What’s it like to learn with AWC?

I love Kate Forsyth's work and I've felt stuck with my writing for a long time. I was worried I'd stay stuck with my writing, or wouldn't complete the course, but it exceeded my expectations.

This course felt like a mentorship, with Kate's wise and compassionate voice guiding me to rediscover my love of writing, literature and, above all, story. Kate weaves her extensive writing experience and knowledge with works of art and an understanding of psychology to demonstrate how we can find wonder in writing again.

I feel empowered to write for the joy of it again. While I'm keen to return to my manuscript, I'm most looking forward to completing the challenges set by Kate to journal, write creatively and expand my craft and creative experience.

This course is fantastic at bringing the writer back to writing for joy, with practical ways to build positive writing experiences into our lives to create writing habits that last.

The Australian Writers' Centre provides expert writing training for every type and genre of writing. You're learning from highly-skilled and respected authors, who live and breathe what they're teaching and share their knowledge with generosity and warmth.

I would like to write non-fiction so this was a first step in that direction.

Nat was awesome. Her comments were on point and incredibly insightful and helpful, all presented in an empathic way. I never felt criticized - only supported with the knowledge of how to improve.

I am now developing scenes of my life so they are (hopefully) interesting to read.

Thank you.

I was attracted to this course for the motivation and accountability, a structure to get words on the page. I was at 5000 words when I started and reached 25,000 by course end.

The course was excellent. I learnt a lot about the craft of writing and was surprised at how useful reading other people's stories and providing feedback was.

Petronella was fantastic. She gave very detailed and useful feedback but the thing I loved the most was her enormous enthusiasm for everyone's stories and her encouragement to drive us on to keep writing.

I enjoyed the workshopping and feeling part of a community.

It's given me confidence and motivation. I am now determined to finish my novel and get it to the point of pitching to publishers. Have signed up for Write Your Novel to give me the structure and motivation to finish.

Realising that my first draft is not supposed to be good, that it's just important to get the story down on paper and the finessing happens later.

I think the Australian Writers' Centre gives aspiring writers the scaffolding to write their book and the enthusiasm and encouragement from the tutor was such that it felt like they really, really wanted us to succeed. It's a scary thing to put your story idea and writing before other people in a course like this, the fear of rejection is paralysing, but my experience was the complete opposite of what I feared. The course is structured in a way to be collaborative and confidence building. I feel like everyone in my course became invested in making everyone's stories sing.

I wanted to get more specialised guidance on historical fiction writing and the course outline sounded promising.

I enjoyed all aspects of this course. It was well structured and well delivered and I learnt a lot.

I really enjoyed the guidance on research techniques and how to access different research resources. The advice on creating authentic historical characters that are still likeable and engaging for modern readers was another standout, although the whole course was excellent.

I've often bemoaned the loss of access to various academic resources now that I'm not associated with a university. I hadn't realised how many resources I still had access to through my humble library card! The amount of information (especially online reference material) that is publicly accessible through libraries and other institutions was an eye opener.

The research section was my biggest 'aha!' moment. I hadn't realised how reliant (dare I say complacent?) I had become on Google and Google Scholar. They still have their place of course, but there are so many other resources available that I had overlooked.

Go ahead, you'll learn a lot and have fun on the way!

Since childhood I've loved writing. I'm now a primary school teacher and most enjoy teaching literacy.

The tutor was timely - helpful feedback and very knowledgeable.

I enjoyed the variety of communication and learning options - self paced videos, pre-reading material, online chat forum and sharing writing with peers.

This course has given me self-confidence and valuable information of how to approach the children's picture book writing world.

If you have ever thought about writing a children's picture book, this course well and truly plants the seed for practical growth!

I wanted to be able to write opinion pieces but I had no confidence in my ability to structure them in a persuasive way. The course has definitely given me more skills around this!

My initial hesitation was that I feel like you need to be highly intelligent to write opinion pieces. I wasn't sure that I was this intelligent. But the course has made me see that the writing part is not magic - it can be learnt and those of us with a less than genius level IQ can still learn it with a bit of effort and persistence.

Vivienne was fabulous. She was encouraging (while also being honest and realistic) and her feedback was helpful.

Giving myself permission to spend time doing something I'm interested in just because I'm interested in it. Learning for learning's sake. This is not about making money or any other agenda for me.

I can see that I'm getting more confident about writing in this short (lots of white space) and punchy style. Even though I still haven't nailed the structural component, I'm getting better at seeing what the problem with my structure is and having ideas about how to fix it. But I need to keep going with this, I'm not there yet.

The advice - work out what you're trying to say, then say that. This has absolutely made me see what's wrong with my structure. I'm not saying what I'm trying to say!!!

