creative writing courses edx

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Creative Writing Classes: The Best Online Courses to Educate and Inspire

Are you considering taking a creative writing class? We applaud your keenness — making the time to develop your craft, learn from pros, and experiment is crucial to improving your writing skills and becoming a better writer .

Below, you’ll find a selection of both free and paid courses that can offer something for every type of student, depending on what you’re looking for at the present moment. Take up your trusty notebook and let’s see what options you have!

1. How to Write a Novel by Reedsy

💲 Cost : $1000

👨‍🏫 Type : Video lectures, live webinars, community forum

Dates: Rolling admissions, check Reedsy’s website to see when the next cohort begins.

This premium course is taught by novelist and bestselling ghostwriter Tom Bromley. With Tom’s expert guidance and a supportive community around you, this class will help you write the first draft of your novel in just three months. It’s designed for writers of all levels, backgrounds, and genres. As you work through 101 days of daily lessons, you can use Reedsy’s members’ hub to meet other authors writing in your genre, exchange feedback, and discuss each lesson. To support and inspire you, each week of the course brings a live webinar with Tom, writing coaches, and your classmates, as well as interviews with successful authors who’ll share their best advice with you. 

2. Reedsy Learning

💲 Cost : Free

👨‍🏫 Type : Email lessons

If you’re struggling to find time for classes, Reedsy Learning is for you. These bite-sized lessons are emailed to you once a day for ten days and can be read in five minutes or less. But don’t let their compact size fool you — each lesson is packed with practical tips, links to additional resources, and enough exercises to keep your skills sharp. There’s also courses on editing, marketing, and publishing for when you’re ready to take your creative writing to the next level.

3. Gotham Writers’ Workshop

💲 Cost : $165 – $409 (plus registration fees)

👨‍🏫 Type : Video lectures, live Zoom classes, assignments, critique

The largest adult-education writing school in the US, Gotham Writers has been helping budding authors hone their skills since the 1990s. Based in New York City, they offer in-person classes as well as a variety of online options for students all over the globe. With self-paced courses, live Zoom lectures, write-ins and several free events per term, Gotham Writers emulates the university feel wherever possible.

💲 Cost : $0 – $109

👨‍🏫 Type : Lectures (videos, slides, and text)

Founded in 2010, Udemy is a massive online open course (MOOC) platform, created to provide an alternative to in-person, university learning. Their primary audience is made up of professionals and students — some of their courses even offer credit toward technical certifications. Their creative writing courses are broad and geared mainly toward beginners, through there are some intermediate courses that get into specific niches.

💲 Cost : $0 – $998

👨‍🏫 Type : Video lectures, online assignments

Another MOOC, edX was started as a collaboration between Harvard and MIT, but these days boasts classes from a wide variety of respected universities. Like Udemy, some of their courses also offer college credits. edX’s courses are weekly, consisting of short videos, interactive learning exercises, and online discussion groups. Their writing courses cover everything from novels to stand-up comedy to digital content. There are also related courses in journalism, composition, and grammar, among other specializations.

6. Coursera

💲 Cost : Free (Creative Writing Specialization)

One last MOOC for our list, this time founded by several Computer Science professors from Stanford University. But don’t let its history fool you — Coursera offers humanities classes as much as science and technology. In addition to general courses, Coursera also offers specializations, a series of courses that work together much like what you’d find in a university.

7. Masterclass

💲 Cost : $180/year

👨‍🏫 Type : Video lectures, workbooks

If learning from household-name celebrities sounds like an exciting way to develop your skills, Masterclass is great for you. Each Masterclass course is taught by renowned professionals — which, for writers, means learning from the likes of Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume, R.L. Stine, Neil Gaiman, and many more. Work through the lectures at your own pace. Detailed workbooks will give you plenty to do, both during and after the course.

