Salon eClasses: Summer Semester

Finally, online classes taught by industry experts! (Check out our testimonials)

Chick Lit: Writing Women's Literature with Stephanie Lehmann (Begins next week!)
Steph's students couldn't believe how great the lectures and critiques were -- or the unbelieveable quality of the other students. Read a testimonial below.

NEW: Personal Essay Writing with Ken Foster (June)

NEW: Writing Noir with Neal Pollack (July)

Short Fiction with Ken Foster (September)
A student in Ken's last class got his story published! Read his testimonial below.

How do our eClasses work?
Read our FAQ, or take a tour of our eClass platform.

Why take a class with Salon?

Most online classes are taught by instructors that universities and writing schools think are good "understudies" for live-class teachers. For Salon eClasses, we decided to take a more daring approach: Why not have the instructor whose class you would vie to get into teach the online course?

Since 1995, Salon has been providing you with news, analysis, and daring, intelligent commentary. Readers have come to rely on our dogged, reasoned reporting and thought-provoking editorials and commentaries.

Now comes a series of classes that you can take right at your computer, taught by the same people who bring you your daily news and culture, as well as other Salon-affiliated professionals. We've tapped into our extensive roster of journalists, writers, artists, and commentators to help us create classes that will challenge and satisfy the intellectual curiosity of the Salon reader.

In our virtual classrooms, we hope to create a vibrant and interactive community between Salon users. Our members have unique intellectual, artistic, and professional pursuits, as well as the curiosity and intelligence off which to build exceptional creative and educational relationships.

Please let us know by email (classes AT salon DOT com) if you have any suggestions for classes, or feedback on our current ones.

Testimonials

Ken Foster's Short Fiction class

"My story is being published in The New Orphic Review, a journal I became aware of it in the 2004 Best American Mystery Stories, where two stories the review had published appeared on the list at the rear of the anthology under "Other Distinguished Mystery Stories" of the year. My story in question, "Pendulum," was conceived and written entirely during the period of the short fiction workshop and sent off just as we were finishing up (the positive response - under two weeks - is the quickest reply I've ever had). Although still 29 pages, double-spaced, that is a heck of a lot shorter than it would've been if I hadn't come out of the workshop with two imperatives jKen (in the end) convinced me of: "Shorten, then shorten again" and "Uncomplicate." For the latter, I suppose I could just say "simplify," but I like "uncomplicate"because my stories often start out, precisely, too complicated.

It's a good idea to take a workshop with someone who knows something about publishing and editing; Ken's reactions to my stories were a better proxy for the editors who've been rejecting my stories than I liked to think. I can sit around for a long time writing long, convoluted stories that I myself like, but if I want to get published I'd better get with the program (just as, if I were a rock musician writing 12-minute songs, I'd need good luck to get airplay). So I think the workshop was a good reality check for me." --John Hanson

Stephanie Lehmann's Chick Lit class

"I recently took Stephanie Lehmann's 12-week "Writing Chick Lit" course through Salon.com. First, the course itself was excellent. Stephanie's lessons were engaging, well-written, and extremely useful. Her feedback on my submissions was completely on point. She was encouraging but specific in her feedback -- I'm convinced that my novel-in-progress is already much much better than it would have been!

Second, the participants were all good writers to begin with, so we did not have to spend time on basics. Congrats to whoever did the selection! The chats were so much fun, and yet so useful, that we have created a Yahoo! group to continue working together. It's rare that such a diverse group of people can bond so quickly and be so engaged." -- Mary R. Wise, author, Girl Clown