in-depth details that were covered in the content. For example, I'd had a lot of trouble with point of view and that was covered. I didn't know you weren't supposed to mention things that your POV character wouldn't know and it has just made my writing so much better.

I think the feedback was good and after getting constructive feedback in the first assignment I was able to make changes and then get positive feedback for the next assignment to say I was on track.

After the course, I have a sense of achievement. I know I learnt a lot. I know I have material I can use in my current project. I know what areas I need to focus on moving forward.

The course material was interesting and useful and pushed me to learn and think. The online tutor for the course assignments provided useful and relevant feedback. Overall the course was interesting, relevant and well paced.

Thank you to the AWC team.

Charlotte was lovely and her feedback on the assignments and course chat was helpful. I enjoyed the video delivery of feedback and seeing her reactions to all the pieces.

I wish I discovered this course sooner! I've spent weeks of my life researching online and reading craft books to grasp concepts that AWC have distilled into an engaging and digestible course that you can devour in a matter of hours. So if you're looking to accelerate your skills, look no further.

Thank you so much, really enjoyed the course material and sad it's over :)

I had started writing my first children's novel, and got stuck along the way. I thought this course might be just the thing to help. I wasn't sure about how much of my work I needed to have completed before I started, but it turns out there was a lot of variety in this and where I was at worked well for the course.

Pamela is such an experienced writer and teacher and it was so helpful to receive her feedback and insights, both on my own work and also on the work of others. As well as the quality of the course materials, I loved the sense of community that Pamela developed during the course.

The chance to see my writing more clearly from the perspective of a reader was significant. I now think more about the relationship between the writer and the reader, and the magic that happens between them.

If you are writing a novel for young children, then this course will provide you with all the essential knowledge you need. As a bonus you will find a wonderful community of others who are also on the same journey.

The tutor was awesome!! Very caring and encouraging person. Thank you for giving great feedback in a positive way!!

I enjoyed the variety of things to focus on when working on the assignments.

Great courses, great tutors.

Carla was super positive and encouraging. I loved her honesty and the connections she made with each writer. I thought her feedback was honest and supportive which made me want to write and do more learning activities/exercises.

I feel like I learnt so much about my character, my writing style and what publishers are looking for. As well as how to write my story ideas down in the most suitable point of view.

Loved everything about it. Thank you very much! :)

Absolutely loved the course and information presented. Being a teacher, I thought I knew how to write a narrative, but there is so much more to writing an engaging children's novel. I loved the tutorials with expert writers and authors and well as publishing perspectives. When we completed the written assignments, I valued Carla's critical feedback, and it definitely encouraged me to keep writing and get my ideas down.

The title of the course spoke to me, as I have always dreamt of writing for middle school-aged readers. And then, when I read about all that was to be covered in the course, as well as the positive testimonies from previous students, I felt inspired to take the plunge.

Margaret seemed very kind and supportive, and she also had wisdom to share. She was not afraid to offer her learned opinion, and I was grateful for that.

I most enjoyed the incredible lessons. The information was highly illuminating, and I liked how they were broken into small mini lessons. It was also excellent to have little assignments that related to the learnings.

Fantastic up-to-date information, you can do it at your own pace, you get gentle positive pressure to ‘stand in the arena' and actually write things that your classmates will be able to see.

I loved it and I feel inspired.

I really wanted to develop some skills and knowledge of how to approach writing a children's novel, ahead of a project I'm working on.

I was very happy with Margaret as a tutor and the feedback she gave.

I enjoyed listening to everyone else's assignments and sharing in the feedback process.

The AWC has really great courses on all types of writing, run by people who are also working in the industry. I've learnt so much from my courses and they're suitable for all skill levels.

Carla was so positive and friendly with her responses. All her suggestions were useful and provided food for thought. It was useful to watch the feedback for every writer because I learned lots from each bit of feedback.

The course content was very informative and useful, but putting it into practice and getting feedback on it was invaluable. Plus I loved reading the other stories too, so that was fun. I also appreciated the examples of how a middle grade book and writing for children differ from writing for adults or young adults.

This course was easy to follow. It had lots of useful handouts, forms, and exercises to improve my writing. There are lots of tips for writing for children that are very relevant and useful. Our tutor, Carla, was always kind and friendly with the feedback on assignments, which made it less stressful when submitting them. Sharing work can sometimes be scary, but Carla made it a safe space.

I was really pleased I did this course. Although some of the information provided were things I'd already learned from other AWC courses, I still found this course really useful due to the focus on the younger reader.

Once I had decided to write a middle grade fiction novel I realised very quickly that, like most things, I needed to learn the skills. I had high expectations for this course, and they were met.

Carla was encouraging. Her feedback was specific and targeted to be helpful. I really appreciated how this was achieved.

I enjoyed sending off a completed assignment. It felt like progress.