8. Skillshare

💲 Cost : $19.99/month when billed monthly, or $99/year when billed annually

👨‍🏫 Type : Video lectures, worksheets, assigned projects

While Skillshare offers some celebrity-hosted courses (want to learn how to write a personal essay from Roxane Gay?), the bulk of their classes are led by enthusiastic experts ready to share their knowledge with a hungry audience. In addition to the videos, Skillshare courses provide students with a course-long assignment to complete, which then gets reviewed and discussed with the course instructor.

9. Writer’s Digest University

💲 Cost : $49.99 – $799.99

👨‍🏫 Type : Video lectures, assignments, critique, discussion group

Run by Writer’s Digest, these new ‘University’ courses are aimed at students with a wide range of skill levels and career goals. Whether you just want to practice your artistic skills in poetry or novels, or you’re looking to get creative with blogging, you can browse courses based on the form of writing, your goals as a writer, or the elements of writing you’re aiming to  improve. Each course gives you access to a discussion group as well as a private “journal” where you can write notes visible only to you and your instructor.

10. LitReactor Online Writing Workshops

💲 Cost : $99 – $399

👨‍🏫 Type : Video lectures, assignments, critique

Unlike most of the other courses on our list, LitReactor’s ever-changing roster of online classes only run for a few weeks — so if there’s one you want to participate in, make sure you sign up while you can. Still, if you can make their schedule work for you, these highly interactive courses could provide you with exactly the boost you need to get into a solid writing habit.

11. The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers

💲 Cost : $9 – $29

👨‍🏫 Type : Lectures (written and video), exercises

Run by Nebula-award-winning author and two-term former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Cat Rambo, these courses are a treasure trove of highly targeted but widely useful creative writing topics. Need to find time to write in the cracks of your life? There’s a course for that. Want to get your hands on nuanced breakdowns of revising, or the finer points of literary prose? You’re in the right place. Are you brimming with genre-specific questions on fairy tale retellings or steampunk worldbuilding? Rambo’s got you covered.

12. The Creative Penn Courses

💲 Cost : $69 – $297

👨‍🏫 Type : Video lectures, downloadable slides, discussion group

While Joanna Penn is perhaps best known for her advice on selling and marketing your work, she also offers creative writing courses on nonfiction, co-writing books, and crafting novels. Each course is self-paced, and full of Penn’s trademark no-nonsense advice and inspiring, uplifting attitude.

13. Brandon Sanderon’s lecture series

👨‍🏫 Type : Video lectures

If you’ve ever dreamt of sitting in on a college-level course taught by a prolific, bestselling author, look no further. This lecture series is literally just a recording of Brandon Sanderson’s creative writing course that he teaches at BYU. Widely regarded as a must-watch video series for writers of science fiction and fantasy, Sanderson covers topics ranging from weaving intricate plots and fleshing out a believable fantasy world to writing fantastical short stories. Since it’s available for free on YouTube, many genre writers find themselves revisiting it over and over again.

14. Reedsy Live

Reedsy also runs a series of webinars presented by a wide range of expert editors across many different genres. These video replays are the perfect way to sharpen your skill in a fun, upbeat environment. Whether you’re looking to write for a middle grade audience , want to learn how to create spine-chilling suspense , or simply want help refining your author “voice,” Reedsy’s pro editors will walk you through the process with wisdom and experience. Reedsy Live also covers how to take your creative writing project all the way to publication — and beyond.

With this wealth of resources at your fingertips, there really is no reason not to get out there and pursue your creative writing dreams. We can’t wait to see your work on the shelves someday! For even more classes you can take, check out this directory of over 600 creative writing courses .

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Writing for Video Games

• Communications Support
• Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
• Indigenous Engagement
• Prize for Best New Fiction
• Job Opportunities

In this six course Professional Certificate Program hosted on Harvard and MIT’s innovative edX learning platform ,  you’ll learn the tools and techniques of writing for video games in a comprehensive program designed by successful, working game writers and UBC teachers. From story and character development to worldbuilding and interactive narrative, this Certificate will help you excel in an industry that rewards creative, flexible team players.

