What’s it like to learn with AWC?

Bernadette is full of knowledge and a pleasure to listen to.

I enjoyed the handouts and the bonus course.

Vivienne was an attentive tutor. She gave good feedback and her responses to the course chat questions were detailed and thoughtful. It didn't feel like she was rushing to give a shallow response, instead it felt like she really wanted to support her students.

I enjoyed receiving feedback from a professional writer. The audio modules were great too. Thank you!

It's given me the clarity I was lacking in terms of pitching and writing strategically. E.g. producing timely pieces that align with an awareness week or an anniversary of a notable event. This gives me a clear direction to take with certain types of articles moving forward.

I would definitely recommend any new writer to take this or any other course offered by the Australian Writers' Centre. It offers professional, accessible courses that provide relevant and reliable information about the publishing industry as well as the craft of writing itself.

I write Fantasy, and Sci-Fi fan fictions. This course is what I needed to improve the quality, and depth of my stories. I discovered there is a lot more to writing Fantasy than expected.

The flexibility of the course was very helpful. It covered a lot of different sub-genres.

The whole course was an eye opener for me. It made me realize I have to spend greater time in character development. Especially in regards to magic systems, abilities, and use.

It is well worth doing the courses. They give a good foundation into writing, that can only improve your stories.

I enjoyed Valerie's engaging and straight forward presentation.

The course has given me the 'recipe' for starting out and (hopefully) the confidence to 'give it a go'.

The course is an excellent and thorough 'beginners guide' to getting started as a travel writer.

I thought the feedback from Margaret Whiskin was exceptional. Margaret went into so much detail and provided excellent advice.

I enjoyed the course very much. I feel that I can attempt to write a novel now.

I liked the honest feedback from Pamela. She also discussed her writing, giving us an insight into her writing life.

I enjoyed meeting the other students and reading their work.

I would say it's a must to do a course like this.

My day job involves producing conferences and writing all the marketing copy involved in the promotion of them. I decided to do this course to refresh my existing skills and learn new ones to improve the overall results.

I learned a lot more than I had anticipated and I've been experimenting at work to see what happens when these skills are applied in the real world.

Bernadette is a great educator. She ensures that students are fully aware of the basics so we can grow with each module.

I enjoyed the assignments. Putting what I've learned to the test helps me retain knowledge, and the feedback provided was always constructive, offering ways to improve for the next week.

I've been applying these skills to my day-to-day job, and I've noticed a slight increase in open rates for the weekly emails and a corresponding increase in click-throughs. Each little increase is re-inspiring to try again each week.

Linking Phrases and the headline formulas were probably equal in terms of an aha moment. Odd, because I've been doing this for nearly 20 years in my day job and they never really crossed my mind before.

The AWC is where you go if you want actual useful training. Each instructor is a subject matter expert who has walked the path themselves. If you're going to invest in yourself you may as well do it with a company that takes your writing as seriously as you do.

I wanted a refresher on grammar and punctuation. I was also particularly interested in punctuation for more complex dialogue. I wasn't sure if I knew most of it already. As it turns out, I learnt a lot!

I found the emphasis on common mistakes in fiction writing particularly useful. The course is delivered in a well-structured and engaging way.

I hadn't noticed that MS Word automatically inverts the apostrophe at the beginning of a contraction. I know this sounds like a trivial 'aha!' moment, but when I went back and checked, I found this mistake in some of my stories. In one of my stories, this mistake was in the opening line...Yeesh!

I think this course is not so much life-changing as time-saving, with perhaps a dash of face-saving too!

Go ahead and enrol! The courses are well structured, practical and inspiring.

Nat is encouraging and great at giving information in a variety of ways that made sense.

I enjoyed learning what skills I needed to improve to make my writing better, building a community with fellow writers and the gentle way I was given feedback in front of others.

It showed me my strengths and weaknesses in writing and the assignments gave me writing exercises to use when I'm feeling stuck.

I started this course with a different book in mind and used an idea that I had for my week 2 assignment. After writing that scene I realised that this is the book I need to write right now.

This course is a great way to dip your toe in the water and get some direction and basic skills to use to begin writing.

Margaret was wonderful. She was so very knowledgeable, and her feedback not just for me, but seemingly for everyone always pointed to the most important points we needed to work on - the things that needed addressing first and foremost. She also asked the best questions that never failed to get me thinking and back on track.

