I Recommend This Course

I took a writing course given by Random House Struik, a department of Random House, being taught out of South Africa. It's mostly teaching how to make a story (novel or short story) and up its quality to make it publishable. Much of it is applicable to documentary or historical fiction, and non-fiction, as well. When I took the ten week course, through Internet (Feb - Apr this year, 2010), the facilitator was an expert content editor and college teacher, employed especially by Random House, Ron Irwin. He's personable and non-threatening, but also detailed and very student-oriented, ready to deal with all levels of authors and future authors.

It's taught via Internet,  a highly effective medium for this course with great support on the South Africa side. It's in English.

I highly recommend this course for all levels, as there are hands-on exercises that will test your skill, whatever your present writing level. There were about 80 in my class. You will get a chance to critique the work of three of them, per applicable assignment, and get critiqued by them. You will also be able to compare student critiques with Ron Irwin's always thorough critique. It works best if you have a novel, finished, but not ready for prime time, or at least a third of the way into your novel/non-fiction work. This will play a part in some of your assignments. So the class is geared for people who are now actually writing something, not just dreamers.

I found the course well worth the $825 I paid; about 5 hours per week for 10 weeks. You will also make friends (network, network, network) with other aspiring writers, mostly residing in South Africa.

The price might be different now, so do check it out and see if the timing is right for you at http://www.getsmarter.co.za/creative-writing?utm_source=sugar&utm_medium=email&utm_content=creative_writing_2010_09_sugar_email_set_3_cw_writing_group_info&utm_campaign=creative_writing_2010_09 .

If you already have an MFA degree in writing or have already published novels with traditional publishers, I'd guess you've been through a lot of this before, but others ought to take a look.