What You’ll Learn

• The crucial differences between traditional storytelling and writing for video games
• The writer and narrative designer’s role in the game development process
• How to develop characters and write scenes that serve both the narrative and the production of a game
• How to work with art directors, programmers and level designers to create interactive narratives
• How to develop an application portfolio and excel at industry-standard writing tests

Course Length: self-paced (estimated at 5 weeks each). Cost: Free to audit. Verified certificate cost from $99 to $249 per course (USD). Schedule:  Sign up any time. Courses are self-paced and open now for registration.

Course 1: Video Game Writing Essentials

Learn the essentials of writing for video games: from the game development process to the ways that game stories differ from other kinds of stories.

Writing for video games is truly a new frontier, a place where writers and game developers are still learning, innovating and pioneering bold approaches to telling stories.

This course is your introduction to this frontier. We’ll look at what interactive storytelling is as well as touch on the history of video games and the kinds of games that have been developed since the medium was born. We’ll discuss the complex, collaborative process of game development and hear from working game writers about their jobs. Then we’ll dig into the way game stories are built, where they come from, and how they are changing.

Course 2: Writing Video Game Characters

Learn how to make effective, memorable video game characters, from protagonists and antagonists to npcs.

You might spend two hours with a character in a movie, but you can spend hundreds of hours interacting with the player character, antagonists and all the non-player characters (NPCs) in a video game. Getting character right is a vital part of getting the game right.

This course will teach you how to create a player character who fits into the mechanics of a video game and all the limitations of the medium, as well as how to create memorable player characters and how to deepen and develop them.

We’ll discuss how characters relate to gameplay, working with existing intellectual property (I.P.) and how a great game needs a great villain. Finally we’ll dive deep into the world of NPCs, exploring the tremendous variety of characters who can populate a video game, and how to make them distinct and interesting.

Course 3: Writing Video Game Scenes and Dialogue

Learn the fundamentals of writing cinematics, cutscenes, and in-game dialogue.

In this course we will explore how to create compelling, vital scenes, and how to use dialogue to support gameplay, deepen character, and advance the game’s story. Early career game writers will often get their first experience writing dialogue for NPCs, especially the infamous barks and taunts. We’ll show you how to make this dialogue work, when it should sing and when it should be invisible.

Course 4: Worldbuilding for Video Games

Learn the fundamentals of building video game worlds, from a writer’s perspective.

Game writing is a collaborative process, and worlds are designed with input from art directors, level designers, and even marketing teams. But writers have an integral role in making these worlds feel rich, deep and believable. In this course you’ll learn to use the tools of environmental storytelling, lore, readables and audio/video logs to help create a memorable game setting.

Course 5: Interactive Narrative

Learn how to use player choice and interactivity to create compelling game experiences.

The primary difference between video games and other art forms is interactivity. Players embody the characters in a game; instead of watching the protagonist make choices, they actively make choices for the player character.

For writers, choice takes on a different meaning in games that allow players to control the outcome of the plot. How do you ensure that game choices are meaningful, have consequences, and also don’t require an impossible amount of work for the game development team?

In this course we will explore how choice works in games, how branching plots work, and how to manage them with tools such as pinch points, bottlenecking and story silos. We’ll look at characters and dialogue, then get you writing your own interactive narrative with commonly available online tools.

Course 6: Working as a Game Writer

Learn what it takes to work as a video game writer: from resumes to writing tests to contracts and ndas.

What is it like to work as a video game writer? How do you even apply for a game writing position? Is it true that you might have to take a writing test?

This capstone course puts everything you’ve learned in the previous courses together. Each assignment has helped you produce material that is suitable for a portfolio. Now we’ll show what to do with it.

We’ll explore what it takes to get a position as a video game writer or narrative designer, including how to get experience that will make you stand out. We look at what the hiring process is like, what sort of writing tests you may be asked to perform, and how to connect with people in the industry.

Not only is the content well-produced, but it rings very true regarding the kind of lessons a budding narrative designer/video game writer will benefit from. An applicant who has successfully completed the edX Professional Certificate in Writing for Video Games would have a definite advantage.

