The solution

What I offer

We don’t learn excellence in any skill by doing the task once to a barely-okay standard, and we especially don’t learn writing that way. Professional writers don’t work that way. They keep revising and revising the same piece as many times as it takes, hundreds in some cases, until it’s right. Writing students should too.

I made a discovery perhaps unique in the history of writing teachers. Despite intense resistance from one school and an inflexibly blinkered commitment to traditional graded teaching, I gave students the opportunity to resubmit as many times as they wanted, even for assignments that had already passed. As an experiment, I said I’d continue offering feedback as part of a continuous resubmission and improvement cycle.

Something miraculous happened. The students who took advantage of my offer resubmitted pieces that were already good and turned them into something amazing. Then they did it again, and again. Those students produced something excellent, far beyond what the original assignment required. The students who didn’t take this opportunity passed with minimum-acceptable quality. In other words, they learned how to produce crap. As far as I know, they are still doing that. Thus guided repetition is an an essential component for learners wanting to improve. Traditional graded assignments rob students of that opportunity.

Even if this idea could occur to other teachers, most would be too lazy to do it. It’s very labour intensive. But it works. I believe it’s the only thing that does.

I provide this individualised feedback.

• I do that via live 1:1 video sessions, available to anyone in the world having suitable computer equipment (see conditions). I also offer purely written feedback. Some combination of both is okay too.
• If you want to do video, you need a computer with a webcam and an internet connection. I can use Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Jitsi, or possibly Facetime if you’re not using it on a phone.
• I never use any phone-based systems such as Whatsapp or Telegram.
• I’m available between the hours of 7 am to 10 pm, Melbourne time, every day. Everyone has some part of their day that overlaps with these hours.
• Sessions can be booked on a regular or irregular schedule, according to your needs.
• If you want a single class about a specific topic, that’s fine.
• If you want extended teaching, or full program, from beginner to advanced, that’s fine too.
• I teach most kinds of writing except poetry: this includes fiction, non-fiction, media and journalism, memoirs, business, academic, etc.
• I’ll focus on whatever aspects of the writing craft that you need, and identify ways for you to progress.
• I also provide a manuscript evaluation service (fiction and non-fiction).