I enjoyed workshopping others' work. This was always a real opportunity to put into practice the knowledge learnt through the modules.

I am such a better writer as a result of everything I've learnt. I've also discovered a real passion for editing that I never would have anticipated.

Purple Prose does not make you a better writer! This was a huge aha moment. Beautiful writing is not all that entertaining for most readers.

This course in particular was great. It really covered everything you'd want to know about writing a novel. The information was all presented in a very accessible way.

You'll see me in another course in the future, I'm sure.

I needed a push. I'm a writer who doesn't write, therefore I'm not a writer. I want to be a writer because I have a lot to write about. I didn't know where to start. My page was empty, and I needed someone to shove my pen on to the page. I needed a JUST DO IT friend. And that friend turned up.

I just got writing again. And the people in the course were good to me. They presumed I was stuck not useless. They helped me get unstuck. All those famous people. I had totally lost my confidence and I'm nearly 70. I feel better now. Also, it was a well-structured course, well-paced. We complain about not having time, so having hours and hours of course to get through would feed into that. This course did not have that; it realised the need for short bursts.

I'm writing again, after so many years of doing anything but; I would polish the picture hooks rather than knuckle down and write. I can now make it a priority, without feeling a fraud.

It improved my writing skills and helped me learn how to develop a story.

An aha moment was when it said not knowing what's going to happen in your writing yet is a way to write - because that's how I write.

It will help improve your writing and it's enjoyable.

I enjoyed understanding how to construct a creative non-fiction narrative. Constructing the arc of the story. Making it more interesting and less like 'history'.

Worth the fee... absolutely!

I enjoyed the ease of listening and referring to the handouts and being able to go back to the videos whenever I wanted to relisten to cement the information.

I am writing historical fiction and, because I had the characters already, I could jump straight into the handout work. It is making it easy to finally put pen to paper.

There were too many 'aha' moments to mention!

It helped me to believe I can actually write a story.

I need help with POV. I tend to head-hop or write with the omniscient POV.

I enjoyed all the examples and the exercises. I am more conscious of POV now. It's something I will work on in future.

I have already recommended the AWC to a few friends. I told them it was great and that I learned a lot more with them than I did in the University courses I took. I think the tutor's feedback in these courses is so good and it really helped me improve my writing.

I've always been passionate about writing and wanted to move forwards in it

I appreciate all the people working on the course and everyone who reviewed my questions and concerns, like Nicole, and I wanted to say thank you :)

I loved Jo and I was really happy that she was so supportive of my wrestling idea. I know a lot more about writing and I'm now more confident in it.

It's really worth it to have a crack and it'll teach a lot about what you never considered whilst writing.

I was keen to learn more about writing in different genres. I was also curious about how to weave different genres together in a meaningful way.

I've enjoyed all of the AWC courses that I've completed. This one ended up being a favourite though! It was very joyful. It felt like Kate was telling me a story about how to tell a story.

The course was full of wonderful tips, insights and inspiration.

I really enjoyed Kate's insights on poetic devices, especially rhythm.

Go ahead. You'll learn a lot and have fun too!

I have an unfinished first draft stuck and left at 40,000 words that I wanted to come back to with more clear intention.

The main course was excellent but the bonus modules helped so much. Even though I already knew which publishing method, and what type of romance I was writing, it still helped solidify it and give me confidence.

I enjoyed breaking down the structure, but also the small part on finding your cohort - this is something I've been wanting to lean more into so it was good hearing more about it.

It's just given me more confidence, especially around structuring and what to emphasise so ensure it is classified as a romance, and not just romantic elements.

I have now done multiple courses at AWC, and I have got something out of every single one. They are affordable and easy to digest.

I want to write my first Indigenous children's picture book using some of my traditional Yidiny language and was recommended by Magabala books to complete this course to tighten up my first manuscript before I submit it officially.

I loved this course, it was very practical and very easy to manage on top of working full time.

I thought the online tutor was great and her feedback was very helpful to help my writing skills.

It has shown me so many practical ways of how to write, and what publishers may be looking for.

It's a great practical course to get you prepared for writing a manuscript for your first picture book.

I enjoyed that it was self-paced. Experimenting with different ways of writing my family history and lots of resources from the handout and workbook.

Writing creative non-fiction is very similar in the process to writing fiction.