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Who we are -
We are a team of professional writers who have been training writers online since 2005. Our writing courses were specifically designed to answer all the questions we had when we started out as writers in our particular writing industries. Our courses are perfect for aspirant writers wanting to broaden their skillset, or who want to launch themselves into a writing career or specialist branch of writing.
Some facts about SA Writers' College and NZ Writers' College -
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More than 30 institutions and companies support our writing courses, including the University of Auckland, TradeAid, NZ Water Board, Wellington City Council, Highbury Safika Media, New Media Publishers, Caxton Publishers, SABC, Juta, Associated Magazines, Multichoice, Mediaweb, Vodacom, Metropolitan Life, British American Tobacco, Stellenbosch University, Engel & Völkers, SA Décor & Design, Nedbank, Standard Bank, Old Mutual, Democratic Alliance, Vital Health Foods, International SOS, Pfizer, Omage Holdings, TWP Consulting, BM Analysts, Natal Museum, bs3 and Emperor's Palace.
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We have trained over 700 students in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia since 2005.
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Our tutors have collectively accumulated more than 40 international writing awards. Read about them below. We only employ full-time, professional writers as our tutors.
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We have over 450 pages of writing resources on our website - 150 of these free to the public.
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We currently have 3 800 pages of course notes written by our tutors - specialist writing knowledge for each genre of writing.
Why we keep growing -
- Our courses offer real training by real writers.
- Our tutors are among the best writers out there. They are finalists for, or winners of, top international awards.
- Our tutors are passionate, committed and love teaching writers. Their testimonials remain excellent, year after year.
- Even though our tutors usually have several university degrees behind their name, they know that successful writers learn most by writing. You can't "study" writing, just like you can't "study" to become a tennis player. You learn by playing the game, on the court. For writers, the "court" is at home, sitting behind their computers, writing.
- Our courses allow students to practise the craft of writing, over and over.
- We offer input on each line that gets written in assignments, with correction and feedback from our expert coaches.
- Most of our students sign up from word-of-mouth advertising.
Our College Mission -
We aim to provide students with affordable, specialist writing tuition of exceptional standard. Specifically, all courses are geared to impart and assess writing skills, as well as industry knowledge.
Our College Vision -
We aim to remain one of the top international online writing colleges.
Our Staff at NZ Writers' College -
 Nichola Meyer
Principal
Nichola Meyer started her career as a freelance writer in 2001, and has written feature and cover articles for several leading magazines, among them O: The Oprah Magazine, Femina, Your Baby, Baby & Me, Your Pregnancy, Essentials and Cape Town's Child. With a university Major in English and a Masters Degree in Psychology, Nichola has a special interest in reporting on issues of interest to women and parents.
Previously she lectured in psychology, taught English to High School Pupils since 1998, and presented the Magazine Journalism Short Course since 2004 at CityVarsity Film & Television and Multimedia School, as well as at Boston Language College. She launched SA Writers' College in 2005, and NZ Writers' College in early 2008.
 Paul Smith
Tutor: Magazine Journalism; Features Writing
Paul Smith is a veteran journalist and author and former media commentator. He began his reporting career on the Auckand Star in 1964 and then went to London for three years to work on newspapers and magazines. He was a senior reporter for the New Zealand Herald, Dominion and the New Zealand Times.
Paul was New Zealand correspondent for the London Standard for 20 years, and the Sydney Morning Herald's correspondent for five. As a freelancer his stories have appeared in magazines ranging from the Readers' Digest to the Guardian and Asian Wall Street Journal. He specialised in media from 1988, beginning the country's first Media Watch column for the National Business Review. He also became a long-serving correspondent for the show biz bible, Variety.
He is a winner of the Sir David Beattie Award for best news reporter in the print media, and a runner up in the 2002 Peace Awards. In 1986 he was awarded a Press Fellowship to Wolfson College Cambridge.
A past President of the New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN) he has written six best-selling non-fiction books, ranging from social histories to a text on the social impacts of broadcasting de-regulation. Paul has taught freelance and non-fiction writing at Auckland University's summer schools for 18 years and is a non-fiction mentor for the Society of Authors.
 Paulette Crowley
Tutor: Magazine Journalism
Paulette Crowley is a Qantas award-winning journalist who has worked on several New Zealand national newspapers and magazines, including Woman's Day, New Idea, Rip It Up and Crème Magazine. She has a special interest in health reporting, and has edited and written for international and local healthcare publishers.
