As we get closer to the end of the year, it's never too late to pursue your writing goals. Odyssey Writing Workshops provides countless online courses. Their classes combine deep focus, directed study, intensive practice, and detailed feedback. They'll help you learn how to best use the concepts, tools, and techniques covered to make major improvements in your writing.
Today, we're chatting with Amy Katherine Black about her experience taking four online courses at Odyssey Writing Workshops: Crafting Compelling Scenes in 2026 and Mix-Up, Mash-Up, Hybrid, Fusion: How to Write a Blended-Genre Story in 2025.
Amy writes weird and cozy sci-fi, fantasy, and horror and is an editor and publisher of bobandspotmagazine.com. A graduate of the Odyssey and Your Personal Odyssey Writing Workshops, her stories are upcoming or have appeared in Cast of Wonders, The Orange & Bee, The Dark, Fractured Reveries: A Storied Imaginarium Salon ed. by Carina Bissett, Familiars by Zombies Need Brains, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and other publications. A. Katherine lives in Minnesota with her family, cats, and several teapots and coffee machines. She loves snowstorms, board games, and all kinds of creature flicks, but especially the ones where the creature is the good guy. Find her at flywithpigs.com or on bluesky @akatherineblack.bsky.social.
--- Interview by Nicole Pyles
WOW: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me, Amy! So, you attended four different Odyssey Online Classes. What made you sign up for these courses in the first place?
Amy: Always happy to discuss writing and Odyssey! I took my first Odyssey Online Class in 2022. This was a few years after I’d attended the Odyssey six-week in-person workshop, and, honestly, at that point Writer Me was flailing a little.
I’d been trying to continue my growth through studying craft books and joining online meet-ups with fellow writers, but I was all over the place, unfocused. Too many projects were floating around my brain and clogging my to-do list, and while I was better at recognizing weaknesses in my stories, I still didn’t feel confident in my revision skills.
Fortunately for me, Greg Ashe was teaching a Scene and Sequel class that Winter. A big issue with my work was pacing. Some scenes dragged, others gave my beta readers whiplash. It turned out that Greg’s class was exactly what I needed! I learned so much about structuring a scene based on what the story needed at each moment along the plotline, and when my scenes were finally doing the work required for the plot and character arcs, my stories flowed much more comfortably.
WOW: I love that you found a course for exactly what you were struggling with. What inspired you to return to take additional courses?
Amy: I’ve started to notice a pattern each year, of losing focus and momentum on my projects as Winter looms and the busy holiday season takes over. Greg Ashe’s 2022 class not only gave me a shiny new set of writing tools, it was a refreshing and much-needed jumpstart for a new writing year.
In the year after taking that class, I not only wrote more short stories than I had in the previous two years, I more than tripled my short story submission rate! I realized that I got much more than expected from that first Odyssey online class.
Not only did I build my skills in a much-needed area, the encouragement and camaraderie served as a great motivator, and I left the class wanting to dig in and plow ahead! Since then, when I’ve needed another jump in skills and motivation, I’ve applied for another Odyssey class.
WOW: What a transformation! You took such a great variety of classes. How did you know which was right for your writing goals?
Amy: Every Odyssey Online class I’ve taken has given me a great boost in motivation and productivity, but I’ve always been careful to apply for classes that were focusing on a specific area in which I needed growth. When it came to Barbara Ashford’s One Brick at a Time class, I wanted to be better at critiquing and redrafting my work on my own, before sending it to a critique group or beta readers. From her class I developed an invaluable checklist for pre-planning and revising scenes, which I’m still using today.
Likewise, Greg Ashe’s Genre Mash-up class offered something I wanted to master but struggled to learn from craft books, which was how to effectively blend genres. It’s more complicated than one might think to blend sci-fi and romance, for example, or horror and cozy, which is what I’ve been focused on more recently. Thanks to Greg’s class, I’m able to recognize which story elements are key in each genre and then figure out how to merge the genres more effectively in one story.
WOW: That's a great approach. What made these courses different than others you may have taken?
Amy: I took several online writing classes from other organizations prior to discovering Odyssey. First were a couple of literary online writing classes, which while great classes, didn’t help me learn about how I might make stylistic and plot choices based on genre. I then took a few genre-focused online writing classes, but these classes were geared more toward beginners, and at some point I’d passed that beginner stage. I’m so glad an instructor from one of those courses suggested I check out Odyssey!
The Odyssey online classes have been a great fit for me for a few reasons: the instruction materials are well-organized, with concrete examples and detailed solutions. For example, I know I want to improve the pacing in my scene, but how, exactly? What can I do stylistically and with dialogue? When can I add exposition and when should I stay in the action? What moments should be dilated? All of those story elements and more were addressed in my Odyssey classes, and with very specific, clear examples I could definitely work with.
WOW: The specific examples sound great. How did these courses prepare you for publishing stories and eventually working on your novel?
