What’s it like to learn with AWC?
Each year, thousands of students just like you achieve their writing goals through our courses and world-class presenters. Here they share how their new-found skills and confidence enriched their life.
I was looking for tips and guidance on how to level up my book reviewing and this course seemed to be the best fit.
Vivienne was very generous with her feedback and adapted as much as possible to fit my particular focus. She's terrific! Her feedback was enormously helpful, and deftly offered.
I enjoyed the immediacy of it. How keeping future weeks locked meant that the participants all stayed together as we worked through the material.
I'm so happy to be feel like I'm part of the AWC community. The courses are great and it's good value for money.
The tutor was good. Vivienne has real life experience. I appreciate the honest feedback.
The writing exercises were somewhat therapeutic for me. I don't mind a rant 😅 Although I didn't necessarily follow the structure as well as I should have done, it was good to get words out on paper. It felt good to express some emotion through writing.
I think everyone has an opinion but doesn't necessarily know how to articulate it in a way that can be read or heard easily. If I was feeling unheard it could be the way I was expressing my opinion.
A fun and worthwhile course.
Vivienne was great.
My takeaways from the course are having a hook, the lingering nature of the writing after it has been read, the overall structure for opinion pieces, and how to make it personal.
I pitched a story to The Age and they responded to say they liked my pitch and wanted me to develop the story. The editor gave me some prompt questions to write the full story with a limit of 900 words. I've just submitted it back to him, so fingers crossed.
I enjoyed learning about how to write opinion pieces as well as a lot of background and context. Vivienne is an excellent presenter. She is easy to listen to and very knowledgeable.
It has helped me to better analyse my thoughts and be able to present my opinion in a more concise, and simple way. Hopefully this will help with both my written and verbal presentations and arguments.
I have the background and knowledge to express my opinion more directly and forcibly than I might have done in the past.
Excellent, value for money online courses that allow interaction with the tutor and the other participants. Highly recommended.
Vivienne is an excellent teacher. She delivers content in a clear and accessible manner. But her super skill is being able to provide feedback on assignments in a way that's direct, constructive, and encouraging without bruising anyone's ego.
The AWC's Opinion Writing Course offered practical insights and actionable feedback that has set me on the path to communicating my professional insights to a wider audience.
Thank you Vivienne!
Vivienne is a good tutor providing constructive criticism.
I enjoyed learning about areas I did not know about.
It got me off my butt to write a few letters to the editor and write about experiences.
Vivienne was very knowledgeable, encouraging and gave detailed, constructive feedback.
AWC online courses are easy to fit into a schedule, with bite sized sessions which are structured to provide a deeper knowledge each week.
The course was very well put together - so thorough, clear and engaging. Vivienne has chosen some great examples for us to learn from and generously shared from her own experience.
The tutor was absolutely wonderful. Very generous, honest and in-depth feedback, always leaving us encouraged to keep going.
I enjoyed everything - the way it was structured, increasing the level of difficulty of the assignments in line with what we were learning; the pace of delivery; the very memorable flower model; the great examples and showing us how they were put together.
I feel so much more confident about crafting my own opinion pieces and am bubbling with ideas. I am hoping to start submitting one or two soon.
I learned exactly what I wanted to learn. It was simple and straightforward.
Vivienne was great. She was clear and personable in her delivery and feedback. Including her own published work as examples gave me confidence that getting published is achievable. I can do this even though I am not a full-time writer.
The courses are relevant, easy to follow and practical.
I wanted to be able to write opinion pieces but I had no confidence in my ability to structure them in a persuasive way. The course has definitely given me more skills around this!
My initial hesitation was that I feel like you need to be highly intelligent to write opinion pieces. I wasn't sure that I was this intelligent. But the course has made me see that the writing part is not magic - it can be learnt and those of us with a less than genius level IQ can still learn it with a bit of effort and persistence.
Vivienne was fabulous. She was encouraging (while also being honest and realistic) and her feedback was helpful.
Giving myself permission to spend time doing something I'm interested in just because I'm interested in it. Learning for learning's sake. This is not about making money or any other agenda for me.
I can see that I'm getting more confident about writing in this short (lots of white space) and punchy style. Even though I still haven't nailed the structural component, I'm getting better at seeing what the problem with my structure is and having ideas about how to fix it. But I need to keep going with this, I'm not there yet.
The advice - work out what you're trying to say, then say that. This has absolutely made me see what's wrong with my structure. I'm not saying what I'm trying to say!!!
I would say it was fantastic for teaching you tips and tricks around structure. This gives you confidence to know when you're writing is good and when it needs a bit more work.
Vivienne is a great presenter and her material was very thorough. I liked the way she stepped through everything very logically and provided plenty of examples along the way.
I enjoyed being able to participate as a group and learn from other people's submissions and feedback as well.
The flower model provided an excellent way of analysing opinion pieces in a way that's different to other types of feature writing.
Just do it!
I wanted to learn how to write about some of the research I've been doing, and get it published. Also, well I am opinionated so thought maybe I could put that to good work!
Being dyslexic, I'm always concerned with sharing my writing publicly, as I know there will be spelling/grammar errors. Also I just didn't know what sort of quality the content would be, if it would be worth the cost, as it's such a hit and miss with online courses if they are worth the money or not, but I've loved it, learnt so much, the individual feedback was so valuable.
Vivienne's feedback has been fantastic and her handouts and slides were brilliant, really good for this visual learner. The interviews were great too, definitely inspiring me that I could actually make money out of writing.
