I finished this program, was invited to Mentor for one of the specializations, so let my capstone story set for a while ... then spent the last month polishing pages ... and submitted this afternoon to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, one of the few 'pulps' left for short story writers of crime and mystery. Win, Lose, or Draw (Accept, Reject, or ReWrite) I NEVER would have gotten this far without the class and some excellent feedback from classmates. If you're ever planning on "finishing that story" and having others read it, this class is for you!

I enjoyed it and advise others to take it :)

Seems like the patients are running the asylum in these Wesleyan/Coursera courses. The feedback is only useful when the students provide careful, thoughtful readings, which happens occasionally. If you're one of the students who commit to reading your fellow students' work carefully and thoughtfully, and work hard to communicate your impressions, you'll feel cheated when you get in return: "Interesting story. Use all your senses. More dialogue." Do any of the teachers of the courses actually read what the people taking this course are writing? I feel like it all runs on autopilot and no one really cares. Frustrating.

This last course in the Specialization walks you through the process of writing, editing and submitting a short story. Salvatore's prompts, interviews and the advice form other writers are very helpful. This is truly a capstone of the other four courses in the Specialization. I never believed I could learn so much and improve my skills just by doing the exercises, understanding the principles and finding my way of putting them not practice. Many of the pieces form other participants that I had the opportunity to review were really great. An amazing specialization in all regards. Thank you to all the professors that shared their insights and experience and metored us!!

Brilliant! Would be enhanced to have a template for outline a story for future students, if possible

Cheers,

Nev.

Peers aren't well read.

It was challenging and inspiring, one of the best courses I have taken. I took my writing to new places and learned quite a lot : ) Thank you so much for the opportunity and platform for learning.

Overall, I found this course to be VERY ENJOYABLE. My ONLY concern was that the PDF requirement was not stressed at the very beginning of the course. Because I have only an old refurbished computer that does not have top of the line features, making PDF files did not always work as planned. OpenOffice and Adobe Acrobat sometimes easily converted to PDF for submissions, but sometimes did NOT. That made it difficult for some reviewers to open. Had I known earlier, I would have bought a new computer and avoided some frustrating submission difficulties. I really appreciate the effort some people had to go through to open my odd submissions. They gave me some valuable tips in their critiques that I might have missed out on had they not persisted. SO: Suggest at the outset that writers using paleolithic equipment like mine, check to see if their computers can generate PDF files. It will eliminate a lot of cussing later on.

Other than THAT, I had a great time, learned a lot, and HIGHLY recommend the program. Wonderful teachers!

~Jack Hayes

Fantastic experience. I found myself reviewing a story by a well-regarded author. I learned a lot from reviewing the writing of others. That alone is worth the five stars. The commentary I got back was not that thorough, but when people took it seriously it was quite helpful and encouraging.

Excellent!