Fantasy, Science Fiction and More Course Review
Earlier this year I undertook a 5-week course with the Australian Writers’ Centre, a primarily online-courses centre based in Sydney. I chose to do a once-weekly, two-hourly course on writing in my preferred genre, speculative fiction.
It was so worth it.
The course took place over Zoom with up to a dozen participants. I am still in touch with some of them. The small group size gave an intimate setting without the inconvenience of leaving home (especially in the time of COVID-19), and allowed remote writers to participate equally, which I found fantastic.
The course was presented by author Pamela Freeman (who also writes as Pamela Hart), an extremely active author in her fields and Director of Creative Writing at AWC. Pamela was knowledgeable, authentic and ready to give constructive feedback to the participants throughout the course, tailoring the content to our interests and needs as we went along. This made the course exceed my expectations, so that I took away more than theory and up-to-date industry knowledge – I also gained so much understanding and confidence as a writer and a critiquer of my work and others’.
It is not often that you find a short online writing course meeting – or indeed exceeding – expectations. The materials provided were useful and practical; the weekly exercises drove interesting questions; and the general feeling of supportive camaraderie from the other participants made it a very enjoyable experience.
AWC runs many other online courses. Some are presented, like the one above; others are learn-at-your-own-pace with materials provided. If you have an area of writing you would like to explore, I highly recommend you check them out.
And if you do – please let me know how it went! 🙂
The Australian Writers’ Centre is Australia’s leading provider of writing courses. Offering practical and industry-driven courses in creative writing, freelance writing, business writing, blogging and much more.
“If you’d like to improve your writing skills or simply find your inspiration, this is the place.” – AWC
This review is provided of my own accord and reflects my personal experience with the Australian Writers’ Centre course Fantasy, Science Fiction and More.
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EMMA LOUISE GILL 
That’s some awesome stuff right there. Did you feel any different coming out of the five-week course compared to before? I’m from Malaysia so this questions isn’t for my interest in the course, but in writing courses in general.
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Hi Stuart. I definitely felt different, thanks for the question.
I chose this particular course due to wanting some information relevant to my genre, as well as some general theory. I also got lots of constructive feedback through discussion and the mini-tasks we were set as homework. This really helped me to visualise my WIP better, and feel confident as well about my writing.
One thing I would say is that I enjoyed the 5-week format. This gave me time to reflect on the learning each week. If the course had been run (corona-free) over a weekend for example, I don’t know that I would have gotten quite so much out of it.
If you’re interested in courses, I can recommend the AWC – and I bet you can purchase the self-paced ones from Malaysia. I once did an online self-paced course from a US company, while I’m based in Australia. But that’s a review for another day.
Just remember if you’re thinking of doing a course – there’s always something new to learn, new ways to write, and practice, and improve! 🙂
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I find that all AWC courses I have done hit the mark every time 🌟
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Ooo which ones have you done?
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