Join us for another exciting year of courses and resources.

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The Following classes will be conducted from January-December 2012, (unless otherwise noted).

Back to Basics Boot Camp For Writers! (4 week workshop) Need a refresher course on the rules of writing? Are you clueless about contractions? Spelling got you in a spin? Do you think a homophone is a device to talk on?  Then you're a prime candidate for this fun, four-week class to improve your writing "fitness". We'll cover subject/verb agreement, active vs. passive voice, homophones, contractions, and more! Just because you forgot what your English teacher taught you, doesn't mean you have to produce poor writing. Here's the chance to buckle down and boost your "bottom line" in the process! "Enlist" today.

Blogging 4 Profit or Pleasure
(2-day mini-workshop)
Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately you’ve heard the buzz about blogging. And hey, if you’ve haven’t, there’s no better time than the present.  Here’s the perfect workshop to help fill in all the blanks! This 2-day workshop will address key topics of this popular medium.  Join this fun, information packed forum and discover: the 5Ws of Blogging, how to start your blog, a look at various software options, how to successfully promote your blog, how to land blogging jobs, and more!

Creating Character  (4-week workshop) Do you want to know how to write “character-driven” stories?  Do you want to learn how to create characters your readers will care about?  Heroes that your readers will love, and villains that they will hate?  Then sign up for this four-week course taught by internationally published Victoria Grossack.

The First Edit-Finding and Fixing Your Writing Errors (5-week workshop)Could you do your own first edit? Why would you want to?Learning to edit your own work is an essential part of becoming a successful writer. Today’s agents and editors have no interest in stumbling through poorly crafted work. If you feel like your writing is not getting the attention it deserves, it is probably because your thoughts are not being as clearly communicated as you think they are.

Gothics (4-week workshop) Gothics and Gothic elements are hot right now. Publishers have created special lines for them, and these books are flying off the shelves. But what exactly are Gothics? What are Gothic elements? And what publishers are we talking about here? In this interactive course taught by multi-published Gothic writer Ayn Hunt learn how to write Gothics, what Gothic elements are, how to use them in other genres to make your book stand out, and which publishers are seeking them now.

How to Get Paid for Penning Your Two Cents
(4-week workshop)
Are you opinionated? Informed? Do others often seek your advice? If you answered yes to these questions, you have the potential to become a paid columnist. This class can show you how.

How to Quit Your Day Job: Making a Living as a Full-time Freelance Writer (4-week workshop)
Not only can you make money writing, but with the right tools, you can earn enough to make a full-time living at it. Learn to develop, research, and write pieces suitable for publication in a number of venues. This course is not only full of tips and strategies, but also of checklists, tables, and handouts you will be able to use long after the course is over. This is an intense, hands-on program, so you should be prepared to work hard. By the end of the course, you will have at least two pieces (and their respective query letters) ready to be submitted.

Promotions 101: From Beginning to End (4 week workshop)Multi-published writer Ayn Hunt will show students the ins and outs of pre-publication tools as well as the various types of promotion to make their books stand out. In this eight-week, interactive course students will learn how to write eye-catching queries to both agents and publishers, what a synopsis is and isn’t, and how to write one; writing that all-important marketing plan which many publishers and agents now require, and the difference between e-publishers and traditional publishers. In addition, students will also begin to practice on-line promoting which we‘ll cover in class; person-to-person, off-line promoting, which will also be discussed; places students can list their books for free; the advantages and disadvantages of doing on-line chats, giving talks, and speaking engagements, and how to have a successful book-signing

Say Goodbye to Writer's Block! (4-week workshop) Have you experienced a sense of “stuckness” with your writing? Feel like it’s a struggle to move forward even though the desire is there? Then this workshop is for you. We will explore ten “blocks to change” that may be affecting your writing goals. Additionally, several strategies will be reviewed to help “unblock” your path to moving forward. Some blocks explored include fear, procrastination, doubt, writer’s block, and six others. We’ll explore how to use your mind, body, and spirit to manage, reduce, or perhaps eliminate the impact of these blocks.

