Courses

Pick a course and start writing. Everything on Penbloom is free.

Not sure which one? Take the 2-minute quiz

Sign in to pin your recommended courses and hide the ones you're not taking.

English Foundations: Elementary

The sentence- and paragraph-level mechanics that most often break down in a young writer's first real scenes: parts of speech, subject-verb agreement, consistent tense, sentence combining, paragraph structure, and dialogue punctuation. Built for writers around 8-10, on top of what school already teaches, not instead of it.

5 modules12 lessons

Creative Writing: Elementary

The craft vocabulary school is already half-teaching by this age, made explicit and usable: the elements of a story, show-don't-tell, dialogue that does real work, setting a scene on purpose, and putting it all together into your first complete short story. Built for writers around 8-10, pairing with English Foundations: Elementary.

5 modules11 lessons

English Foundations: Teens & Adult Beginners

Style and voice for writers who already have the basics down: sentence rhythm, cutting filler, parallel structure, semicolons and colons, a repeatable self-edit pass, and reading published fiction like a writer instead of just a reader. The sentence- and paragraph-level control Write a Book assumes you already have.

4 modules9 lessons

Creative Writing: Teens & Adult Beginners

The craft school mostly stopped teaching after 8th grade, picked back up: subplots that earn their place, a point of view you can sustain across a whole piece, figurative language chosen on purpose, and reading published fiction specifically to reverse-engineer how it works. Built for writers 14 and up, and the direct on-ramp to Write a Book.

4 modules9 lessons

English Foundations: Middle Grades

The mechanics that separate a competent draft from a controlled one: deliberate sentence variety, punctuation that sets off extra information with the right tone, dialogue that holds up with three or more speakers in a scene, active and passive voice used on purpose, pronoun clarity in multi-character scenes, and cutting the wordiness that clutters a first draft. Built for writers around 11-13.

5 modules10 lessons

Creative Writing: Middle Grades

Story craft for writers ready to plan on purpose instead of by accident: the plot diagram as a real planning tool, characters built from want and contradiction instead of a single trait, point of view as a deliberate choice with real boundaries, pacing controlled through sentence length and detail, genre as a promise to the reader, and a first structured practice at sharing work and using feedback. Built for writers around 11-13.

6 modules11 lessons

English Foundations: Early Readers

Short, caregiver-led activities — no reading or independent typing required — that build the earliest sentence skills: hearing a whole idea versus a fragment, starting and ending a sentence, naming words and doing words, and telling one event, then two or more in order. Built for ages 5-7, done together with a parent or caregiver.

3 modules6 lessons

Creative Writing: Early Readers

Short, caregiver-led activities that turn a child's natural love of stories into the earliest habits of inventing one on purpose: finding the beginning, middle, and end of a familiar story, then making up an original one; noticing what the five senses add to a story; and inventing a character and a place out loud before ever writing anything down. Built for ages 5-7, done together with a parent or caregiver.

3 modules6 lessons

How to Write a Book

Learn how to write a book from someone who has done it. Six modules take you from finding your reason to write to getting your book into the world.

6 modules21 lessons

The Self-Publishing Route

The real sequence for getting a finished manuscript into readers' hands yourself: edit, format, design, register, price, launch, and start building an audience. Every module is built on what actually happened when I self-published my own books.

7 modules17 lessons

Know Your Actual Genre

The practical side of genre, expanded past the original checklist: not just naming what you actually wrote, but using that name well — the word count a genre leads readers and agents to expect, the comp titles that actually help a pitch instead of undermining it, and how the same genre decision plays out differently depending on whether you query agents or self-publish. Builds directly on the “Know Your Actual Genre” lesson from How to Write a Book.

4 modules5 lessons