As part of her freelance career, Paulette has also edited book manuscripts, written advertising copy and worked on public relations projects. She has a postgraduate certificate in publishing from Whitireia Polytechnic.
 Yvonne van Dongen
Tutor: Travel Writing
Yvonne van Dongen has been a travel editor and writer for over 20 years. She's edited the travel section of the largest newspaper in New Zealand as well as the country's first dedicated glossy travel magazine. She's worked at Condé Nast Traveler in New York. Yvonne has won numerous travel writing awards including a fellowship to study travel writing at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.
Other awards include, among others: Dulux Junior Feature Writer of the Year (1983); Young Reporter of the Year (1983); Qantas best newspaper tourism/transport feature (1994); Cathay Pacific Travel Writer of the Year (1995); Qantas Best newspaper health/medicine feature (1997); Avis Awards - best article about the travel industry (in 1995,1998 and 2000); Commonwealth Media Awards - winner tourism & transport (in 1997 and 1998); Qantas award for best government, diplomacy & foreign affairs feature (2000); Qantas Travel Journalist Award (2004); MPA Lifestyle Journalist of the Year (2004); Qantas Media Awards Winner Best Tourism & Travel Column (2007) Yvonne has a BA in English & Religious Studies, as well as a post-graduate diploma of Journalism from the University of Canterbury. She has previously taught travel writing at the University of Auckland.
 Ginny Swart
Tutor: Short Story Writing
Ginny Swart has sold over 400 short stories to women's magazines all over the world. On any day of every month she has at least 15 stories out there on editors' desks. Her more serious work has appeared in literary publications in America, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and on the Web. She is also the author of three romance novels (Ulverscroft Press UK) a book of short stories (Lulu.com) and a book for teenagers: Nosipho and the King of Bones (MacMillan Boleswa SA). Read what Ginny is up to on her blog.
In 2003 Ginny won the esteemed UK The Real Writers' Prize from over 4000 entrants.
 Karen Jeynes
Tutor: Scriptwriting
Karen Jeynes studied English and Drama at UCT. Her plays include "Laying Blame", "sky too big", "Backwards in High Heels" (co-authored with the cast), "Don't Mention Sex", "Kiss Kiss" and the multi award-winning "Everybody Else (is Fucking Perfect)". She has also directed "The Best Man", "Pillow Talk" and "Txt Me". Her adaptation of Thomas Rapakgadi's "The Purse is Mine" aired on Bush Radio last year, and she is busy writing a radio drama series for Safm with Nkuli Sibeko, tentatively entitled "Office Hours".
Her teenage novel, Jacques Attack (co-authored with Nkuli Sibeko) was published in 2004, and her new book, Flipside, co-authored with Eeshaam September, is due for release this year.
 Susan Williams
Tutor: The Writing Coach Course and the Grammar Skills Course
Susan Williams is the managing member of Prose&Coms, a communications company that specialises in corporate writing and publishing, training and corporate storytelling. She started her career as a language teacher before moving into the corporate world as chief sub-editor of the MultiChoice TV Magazines.
Susan has a BA degree with Afrikaans and English as majors, and honours degrees in Philosophy and Applied Linguistics.
 Henrietta Rose-Innes
Tutor: "Write A Novel" Course
Henrietta Rose-Innes has written two novels, Shark's Egg (Kwela, 2000) and The Rock Alphabet (Kwela, 2004), and has compiled a book of South African writing, Nice Times! A Book of South African Pleasures and Delights (Double Storey, 2006). A number of her short stories and essays have appeared in local and international publications.
Most recently, her story "Poison" won the 2007 Southern African PEN/ HSBC Writing Award. She won the 2008 Caine Prize for African Writing.
With years of experience as a freelance literary editor (including Kwela, Juta, Umuzi and Jacana), Henrietta is familiar with both ends of the publishing process. As well as giving detailed input on manuscripts, she can offer guidance on various aspects of "the writing life": the joys and challenges, the topical issues and opportunities, and the nitty-gritty of dealing with agents, publishers and contracts.
 Charlotte Randall
Tutor: "Write A Novel" Course
Charlotte Randall is the author of five published novels. Her first novel, Dead Sea Fruit (1995), won the Reed Fiction Award for unpublished manuscripts and Best First Book, Southeast Asia/South Pacific, in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
Her second novel, The Curative (2000), was runner up in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and afterwards was made into a successful play and serialised for national radio. Her novels What Happen Then Mr Bones? (2004) and the Crocus Hour (2008) were also finalists in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
She has been awarded two prestigious writers' residencies, including the writer in residence at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University and The Ursula Bethell/Creative NZ Residency at Canterbury University.