SEO Savvy for Writers (4-week workshop) New! The Internet is competitive. There are more than 200 million websites. So how do you get yours noticed? One of the best ways to increase traffic to your webpage or blog is to employ search-engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a set of tools that give you the power to increase your website's visibility on a search engine's results. And greater visibility means more readers. From keywords to anchor text, learn how to manipulate sites like Google, Bing and Yahoo! to increase your site's search-engine ranking.

Social Media Savvy (4-week workshop) New! What's a retweet? What does it mean to "like" a page? Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are essential to a writer's marketing campaign. Publishing houses expect prospective authors to use social media to build their own online fan base. Meanwhile, self-publishers can use social media as an affordable tool to promote book sales. Don't be behind the times. Join the Web 2.0 world, and learn how to harness the immense power of social media.

Stress Management For Today's Writer (4-week workshop) In today's demanding times, writing can be stressful for many. Particularly when other commitments and obligations get in the way. This workshop explores some basic facts about stress and how it can affect you. Participants will leave this skill-building workshop with tools that will enable them to identify and work through stress, burnout and compassion fatigue to be more effective in their lives and still write. Students will have the opportunity to examine where they are currently, in terms of what’s optimal stress and learn 12 different strategies to implement to better combat stress. The doctor is in!

Words, Sentences, Scenes & More (4-week workshop)Internationally published author Victoria Grossack gives you insight into your writing, by teaching you how to focus on the different levels of structure that impact your fiction - from the words that make up your sentences and paragraphs, to the scenes and chapters and even the structure of your book.  Includes at least one critique by facilitator of your five-page scene

Writing and Marketing Your Personal Experiences (4-week workshop) Magazine and book readers like to relate to personal experience stories. Through reading a piece with a problem similar to theirs, they can learn, share the emotion, and feel they are not alone; without being preached at or judged. Whether you have a story worthy of  a "Drama in Real Life" or a humorous look at cleaning the hall closet, your average and not-so-average experiences can find homes in print.  Magazines, books, and anthologies are open to personal experience pieces that teach, encourage, challenge, and make readers laugh or cry.

Writing For Children ( 4-week workshop) Writing for Children isn't a childish endeavor. It takes knowledge of children and their hopes and dreams and fears. It also takes preparation, skill, and an understanding of the modern market. Writers for children have a desire to challenge, encourage, inspire, teach (without it being too obvious) and entertain their young readers. Whether writing for children's magazines or books, for those who are read to or those who read to themselves, there is a great deal of hard work and excitement in this market.

Writing Historical Fiction
(4-week workshop)
Do you want to write good historical fiction? In this course, internationally published Victoria Grossack shows you how to make the past come to life and to lead, not lose, your readers on a fascinating journey through time.

(Please note! The workshop is conducted in English but if you are working or would be more comfortable doing the assignments in German or French Victoria is happy to work with you.)

Writing For Magazines ( 4-week workshop) Want to break into the print magazine and e-zine markets? Then you need to understand magazines, including the different types of articles they accept, how to study them for ideas, and how to put together a winning query letter. Magazine articles come in all forms and genres. Whether you want to write for religious, parenting, women's, or general interest magazines, preparation will raise your chances of becoming a published magazine writer.

Your Personal Editor   (4-week workshop) New! One of the fastest ways to jump start your writing career is to hire an editor to get the “skinny” on what’s working in your writing and what is not. An editor may correct your grammar, spelling, and punctuation—explain the how’s and why’s of sentence structure, pacing, plot and character development, and hooks—and, in the case of this course, accelerate your learning curve by giving you individualized instruction on how to improve your writing. You will submit an initial 10 pages and the editor will work through it, marking potential changes through Word’s “track changes” function, and letting you know the reasons for the suggested changes. The actual number of pages edited will depend on the depth of changes required, so prepare to submit rewrites and additional material.

With Coffeehouse for Writers Online Workshops, all you need to improve your writing is an email address, a little determination, and a lot of enthusiasm.  Read our Frequently Asked Questions to learn more, or check out some testimonials from our workshop students.

To begin exploring, select from the organized topics below and click the link to read the workshop syllabus and, if you're ready to discover your writing talents, enroll in a workshop.

Note: Workshops marked "popular!" often fill quickly. Register now so you won't miss out on this session!

If you have any questions about our workshops, please write to us for assistance.

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