2024 -“Juried Undergraduate Exhibition,” Ridenbaugh Gallery, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID -At Invitation, University of Idaho’s President’s House, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID -“In Medias Res,” Ridenbaugh Gallery, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID (Forthcoming)

2023 -At Invitation, “Painting Show,” Ridenbaugh Gallery, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID -“VAC is Back!”, Reflections Gallery, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID -“Pens, Pencils & Paint,” Ridenbaugh Gallery, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID -At Invitation, University of Idaho’s President’s House, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID. 2023-2024 -“Palouse Plein Air,” Moscow City Council, Moscow, ID. (Winner: City Purchase Award) -“Mirage,” Reflections Gallery, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID. -At Invitation, “Painting Show,” Moscow City Council, Moscow, ID. Fall 2023-Spring 24

2022 -“Figures”, Downtown Arts Center, Honolulu, HI -“Palouse Plein Air”, Moscow City Council, Moscow, ID. (Winner: Best Watercolor) -At Invitation, “Student Painters,” Moscow City Council, Moscow, ID. -At Invitation, “Student Printmakers,” Ridenbaugh Gallery, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID. -“Clay?!”, Ridenbaugh Gallery, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID.

2021 -At Invitation, “Student Show”, Iolan’i Gallery, Windward Community College, Kaneohe, HI.

2020 -“Foundations Juried Exhibition”, The Looking Glass Gallery, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC.

2019 -“Student Show”, The Arts Center, Carrboro, NC.

2024 Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Painting and Ceramics, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID. (Forthcoming)

Extracurriculars and Honors

2022-2024 President of Visual Arts Community (VAC), University of Idaho President of Vandal Print Guild (VPG), University of Idaho Volunteer Artist, Vandaljacks, University of Idaho Dean’s List, University of Idaho Alumni Award for Excellence, University of Idaho

2019-2020 Resident Artist, Cannon Hall, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC.

Work Experience/Training

2021-2022 Gallery Attendant, Iolan’i Gallery, Windward Community College, Kaneohe, HI.

Studied Under: Kelly Oakes, Durham, NC. 2019-2020. William Zwick, Honolulu, HI. 2020. Mark Brown, Honolulu, HI, 2020-2022. Daunna Yanoviak, Kailua, HI. 2021- 2022. Mark Norseth, Honolulu, HI. 2021-.

Art: “Introduction to Figure Drawing,” Stacey Leanza, Class, The Arts Center, Carrboro, NC. 2018. “Printmaking; Mono-prints,” Stacey Leanza, Class, The Arts Center, Carrboro, NC. 2018. “Mixed Media,” Stacey Leanza, Class, The Arts Center, Carrboro, NC. 2018. “Introduction to Portrait Drawing,” Kelly Oakes, Class, The Arts Center, Carrboro, NC. 2019. “Painting Portraits in Alla Prima,” Kelly Oakes, Workshop, The Arts Center, Carrboro, NC. 2019. “Demystifying the Modern Portrait,” Marie Rossettie, Class, The Arts Center, Carrboro, NC. 2019. “Intuitive Painting,” Heather Gerni, Workshop, The Arts Center, Carrboro, NC. 2019. “Oil Painting Crash Course,” Vanessa Murray, Workshop, The Arts Center, Carrboro, NC. 2019. “Live Portrait Sessions,” Alla Parsons, Downtown Arts Center, Honolulu, HI. 2023. “Introduction to Watercolor,” Dwayne Adams, Class, Downtown Arts Center, Honolulu, HI. 2023.

Creative Writing: “Writing the Killer Mystery,” C1121, Central Carolina Community College, 2019. “Flash Fiction Made Easy,” C1058, Central Carolina Community College, 2019. “Charting Your Path To Publication,” C1060, Central Carolina Community College, 2019.

Newspapers and Articles

Long, Maryanne, “Windward Artists Turn Impression Into Expression,” Windward O’ahu Voice, February 9th, 2022

2018 Primetime Emmy & James Beard Award Winner

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