If you want to learn the skills - just do it.

Carla is a breath of freshness! She's balanced in her feedback. She's respectful and sensitive to the 'heart' students put into their work. She is pragmatic and makes her suggestions clear and simple.

Thanks to Carla, I feel I've grown in my writing, feel encouraged and re-energised.

I have been interested in writing middle grade novels for a while, and was half way through my first attempt. I decided it was time to find out more, and this course seemed the perfect fit.

Pamela knows so much about writing and was generous in sharing this knowledge with us all. Her feedback was constructive and I learnt a lot from the feedback I received, both for my current work-in-progress and also in a way that will be useful for my future writing.

I enjoyed being part of a cohort and sharing the experience with others, including the sharing of writing and feedback - this made the course so much richer than just doing it on your own.

The course made me think more deeply about the audience of my writing. While this seems obvious, it was the much-needed shift I needed.

I have loved every AWC course I have done so far. I was so nervous before I enrolled in my first one, but as soon as I started I knew it was exactly what I needed and more. I just wish I hadn't waited so long to jump on in!

I was drawn to this course because I'm writing a story and I had a gut feel that it is suited to a middle grade audience, but I wasn't sure. Further, if my story is indeed middle grade, I want to know what that even means! And, what I should be aware of.

I have a habit of 'preparing' more than 'doing'. I was concerned that doing this course was another way for me to avoid putting words down. In the end, I believe I learnt exactly what I needed to know and I am grateful for Pamela's feedback.

Pamela is a comfort and a warm dose of encouragement through my ears. She also has a sense of fun, which shines through.

I really enjoyed the structure and content of the course, the way it led you through the important elements, gave practical tips, guides, templates. Also loved being able to read and learn from the comments of all the others during the course.

I thought Pamela was great, very good at providing insightful feedback both positive and negative.

I enjoyed learning about the 'craft' of writing an engaging story for this age group, particularly the way to 'breadcrumb' information, having a believable character arc that drives the plot and structure etc.

Thanks Pamela, I loved the course.

Pamela was amazing! I learned so much from her feedback. She was able to put her finger on exactly what was missing, and I was able to take that away and use it to improve my writing. She was kind and respectful, but unafraid to tell you exactly what you were doing wrong. This is what I really needed as a writer.

I would say that fiction writing is a whole different ball game to the types of writing most people do in their day-to-day lives. There are so many people who have strong written language skills, but probably don't understand the nuts and bolts of fiction writing. AWC can help with that.

Pamela was fantastic. She provided really helpful feedback and shared so much knowledge. I enjoyed listening to the modules and receiving feedback on the assignments.

It's a great course with lots of helpful material and a fantastic tutor.

Pamela was absolutely amazing as a tutor. So knowledgeable, and just a very lovely person. And her feedback was 'off the Richter scale good'!! I greatly admire and appreciate her passion for helping students hone their craft and become better writers - it shines through in everything she does.😊

One realisation, for me, was realising that a children's book doesn't necessarily have to be 'fun' (from a question that I asked Pamela). Many children's books obviously are, but there are also many that are a bit more 'serious', in terms of what they're about. While my novel will (hopefully) be a lot of fun, it feels good to know that it doesn't have to be 'fun' all the time (and it's not really possible anyway!!).😄

AWC courses and workshops are absolutely amazing. You will learn so much.😊

I enrolled in this course on a whim. Children's novels? Hadn't read any for years. Then I watched a doco on Harry Potter and all the great books I'd read with my son when he was little came flooding back. Children's novels? Yessss!! Was I mad? I'd just finished Freelance Writing 1 and here I was thinking of doing something completely different! So I think I enrolled the night before it started :)

Pamela was absolutely brilliant. So spot on with her comments, always very positive but also constructive with lots of take-aways. I lapped up not only her comments on my work but also for other students - she gave out so much information that underpinned what writing children's novels is all about. I feel I have a solid basis to go forth and write my novel!

The feedback from Pamela was incredibly helpful, but the structure of the course and its content is very spot on, practical and vitally important in order to write a children's novel that can be read, understood and enjoyed by children.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I found the ability to choose my own time to complete the work and the tutorials very helpful and it allowed me to design my own program. The writing guidance assisted in focussing my thoughts and made the overall process more engaging.

My aha moment was when I realised I had slipped out of the main POV into description more than once. I will keep an eye out for that now.

Pamela is a craftsperson and she shares her craft knowledge within the feedback. It's not always what you want to hear but it is what you need. Also the nuggets of approval are so welcome!

DO IT! you will find your skills and talents and learn new ones. All your work is appreciated and your efforts validated. It's well worth it for a twelve-month subscription to the course.

The tutor was lovely and very knowledgeable of the writing process.

I enjoyed creating new pieces of writing for submission.

This course answers all the questions you have about how and what to write for a middle grade audience, what that audience is and how to capture them.