About The Eckleburg Workshops

Eckleburg offers noncredit online writing workshops for writers who want to focus on craft in an encouraging, professional, diverse environment. 

What is the course format for the online writing workshops?

All courses and lessons are work-at-your-own-pace including online writing workshops such as the Short Story Workshop, Short Short Story Workshop, Magic Realism Workshop, 30 Stories in 30 Days Workshop and more. When you are ready for individualized feedback—developmental edits, line edits and end notes—submit your work. Instructors have graduate degrees and professional publication experience in their workshop focuses. Participants may complete assignments anytime. We are open to English-speaking and writing participants both locally and globally and encourage gender and ethnic diversity in our online writing workshops. 

Are the instructors good?

Our instructors are published in and have graduate coursework completed in their course focuses. They come to you with formal training, and they promise to put their expertise to work in support of your narrative strengths, while helping you identify areas of narrative need. Instructors have attended and graduated with creative writing and teaching degrees from Iowa Writers Workshop, Johns HopkinsYale, BrownHarvardColumbiaNew SchoolNew York UniversitySUNY, Portland, San Diego State UniversityLoyola University Chicago and University of Oregon. They live in Washington D.C., New York, Chicago, Ankara, San Diego, LA and Denver. They have taught at Iowa Writers Workshop, Yale, Harvard, Florida State, USC, Johns HopkinsIowa’s International Writing ProgramFloridaWashingtonTexasNew York UniversityBenningtonUniversity of Illinois at Chicago and more. Several of them are award-winning and with books out. They have been interviewed and published in The Paris Review,  The New YorkerAtlantic Monthly, McSweeney’sThe RumpusThe Nervous BreakdownThe New York Times, Salonand more. What they instructors share is an eye for innovative storytelling with solid narrative structure as well as a focus on personal voice. Learn more about our individual online writing workshops instructors.

How do I okay eckleburg.org in my email settings?

It is very important that you okay the domain eckleburg.org in your email settings. This will make sure that your account, password reset and communications will find your inbox. If you have not done this, your account and course emails might end up in your spam folder. 

How do I register for the online writing workshops?

Begin by clicking on the workshop link you would like to take. Next, click on the CART link and you will be taken to the payment portal where you can pay by credit card or Paypal. You can CANCEL at anytime with a click. 

How intensive is the schedule?

In our online writing workshops, you will be able to log in and complete the weekly writing prompts, readings, discussion prompts, etc. as it best fits into your schedule, whether you are at home or traveling. The online writing workshops structure is a streamlined experience easy to read and respond via your desktop, laptop and smartphone.  Submit work for individualized feedback when it is convenient for you and your project.

How do I manage my username and password?

Do you sometimes have difficulty keeping track of your usernames and passwords? At The Eckleburg Workshops, we’ve found that too often our students have not yet organized their usernames and passwords in a safe and handy way. 

There are several good password keepers out and about. We’ve been using 1Password for over two years now and have never had an issue with safety, privacy or accessibility. You can purchase apps for both the smartphone and laptop and then update, save and access your single 1Password account from all of your devices. You even have the option to share individual username and password information with family members, if I wish. We are confident that 1Password not only does the job, but also helps make life much easier with all the work, bills, social networking and more. 1Password, or another app like it, will make a big difference. If you have not yet started a password keeper account, we encourage you to set up a password keeper today.

*This is NOT a paid advertisement. 🙂 1Password has no affiliation to Eckleburg or Eckleburg faculty, except that we’ve been using the products for a few years and feel confident recommending them to students, contributors, readers, family and friends. 

My course requires image submissions. How do I format my images?

PROFILE PIC

Our site uses an image optimizer that will create cookies of images and preload them based upon the account history. Without going into a lengthy explanation, it basically helps the site run more efficiently, more quickly, which is good for everyone. If your new profile photo isn’t uploading, it is probably because the title hasn’t been changed and the system thinks you are uploading the same exact image file. To fix this: 

  1. Change name of the file that is stored on your hard drive—i.e. if the file’s name is “first.last” rename the file to “first.last2.”
  2. Upload the new file with its new title. The system should now recognize the change.

My eyes aren’t so good. How do I adjust the font size on my screen?

