What’s it like to learn with AWC?

I found Louise to be really considered and thoughtful in her feedback to me and others. Her constructive approach really helped me understand how to make my writing better.

I enjoyed giving and getting feedback.

Gave me some great tools and frameworks to better understand the technical aspects of writing.

This is a great course to learn more about the technical aspects of writing while providing an opportunity to get feedback on your writing.

I loved the course - it was really enjoyable and great to connect with the other classmates. The tutorials were extremely useful and I will go back to them time and time again.

Louisa was great - very knowledgeable and provided great feedback.

I really enjoyed learning and meeting the other writers.

It's given me direction and confidence to continue writing!

Do it! It was great and I'm so glad I enrolled. The AWC is well organized and the content was really useful. The design and structure of the course was perfect for my needs. I will definitely look at enrolling in more in the future.

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 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.

Petronella was encouraging and supportive

The course encouraged me to actually start and not be deterred by expectations of perfection.

Great feedback! Very helpful.

Great way to find out if your plot is working as well as voice, style, tone etc from different perspectives! Embrace your unique writing style!

I'd been trying to write a novel for some time and kept running into roadblocks. I was interested in developing skills and strategies to improve my work.

The tutor was thorough and informative. Very helpful.

I learned so much and have come into contact with some very cool people who are working on fantastic stories.

I am a lot more mindful of story structure, character development and effective planning. Letting the story play out rather than info dumping.

I have recommended the AWC to friends and have told them the courses have really helped me develop good foundational skills, and an understanding what works and doesn't work about my writing.

I really hope to do another course in the future :)

I am at the stage of moving forward with my writing and this seemed the next step for me. I was very nervous about sharing my work, however in the end I found it very exciting.

Margaret was terrific and her feedback made sense and I felt was very honest but delivered so well. It pointed things out that I definitely hadn't realised I was doing in my writing.

It felt like a really supportive network to belong to and also as I got further into my writing the course content each week made more and more sense.

I feel so excited moving forward to write my novel and I have gained the confidence and am no longer second guessing myself - I can write

Even when you think you have written something really good - there is something that can be improved upon - improving your work doesn't mean it was necessarily poorly written in the first place just that it can be better

Well worth the cost involved. The courses are so well structured and thought out and it is a very supportive environment to work within.

I am writing a book and I needed to learn the techniques and devices.

Margaret is a joy to deal with always supportive.

I enjoyed the guts of it really. The tools explained and guidance given on who to read to get better at writing.

I managed to start with a small idea and now have 40K words written. If you want to write a novel then start here.

I completed Creative Writing Stage 1 and was keen to further develop my skills and have some group accountability while I aim to complete my novel.

Nat was great. I found her feedback very practical, I know what I need to focus on in my future drafts.

There is no perfect time, just leap in and make a start!

I had a story idea that was just sitting in my head and knew I needed someone to keep me accountable to actually write it, as well as learning things along the way.

I really liked Nat - she was honest and upfront without being too abrupt. She and I have a similar sense of humour, so I think that helped too. I liked her feedback which could be blunt, but it was actually quite refreshing to have someone that doesn't sugarcoat their ideas! It helped to pull me away from my work and really look at it properly.

I enjoyed the feedback - I learnt so much from looking for things in other people's writing that I've learnt to look for them in my own. it's also nice to read so many fresh, new storylines coming through. I read very widely, not sticking to any particular genre, and average well over 100 books a year, and I'm so excited to see some names I know coming through with debut novels when they get published!

We've set up a writer's group via Whatsapp - and that dedicated time really helps me focus, knowing there are people there also writing (and that they'll know if I procrastinate.). It's sometimes the only writing time I get in a week, and if I can push out 1200 words in the hour, then three times a week will keep me on track. Everyone is so constructive with their feedback and can deliver it in a way that is helpful and useful.

I learned that I am actually capable of doing this. It's like when someone tells you something you should have known your whole life, but it comes as a revelation anyway. It's very validating to have fifteen other writers say "Yes, this story deserves to be told, and you're the person to tell it."

It's the best way to start your book. It'll go from an idea to an actual book if you work at it and have some fun along the way.

Great feedback, very constructive.

It has made me cry several times haha! Amazing feedback and hearing people have an emotional response to my writing and believe in my story was life changing.

I learned that I am an over-writer! Was such a great piece of feedback which I can now recognise in my work.

I have already recommended the course! I said it gave me some amazing motivation, encouragement, and perspective! Great theory mixed in also!

I enjoyed receiving feedback from other members. The group chat. Being able to work at home, on my own schedule. The support materials (audio tutorials especially - excellent).

It kept me accountable not just in quantity of writing, but quality. I didn't want others to think I couldn't write. It was actually fun.