The assignments were great, step by step. A good challenge but also not too big of a leap.
I understand the format, structure and flow of an opinion piece now, I had no idea about any of that before. Oh and I got a letter to the editor of The Age published on my second attempt. And more so, I now understand why I would even want to write a letter to the editor.
Do it! if you want to write, have dreamt of writing, secretly write... this course will give you the skills and confidence to share your opinions and writing. It is a great course and the homework feedback is very helpful.
I wanted to write more clearly on topics that I get excited about. This course was short, well-priced and right on target.
I found Vivienne's clear, logical and well-paced style of presenting - and her carefully prepared handouts - very easy to follow. She made the whole experience very enjoyable with her calmness and totally positive feedback.
I hadn't expected such comprehensive feedback for such a short course. And it was great to be able to learn not only from my own work but to see what others were doing and learn from their feedback too - a very helpful bonus.
My major take-away was that there is actually a serious genre of opinion writing. I thought it was more fringe to want to put out a well-crafted opinion. I'm excited that there's more opportunity than expected and that there's a bit of money in too.
It's great. The content is excellent. Being involved with a small cohort of fellow aspiring writers is very helpful. The instructors are professional and plug into the industry. You can work at your own pace and actually get feedback. In addition, it's really well priced.
Vivienne was terrific! She was engaging, spoke very clearly, used excellent examples, and has a knack for breaking down complex concepts in a way that is easy to understand.
I enjoyed walking through actual opinion pieces so we can see how good ones are executed in real life + individualised feedback on our own writing + invaluable insights into how and where to get published
It's made me feel more confident about putting my opinions out there in the world - in a way that is engaging for readers. It's helped me learn avenues for getting opinion pieces published.
Thoroughly enjoyed getting my brain back into gear and actually thinking of "how" to write rather than just having thoughts in my head. Highly recommend it.
Very professional tutor. Calm voice when delivering the modules. Feedback was always positive but not to the point of being unhelpful. The help and constructive ideas were delivered in a friendly manner so you did not ever feel like you had failed! Would be happy with Vivienne as a tutor on another course.
Has given me the motive to actually try and write some more of my thoughts out and into opinions with the flower structure and other ideas presented.
I have been blogging for years and have been attempting to write a non-fiction book on criticism for creatives. I wanted to improve my professionalism without losing my 'voice'.
Vivienne is very knowledgeable and professional. I really enjoyed challenging myself and the feedback was really helpful.
I have already recommended this course and others to friends. The courses are full great content but also easy to complete in the allotted time. Perfect for busy people wanting to improve their skills.
I loved Vivienne's expertise and insights on op-ed writing. I learnt quite a lot over the four weeks. I also very much appreciated Vivienne's feedback to the weekly assignments.
It's helped me to write concisely and to the point, that's for sure. Loved the zooming in/out aspect of opinion writing from module 3, which was probably the module I got the most take aways from.
I gained so much insight from opinion writing and from our tutor Vivienne Pearson. I loved hearing about her own experiences in her own published pieces as well as the other writers she interviewed for the different modules.
I very much appreciated that Vivienne took the time to provide valuable feedback to students to improve their own writing and really encourage us to submit letters to the editor and our own op-ed pieces.
The length of the course was just right! Thoroughly enjoyed the learning experience. I've now got the confidence to submit an op-ed piece.
Do it! This is the second course I've taken from AWC and I highly recommend taking a course that you're genuinely interested in and apply in your own career/profession. You'll enjoy it more.
This course was a new experience for me and I did not know what to expect. I hoped I would learn new skills and insights. These modest expectations were met in spades.
I was impressed with the time Vivienne spent giving detailed and helpful feedback to us all.
Apart from the content and course structure, which I thought was excellent, the noticeboards provided a good clearing house for questions, thoughts and ideas. This made all participants feel part of a group and by the end of four weeks I felt that I had met a dozen more people.
It was the technical structure of good opinion writing that was my special moment. Until now I have been writing by the seat of my pants.
It is clear that Vivienne works very hard and wants to provide course participants with as much support as she can. Her feedback is prompt, detailed and constructive. She made herself available in course chat throughout the month and responded to everyone who asked her questions. There isn't a hint of snobbery about her, and she clearly wanted to get to know her participants so she could tailor her advice to their needs. She is approachable, genuine and clearly very knowledgeable. She is an absolute asset to AWC, that is for sure!
While I am not much of a 'chat contributor,' I really enjoyed that this course seemed to attract people from all over the country. Everyone was friendly and supportive of one another's contributions and assignments, which made the whole experience feel less intimidating. There wasn't a hint of competitiveness or one-upmanship. Refreshing.
Writing opinion pieces is a fantastic way to work out how you really feel about a topic - you might discover your opinion changes mid-way through writing a piece as you research and unearth new information. A really active way to educate yourself on a topic and learn (and retain!!!) new information.
I regularly recommend AWC. Course content is always of high quality, tutors are knowledgeable, and having access to the material after the course is finished allows you to dip and dive back into it when you need it most.
I was attracted to the course because it was only four weeks and now I feel disappointed that it is over!
Vivienne Pearson is incredibly supportive and kind with her time and comments. I enjoyed being able to interact with her in the course chat, and the interviews with other writers. There is one interview for each module. Three of the writers were AWC Opinion Writing graduates so that is very inspiring.