If you hold the CONTROL button and push the plus (+) key on your keyboard, COMMAND plus (+) on Macs, you will be able to increase the size of the text on your screen. You can also make it smaller by holding the CONTROL button and pushing the minus (-) key Or COMMAND plus (-) on Macs.

I’m leery of putting my personal information, creative writing and discussion responses online. Is it safe?

We completely understand the concern, and we hold your privacy as a priority at Eckleburg. We promise to never share your work or information with anyone outside Eckleburg staff and you will be able to control what information you share with your workshop peers in all our online writing workshops. 

I’m shy about using new software programs on my computer. Are they safe?

We do all we can to ensure that the programs and venues we suggest are safe for your computers. Any software program that we ask you to download, we have downloaded on our own systems first and are comfortable doing so for our online writing workshops.

Audacity | Audacity is open source software. We’ve used Audacity on both PCs and Macs for over ten years and have never had issues with Audacity. Many techs, coders and audio/film professionals use Audacity due to its intuitive, easy and free access. There are a few virus scanners that may give you a flag. If this happens, please read this article. There are other audio recording and digital editing software programs from which to choose and you should use the one with which you feel most comfortable. We use Audacity on our PC and Mac systems and are confident it is a good and safe software. 

Which browser should I use?

We recommend using Firefox, Safari or Chrome as your browser. As a general rule, for any website or venue, Internet Explorer tends to have issues if any browser is going to have an issue with a site or page. We use Firefox and Safari primarily, though, we test our Eckleburg Workshops and other arms of Eckleburg on Firefox, Safari, Chrome and IE. If you are having an issue with logging in or any other site issue, it may very well be the browser and/or operating system. Before contacting us, please try using a different browser first.

I am having trouble logging in.

Your login should be the same as always. No changes to your login or account, but there may very well have been an update to your system and/or our system’s securities. This is good. And it’s good that our system is letting you know there has been an update and your cookies need to be updated due to it. We update on a daily basis so that our system and your system are always as secure as possible.

A good fix for any login issue, for any website, is to follow these steps:

  • Log out;
  • Clear cache;
  • Close the browser;
  • Shut down and restart your computer;
  • Open the browser, again (Safari, Chrome or Firefox, avoid IE);
  • Go to the site you are trying to access and login.
If this does not work, contact us through our contact page. Make sure that you always include your operating system and version as well as your browser and version each and every time you contact tech at any website. We’ll have you sorted in no time.

English as a second language (ESL)

If you are not a native English speaker and are still developing your English narrative syntax and translations, please make sure you have secured an individual, in person reader who is a native English speaker or has developed their English to the level of complete mastery. In order for your skilled writing group to give you the best feedback, it is important that your translations are fine-tuned prior to submitting work to the workshop group. Please let your instructor know ASAP if English is not your first language and you are still building consistent English syntax. Your instructor will have a number of helpful suggestions for you so to help you build your English narrative voice more quickly and consistently both in and out of the workshop.

A note on plagiarism

Eckleburg Workshops follow the same copyright and plagiarism standards and expectations as professional writing and university policies. We know we do not need to remind you, but as policy we must. Plagiarism is the stealing of intellectual properties and will not be tolerated. Any writer caught plagiarizing will be expelled from the course without refund and efforts will be made to alert any editors with vested interest in the plagiarized work. Plagiarism is the copying of three or more words without giving attribution. Plagiarism can also be the paraphrasing or summarization of a concept without giving proper attribution to the original source. In creative and academic papers, this includes all books, journals, websites, film, music, peer works in workshop and so on. It is always best to cite the source and a writer should never use another writer’s ideas or words without first asking permission and then always with citation. If ever in doubt, always ask for direction from your instructor. At the secondary and post-secondary level, plagiarism is a very serious offense and can have you expelled from your university. There are creative commons and public domain exceptions to this rule, but again, you should always seek guidance before using creative commons or public domain works.

Terms & conditions

All Workshop lessons are available as a monthly subscription. They are work at your own pace. One on One Workshops are additional, one time, product purchases for specific word count.

Eckleburg workshop gift certificates

Give the gift of writing to family and friends. Eckleburg Workshop gift certificates are emailed immediately to their recipients and are immediately redeemable for up to one year from purchase. 

Our instructors are all experienced writing instructors and published authors in their course focuses, many of them teaching at top writing programs—i.e. Johns Hopkins, Iowa, NYU, Yale, Columbia and more.

Contact technical support

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