I would say it was fantastic for teaching you tips and tricks around structure. This gives you confidence to know when you're writing is good and when it needs a bit more work.

The amount of information was good, and there was enough time to do each module , I felt a little pushed to get it done but surprised myself with what I did manage to come up with. All first draft stories I had not previously considered.

I thought the tutor's feedback was all fair and relevant. She was honest and that's what you do need otherwise it's a waste of time.

After finishing the course I looked back at some of my first draft stories and could see how bad they were. And with my new tool kit of information I can improve them somewhat with a bit more confidence. It's still going to take more time as I haven't had time yet to process all the information properly. I do want to re watch it all.

Very informative. Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

I enjoyed being kept accountable for my writing and challenged to look at things in different ways. Cathie gave helpful feedback.

It's encouraged me to keep writing and pursuing this dream.

It's an excellent place to kick off your writing goals.

It was very valuable having the ways in which profile writing differs from feature writing brought to my attention. It helped me think about how I will approach writing about people in our relatively small community.

I enjoyed David's examples, and insights into his thought processes.

I have more ideas for interview questions and feel better prepared to write profile pieces.

I've completed several AWC courses and have always appreciated their practical information and tips I can apply in my writing.

I loved every part of this course and it has changed my entire view on writing. I feel like I would never have got the courage to share my work with others if it wasn't for this course.

This is the first writing program I have ever done and I didn't know how it was going to work. Turns out my worry was for nothing! This course was super helpful and I am extremely grateful to all you amazing people at the AWC.

Jo was amazing. She knew exactly where I needed help and gave me the perfect advice so that I could grow and learn from my mistakes. And, best of all, she explained it in terms that I understood, not over complicating it.

I loved it all! This whole course has really helped me to grow and understand my writing on a level I didn't even know existed. My favourite part was doing my assignments, as it gave me a chance to receive feedback from a professional writer, and I would learn what I was doing well, and where I could probably work on.

It changed my entire perspective and the way I view writing, allowing me to become more professional.

Just realising that there is no right way to write made me realise I could do this my way and that was okay.

It was an incredibly beneficial course that has really helped me develop my writing through fun activities and feedback from an award-winning author.

I am just so grateful to everyone at the AWC, particularly Jo, as she read my work and gave me heaps of brilliant feedback. I feel like you just gave me the skills and advice necessary to write well. I hope to do another course at the AWC soon!

I was constantly amazed at the sheer depth of the information presented, along with the generosity of the authors included.

I enjoyed the amount of information available, along with the ease of accessing this information online. The little stories such as the history of the Christmas tree that Valerie interspersed the audios with. I learnt so much and at times felt quite ignorant.
At times I was almost overwhelmed at the sheer amount of information available.

I understood research was extremely important, however, I now have a much clearer understanding of the system of research as in start general and then be more specific and deep dive.

Don't go anywhere else. AWC courses and presenters are world class.

I really enjoyed your Creative Writing 1 course and this seemed best suited to where I was at with my own writing. I wanted to get feedback, learn more about the craft of writing and motivate myself to keep going.

I loved this course and Margaret's feedback was exceptional. She was really insightful and really helped me develop the story I was trying to tell. She was considered in her feedback.

I learnt a lot about the craft of writing and can tell that my writing has come a long way from when I started.

Great way to motivate yourself and to start to workshop your novel with other writers.

It seemed like an accessible starting point for me as someone who hasn't done much writing since high school, but has an idea and wants to see where it leads.

I got so much out of the information presented in this course. I struggled a little with time management in the beginning (I suffer from terminal procrastination), but with each passing week I got more excited about the content and how it could help me express the dream I had in my head.

Bernadette was great. My impression is that she started off pretty soft on us (lots of positivity and encouragement), then started to provide more critical feedback as we went on which I found so helpful. Her feedback made me feel much more confident in my ideas, and while I still have this feeling like I need my writing to be torn to shreds in order to improve, I think I'll seek that out in the workshopping in the novel writing essentials course.

I loved reading the other students' work. It was cool to see the ideas that everyone was working towards, I really hope to get to read more of what everyone is writing through the Facebook group. Also the bonus exercises were really helpful in getting me to do the work to flesh out my ideas and characters, and practice the actual work of writing.

I've had the idea that I wanted to write a book for a long time, but I really didn't think it would actually be something I could do. The practical approach of the course really helped me to see that the main barrier to writing a book is the writing itself, and that perfection doesn't come from the first draft. Definitely a mind-set changer for me. I started the course at a time in my life where I'm very much at a loose end - moving back to my home country after a dream 10 years in my favourite city, being unemployed for the first time in 15 years, being pregnant with my second child. A lot of change, upheaval and loss (and bloody morning sickness). Having this course to focus on, and my ideas to dive into has been something that's kept me pushing through the daily struggles. Being creative is truly a joy!