Most incredible was how much I looked forward to logging on every day, reading chat and responses, workshopping, and getting down to writing. I loved how motivated I became.

I'd say go for it.

Margaret loves her work! She is very positive, and when she critiques both on loom and in writing, her deep experience as an editor shows. She was caring yet professional.

I enjoyed reading the varied responses to my own work, as well as to particular students whose work I believed was of a high standard. I enjoyed the camaraderie of our group. I think everyone was respectful and many were absolutely friendly and supportive.

Just as past graduates say, the critiquing really does help you by providing a thoughtful distance from the work (in any genre), using the structure and resources provided by AWC. This more dispassionate approach in turn you can then hopefully apply to your own work.

The advice to "just keep writing your first draft, and finish it" rather than keep editing! Once that is done, then go back and start the re-edit. You cannot publish a book if it's not written. Also I listen to Valerie Khoo's pod, as well as many others. This constantly broadens my knowledge, and a more realistic approach to the industry.

I was very buoyed by many positive comments about my 3000 words. This encouragement was part of why I enrolled in the Write Your Novel 2025. I'm almost halfway in my book now, and hope to be further by Feb 2025 for the course.

Tremendous and experienced facilitators, excellent resources, constant updates to keep abreast of developments in publishing/ the writing world. The resources were both written and audio, and in plain English, which really engages many types of learners. I find Nicole in the AWC office very helpful as well.

Margaret was great and I particularly appreciated her specific feedback on my synopsis and 3000 word submission.

Got me focused on writing my novel and words counts and I now have a 1000-words-a-day practice in place.

Thank you for an excellent course! I loved it and am now well on the way to the first draft of Finding Elsie.

I wanted to take the next step in my writing. I want to finish this book, and then another 😄

A great community has formed with some of my fellow classmates and I am so grateful to have the support of others on similar journeys. I learned a lot from the audio lessons and handouts.

The feedback from Margaret was helpful to watch and learn for how a professional editor would go through my work. It was eye opening.

I enjoyed the student interaction. Giving feedback and reading all the different stories. Getting feedback and how much that helped.

I think kicking off with the synopsis really made me think about the structure of my story and the way I could write it. This helped me plan a bit better. I think I'd like to be a pantser writer, but that was never going to work for me.

Thanks for all the support from AWC. All the extra things that happen with AWC people during the course really helped. I joined in with Nat a couple of times at the ungodly hour of 6:30am when I was unnaturally awake, and know the next step I take in Write Your Novel will be supportive as well.

Reading other works as they are being birthed is amazing! I enjoyed the variety of genres that I got to read and comment on. Getting feedback from other writers and readers was also helpful and eye opening.

It has got me to show up for my writing. I learnt how to set time aside and get over humps. I was able to write the first turning point and the mid-point through the duration of this course.

I would say that AWC don't faff about like most university courses do. The lessons are packed with information that is valuable and practical.

Margaret was absolutely fantastic, and I especially benefited from her video feedback. So enlightening!

I most enjoyed the people in our cohort, the social interaction, and the wonderful feedback I received from everyone involved in the workshopping process. I also loved reading and giving feedback on others' stories.

Workshopping is crucial and so beneficial.

Just do it - the best writing course I have ever taken.

Thank you to Margaret and AWC!

I struggle with procrastination so I wanted something to push me to make progress and commit to my novel. I was also drawn to the technical aspect, and the opportunity to receive feedback from both the tutor and other writers.

Margaret was helpful in resolving any queries posted to the course chat and her line editing feedback on the pieces was great, good to get an insight into what an editor would identify. Appreciated her enthusiasm on everyone's pieces, and the method of delivering feedback was also effective.

I enjoyed connecting with other writers on the course chat and my classmates who organised writing sprints; that was great for accountability and lovely to have people to bounce ideas off and discuss shared struggles.

I have more time for writing than I think!

This course was such a great tool for keeping myself accountable and making time for my writing. The opportunity to receive feedback from a developmental editor was fantastic, and it has been so lovely to connect with other writers on what can often be a solitary journey. The other writers were so lovely, there was a great sense of community where we could share struggles and bounce ideas off each other. I will continue doing writing sprints with them to keep up the momentum well beyond the course.

Thank you AWC :)

I enjoyed the audio lessons of each module, the other writers, reading their submissions and their feedback for my submissions, the deadlines.

I needed the commitment to the community and the deadlines to discipline my writing. I think about my story on a daily basis and the feedback was essential to know where I am going with it. The writing community was brilliant, such good people and I like that we had guidelines for feedback.

Thank you! You helped me in the right direction on my writing journey, and gave me a valuable writing community. Excellent work! I have listened to your podcast since 2018 and I love it, I really hope to publish my memoir next year.