Welcome!
Whether you want to write your novel, perfect your screenplay, or craft your memoir, Writer’s Digest University can help you get your writing career underway. Our expert instructors will provide advice, specific instruction, real-world experience, expertise, and the motivation and drive to help you achieve your goals.
Let's get writing!
Our writing online workshops cover every aspect of writing, from how to get started all the way to getting your writing published. Writer’s Digest University features writing classes online for every skill level of writer and our professional instructors are dedicated to helping you achieve your writing goals.
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More About WDUDon't know where to get started? Â
These featured events and courses are starting soon!Â
Short Story Writing Virtual Conference
May 16 - 18
Writer’s Digest University is pleased to present a one-of-a-kind online event for short story writers! Our WDU Short Story Writing Virtual Conference will provide expert insights from SEVEN authors. Spend the weekend learning the finer points of writing memoirs and personal essays, and optionally participate in a critique of the first 500 words of your short story from a participating editor.
How to Craft Query Letters & Other Submission Materials That Get Noticed
May 20 - 23
When your submission materials – a query letter, synopsis, manuscript, or book proposal – arrive in an agent's inbox, they land among hundreds of others. At that point, one of two things will happen. Either the agent (or the agent’s assistant) will like the submission and request more materials, or they will reply with a rejection. Authors who get rejected tend to fall in one of two categories when submitting materials: they try too hard, or not enough. This Writer’s Digest Boot Camp is designed to help you streamline your submission materials to stand out in a good way.
Anatomy of a Mystery: Crafting Better Crime Fiction
May 22
What makes for a best-selling suspense? What elements go into a top box office thriller? How do you craft a crowd-pleasing TV crime drama? In this live webinar you’ll learn foundational principles of crime and mystery writing that will help you ramp up the intrigue, suspense, and thrill of your next project – whether short story, novel, film, or other media! This webinar focuses primarily structure, creating better tension, deeper character development, and building successful and suspenseful evidence trails. Suggested prerequisite viewing: Prisoners & Stranger Things.
Writing and Revising Your Picture Book: From Concept to Polished Project
May 15 - June 26
This series will give you vital tools to write, revise, understand the “why,” “how,” and “what” of your story and develop a plan for next steps. You can expect video lectures with content as slides, published examples, and activities tailored to support your specific project as well as you as a writer. We’ll dig into this special form and what makes it—and your writing–sing. We’ll go through supportive, illuminating revision techniques as well as take time to investigate your writing identity and process to help you along the way for anything you work on.
Freelance Writing
May 15 - August 28
No other market is as open to the freelance writer as the magazine market. From trade and association publications, to special interest magazines, to regional and national consumer publications, editors are looking for writers who can deliver well-researched, reader-targeted articles on deadline. To make it in this market, you want to learn how to identify a magazine's editorial needs and—most important—how to fill them. In this course, you will work with a published article writer to develop, research and write two articles suitable for publication in magazines you've identified as appropriate markets. You will get feedback from your instructor on your first and second draft of both your articles.
The Nitty Gritty of Spec Scripts: Writing Strong Action and Dialogue
May 15 -Â May 22
This one-week intensive course focuses on the specifics of writing compelling action (description) and dialogue. At the end of this course, your expert instructor, Dave Trottier, will evaluate five pages of your spec script. Who is the real audience for your spec script, and what are they looking for? Craft a riveting, engaging spec that can open doors to your success. In this course, you will get an inside view of how to write action and dialogue that captures the imagination and emotions of those who can make a difference. Examples will be provided.
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