I think after the feedback from the first assignment I thought "oh...maybe...can I write? Is this writing?" Kind of a revelation to realise that the main barrier to feeling like I could do something and progress was actually not starting and instead just keeping endless notes on my phone. Just start writing!

It's so freeing to get the story out of your brain, and to flex creative muscles as opposed to logistical and practical ones.

Looking forward to Novel Writing Essentials!

I have always been a keen reader of historical fiction and I aspire to write a series of historical fiction novels which feature women through the ages.

I enjoyed learning how to bring ideas about stories from the past to life, how to embed accurate, factual detail into the story in a balanced way to provide an enjoyable experience for the reader.

I am very grateful for the detail provided regarding research and defamation. Very helpful.

I have started a novel, this course has provided some very helpful tips in relation to research and defamation particularly as I am writing about an event that has occurred locally in the past.

I would say 'do it, enrol, today!' I have enrolled in several courses with AWC and I have found the information to be relevant and very informative to a writer such as myself that is at the start of my writing career.

I had previously done the Write Your Novel program with the AWC and I enjoyed the structure and accountability. I had been working on my MS for quite some time, had done several drafts and wanted to get to a draft that I was happy with.

Having done the course before I knew what to expect from a content perspective.
I believe I have connected with my fellow writers in this course more-so than previous courses I have attended.

Margaret was very knowledgeable, engaging and constructive with her feedback. This has helped me be a better writer and I appreciate her skills and experience. I feel her support got me to a place where I was happy with my MS and the story that I had created. Her feedback gave me things to think about to enhance my characters, story and MS.

I always enjoy workshopping with the other students. There will always be those you connect with more than others, and connect with their stories, but it is good to get so many different pieces of feedback on your work that you can consider.

The structure and deadlines of having the draft ready, and the spreadsheet to help calculate the words you need to complete to have your completed draft were very helpful.

I believed that my characters, story and MS were worthy of being finished. That it was something that people wanted to read. Based on the feedback I received on my complete MS, I had the confidence to enrol in the Pitch Perfect Course with the Australian Society of Authors. I pitched to both Simon & Schuster and Pan Macmillan who said I had a great story and a fantastic pitch. While it is no guarantee of being published, I now have the confidence that I have a compelling story that people want to read.

Each topic was broken down into small, achievable steps that even a tech dunce like me could follow and understand.

I was sceptical about the need for a website, but now realise it's an essential landing page for agents, readers and publishers.

Definitely worth doing, even if you're not tech savvy.

I found Bernadette's teaching to be clear and highly valuable. She provided me with plenty of opportunities to apply what I had learned and her feedback on my assignments was so positive and constructive. I felt like I was in the hands of a tutor who really cared about helping me learn the essentials of copywriting and encouraged me to build on my budding confidence. No question was too difficult for Bernadette to answer and I appreciated her responses to questions along the way.

I really enjoyed the SEO headline and sub headline assignment. And I found I really enjoyed the personal letter in assignment five even though I felt unsure of what I was doing at first. But when I went back and reviewed the lessons everything fell into place and I was able to do the assignment. I enjoyed getting feedback on my assignments on what worked and ways to improve my copywriting.

Copywriting Essentials gives you all the tools you need to kick-start your copywriting career. Not only that, it reframes copy and gives you a can-do mindset and encourages you to build your confidence as a copywriter. Learning about headlines with formulas that work, SEO headlines, and how to write a personal letter with linking words has changed the way I write for the web and blogs. It's a course that solidifies the foundations of copywriting and sets you up as a professional. Honestly, this course was a huge confidence boost, and that, to me, is priceless!

Thank you, Bernadette for this course. It has been a truly positive experience for me and I am looking forward to learning more in the next copywriting course I take with you.

I really benefitted from the discussion of the types of antagonists and other options. I'm now going to consider a character in my story on the basis of this discussion.

Lesley was great with tips and explanations. I found her videos very easy to listen to.

I enjoyed the modules, as they break down the learning and give you time to practise the exercises. And Lesley's tips.

It's made me allocate time to writing so that I don't just think about it and never do it.

This is the 3rd course I have done with AWC. Your courses are easy to digest, have valuable content, and exceptional educators.

I thought Petronella was insightful and very professional, as well as warm and supportive.

I loved the diversity of the stories. I thought the students were all great writers, which was somewhat daunting but also inspiring. We had a small and very supportive group which was amazing.

I found I went much deeper into characterisation, and shifted the plot plan a lot as a result.

I have done three courses, all extremely useful, professional and supportive.