Online courses mean we can more easily fit lessons into our schedule, and we can learn in our favourite jammies.

Here are some that come highly recommended:

→Donna Fawcett offers a one-on-one creative writing course consisting of ten online lessons on the basic elements of creating a manuscript, preparing it for publication and approaching the market in the correct manner. Technical aspects include creating characters, scenes and plots; practical applications include creating the query letter, dealing with scam agents and facing editing.

→Elsie Montgomery offers a one-on-one course on How to Write Bible Studies. It’s an eight unit course, extensive, personalized instruction on writing the Bible study of your choice. Click here for syllabus (She also has intro booklets on writing non-fiction and Bible studies.)

→Edie Melson offers one-on-one coaching on social networking. I’m in her ACFW class this month (see below) and can tell you she’s a great coach and gifted at communicating with people of all skill levels.

→Lawson Writing Academy offers monthly group courses with Margie Lawson and other faculty. The one I took (Empowering Character Emotions) felt like a university-level workload. But did we learn!

→One of the benefits of membership in ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers – but they accept international members too) is the free monthly group courses on various aspects of fiction and marketing. Worth the annual membership fee!

For more, here’s an article by Joanne Sher that recaps what she learned through a Lawson Academy course as well as from some quality publications.