What’s it like to learn with AWC?

Margaret was great. She kept it real, was friendly and to the point. I learned a lot from her.

She showed me that with some rearranging of sentences, I could create a more action-based opening scene.

It's easy to follow, has great lessons and advice and gets you started on your writing journey.

It has been great fun, thank you, and very useful. It is well organised and draws on a range of resources in classic and contemporary fiction.

I enjoyed Margaret's feedback, and gained a lot from hearing her feedback to all students.

I have given more concentrated attention to structure than I used to do.

I do often recommend AWC. I usually say it is great fun to do the courses, and good value.

Mainly, thank you, and many thanks to Margaret.

The recordings were excellent. Very good knowledge and strategies. The feedback was great. The hints and comments were easy to understand and very helpful.

The feedback allowed me to see that I need to really work on the picture that I have in my head and 'translate' it into words on paper.

AWC has the best courses. Clear, well sequenced and there is always great support. Well worth the time and money.

I really enjoyed Charlotte's animated reading of the assignments and the varied and instructive feedback. I learnt a lot about planning, structure, punctuation and point of view. She was encouraging, and clear in her comments.

Five weeks seemed a good commitment to an initial idea. On its completion I feel more confident in exploring my subject and thoroughly enjoyed the process.

The flexibility of the online course was really useful. The course work creates inspiration for writing the assignments. You get the feedback really quickly and it is thorough and helpful in improving the development of your ideas.

Thank you, Charlotte and Australian Writers’ Centre, for a really great and enjoyable course. It was really worthwhile.

Charlotte demonstrated excellent knowledge of the industry and provided helpful feedback, which I could apply straight away. Her comments drew attention to areas where I could improve.

I didn't realise how much the accountability and the deadlines would help me to actually sit down and write.

I liked how the tutor gave us a video and told us how we can improve our stories just by changing little things or details about our stories we were writing.

I would say that if you really love to write and want to learn more about writing or anything, join these courses because they really help you succeed and learn to get the best of your ability.

The modules were well presented and easy to follow. They gave both an understanding and practical advice towards writing compelling stories for this age group.

The tutor was very positive, and supportive.

Charlotte was very encouraging and gentle with her feedback. She provided good feedback about issues which needed to be addressed.

The writing exercises were fun. I really looked forward to Charlotte's feedback each week.

Although 5 weeks is not a long time for any course, the lectures were densely packed with great insights which will require further unpacking by me over the coming months.

Point of View was clarified for me in a way that meant something.

Even though most of us are unlikely to get published, do the course to enjoy the process - make that your goal. And if you end up with a manuscript that interests publishers, see it as a bonus. Any art form requires an audience but not all artists can achieve it. The process of trying and learning has many other benefits and the possibility of finding your audience gives hope.

I've enjoyed the course and Charlotte's feedback on every student's assignments, including my own.

The course is informative and, as it progressed, there was information that I was able to review and incorporate into my own writing and story.

There were many 'aha' moments that I've incorporated into my own writing, and it's made my story flow. Thank you.

I was amazed how helpful the course was. Writing is so much easier when you have the right guardrails!

I thought Margaret was fantastic, her ability to provide on the spot feedback when she read our work out was amazing, and so helpful and insightful.

The audio courses were super interesting and engaging and helpful. I also loved doing the assignments and receiving Margaret's always positive yet constructive feedback.

Fantastic course to give you the tools, structure and guardrails to succeed in writing.

Margaret's feedback was great. It was fantastic to see how someone in the industry would view our work.

I like to have a time frame to complete work in, so I liked the weekly assignments. The audio lessons were broken down in a really easy way to digest.

Well worth it. I'll be doing another course.

Thank you Margaret for being so encouraging. The feedback was always helpful.

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.