Amy: With each Odyssey online class I feel more confident in both the initial drafting and the revising of scenes and stories. Through the combination of pre-reading, lectures, assignments, and critiquing that we do in each class, every concept and technique covered ends up nicely nestled into my brain.
When the classes are over, then, and I settle in to a new story or redraft an existing story or chapter, my mind is already cued in to apply all the tools learned in these classes. For example, it’s been many months since I took Barbara Ashford’s class, One Brick at a Time: Crafting Compelling Scenes, and I’m still very aware of the beats and emotional turns in each scene I write. The increased awareness of this aspect of my scenes has been super satisfying.
WOW: I'll bet! What hesitations did you have before joining the classes that were resolved when you got started?
Amy: It can be nerve-wracking, sharing your work with people you don’t know, and especially work that isn’t as good as you know it could be. When it’s time to upload that first writing excerpt, a draft of my story that’ll be read by the instructor and several classmates, I always feel super self-conscious, suddenly questioning whether the draft will make any sense at all to these people who don’t know me. But the Odyssey instructors always create a safe and encouraging space, and I remind myself that everyone else is as nervous about sharing as I am.
And it can be very helpful to get feedback from people I haven’t worked with before. Everyone approaches a work of art, written or other, from a unique angle. The more feedback I consider on revision, the stronger my stories and scenes will hopefully be. As classes go on, of course, I get to know my classmates and the instructor better, and I’m not only more comfortable sharing my work, I don’t want the classes to end!
WOW: What a great feeling. What advice would you share for someone uncertain about investing in their writing career with online courses?
Amy: I’d encourage writers out there to consider their own unique learning style. Of course, I think we all benefit from reading craft books and from studying other writers’ work, but the experience of a live, interactive learning environment has benefits beyond studying published works. Personally, I learn more easily when I’m participating in active discussion on a topic, and when I get feedback on my early attempts focusing on new techniques. That’s what we get from writing courses, and I find that after every Odyssey Online class, my writing skills take a leap forward.
WOW: Great tips. How did you know Odyssey Online was right for you?
Amy: I tried a few other online writing courses before I found Odyssey, and while I definitely learned from each of those earlier courses, I knew right away that Odyssey was exactly what I needed. One big plus was the focus on genre writing, which is what I do. I love to write horror, sci-fi, fantasy, weird, fabulist, slipstream, and cozy, each of which relies on specific craft elements and provides readers with a specific reading experience. Other Odyssey Online classmates I’ve had write mystery, historical fic, thrillers, young adult and middle grade. I
love that the Odyssey instructors are very familiar with the different genres and can take into account my individual writing goals when helping me improve my craft. The individual meeting we get with the Odyssey instructor has been a great opportunity to dive into questions and concerns I’ve had related to my own work and my specific goals.
WOW: That's awesome. Who is right for Odyssey Online courses?
Amy: Writers who are not only eager to up their skill set, but who are ready to examine the weaknesses in their own writing, are a great fit for Odyssey Online classes. Writing can be a vulnerable experience – it’s not a surprise that people refer to their works as their babies. We often put our hearts on the page, our fears and fantasies, our dreams and ambitions, and then we offer the whole thing up to others and wait with clenched teeth for their feedback. It’s tough!
But I fully believe that the only way to become a better writer is to take on the critiques and try new methods and techniques. Thankfully, the Odyssey instructors are all rooting for us to succeed, and along with their critiques comes kindness and encouragement.
WOW: I think so too! How has your writing improved or changed since taking these classes?
Amy: I honestly don’t know where I’d be as a writer or an editor without Odyssey! After each Odyssey class, my productivity was boosted, and over time I realized that much of what I learned in each class had become an integral part of my initial drafting. While ten years ago it took me twenty-plus drafts to get a story right, now I can now complete a story in just a few drafts, which is awesome. I’m also much more comfortable getting feedback from others and figuring out how to strengthen my work as a result.
Not only has my Odyssey learning boosted my short story writing skills, I’m now venturing into longer form projects, with two novellas and a novel in progress. On top of that, I started a small press earlier this year, Spiderbot Press, and will be launching an online magazine in 2027, Bob and Spot’s Featured Creatures! My Odyssey experiences have given me the skills and confidence to step beyond what I’d ever imagined a decade ago, and I’m so grateful!
WOW: How exciting! What should people expect when taking these courses?
Amy: Writers taking their first Odyssey class should expect to have some aha moments (I love the aha moments!), as insights and techniques are laid out before them and explained clearly by excellent instructors. They should also expect to be humbled, as inevitably someone will point out unexpected areas in their writing that need improvement, but at the same time writers should inspect to be inspired, by spot-on insights presented in lectures, by reading the creative works of classmates, and by diving into examples from published works and realizing that they, too, could master these techniques. I always come away from an Odyssey Online class with new goals and fresh motivation!
WOW: I love it! Thanks so much for your time and telling us about your experience.
Writers, make sure to check out https://www.odysseyworkshop.org/odyssey-online/Odyssey Writing Workshop online courses and find out which one is right for you.
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