Charlotte also writes short stories. She has been published in the literary journal Landfall and, out of four entries, has twice made the shortlist of stories receiving special comment from the judges in the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award.
Her sixth novel will be published in 2011.
 Jo-Anne Richards
Tutor: "Write A Novel" Course
Jo-Anne Richards is the author of four novels, her latest being My Brother's Book, published by Picador. Her first book was The Innocence of Roast Chicken, published by Headline in London, shortlisted for the M-Net Book Prize and nominated for the Impac International Dublin Award. It was chosen as a "Dillon's Debut" in the UK, to be showcased as an "outstanding first novel". Her books have been translated into German and French and she was invited to Bayreuth University in Germany to speak on her writing when the translation of her second book, Touching the Lighthouse, launched. She has had short stories published in five collections, by Headline in London, Penguin, Double Storey, Jacana and Oshun.
She is Academic Co-ordinator of the Honours in Journalism at Wits University and supervises Masters students in the Creative Writing programme. She also runs a Writers' Circle in Johannesburg.
 Helen Brain
Tutor: "Write A Children's Book" Course
Helen Brain is the author of 30 books for children, and has contributed stories and plays to numerous school anthologies. Her teen novel, "Tamara", won an ATKV award. She has also written several short stories for adults. Her memoir, Here Be Lions, was published by Oshun in 2006.
As a teacher, Helen likes to unlock her pupils' creativity, and help them overcome the fear of failure. She says: "I can't turn you into a writer like a wizard with a magic wand, but I can tell you it's a long road to being a published writer, and a companion who knows the way can make the journey easier."
 Fiona Walsh
Tutor: Write a Great Press Release
Fiona Walsh has an MA in Communications from the City of London University, and over 12 years experience as a publicist. She started her PR career as a senior account executive with international PR firm Grayling, based in Dublin, Ireland, where clients included Weetabix, Colgate and Mills & Boon. She subsequently worked as press officer for English National Ballet, head of press for the Royal National Theatre and director of press and marketing for Bermuda Shorts Film, all based in London.
On moving to South Africa she worked for David Barrett PR, where clients included Transnet and SAA. Since going freelance, she has worked for a diverse range of clients, including Sony Pictures Television International, Tourism Ireland, the Market Theatre, SABC3, MNet, Talk Radio 702 and David Krut Publishing. Fiona has also been a lecturer in public relations at Boston Media House, Johannesburg.
 Mandy Speechly
Tutor: The Copywriting Course
Mandy Speechly has been working as a copywriter in the advertising industry for over fifteen years. She has worked full-time and as a freelancer for leading international advertising agencies in Johannesburg and Cape Town, on a range of different media including television, print, radio, brochures, promotions and websites.
Mandy is now Head of Copy at the AAA School of Advertising in Cape Town where she works as the Graduate Copywriting Lecturer. She also runs part-time copywriting courses in the evenings and continues to work for different advertising agencies and clients on a freelance basis.
 Karen Lotter
Tutor: The Writing for the Web Course
Karen Lotter is a journalist and writer, and owner of a Web company (http://www.ethekwiniweb.co.za) specializing in creating websites, writing creative and interesting content and optimizing sites for search engines.
She has written profiles, features, advertising copy, obituaries, press releases, and columns in magazines, company newsletters and newspapers, and written and produced corporate scripts.
Since she stopped writing political speeches (after 13 years in the trenches), she has focused on writing for the web and presenting workshops on communications-related issues. She has been a Feature Writer at Suite 101.com (http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/ethekwinigirl), a Canadian based Contents Website for 18 months. Her first novel will be published mid-2009.
 Noel Cisneros
Tutor: Broadcast Journalism
Noel Cisneros worked as an American Television Reporter for nearly 20 years. She worked in San Francisco radio for 10 years. As a TV reporter for ABC and NBC in San Francisco, California, her work earned her American journalism's highest honours: four Emmy Awards and The George Foster Peabody Award. She was awarded a Fellowship by the RIAS/Berlin Commission to study modern Europe in Berlin, Prague and Brussels. She has reported from the scenes of California's earthquakes and riots, forest fires and financial collapses. She has interviewed Bill and Hillary Clinton, numerous United States Senators and celebrities, school children, one billionaire, thugs, ne'er-do-wells, posers, athletes and people just trying to get by.
Over the course of her years in the business, she figures she's done at least 2000 live shots and eaten more meals in a moving vehicle than not.
She lives in Nelson, New Zealand.
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