The goal of the Odyssey Writing Workshops is to help writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror to improve their work, through workshops, critiques, podcasts, instructional information, and courses. The organization is based on the principle that writing is one of the hardest things a person can attempt, and that the journey to become the best writer one can be is lifelong. If a writer wants to reach his full potential, to have his work live and grow along with him, he needs to constantly strive to improve. Because of this, the Odyssey Writing Workshops offers feedback and guidance to writers at all levels, from beginners to successful professionals.

Odyssey's Online Classes strive to provide writers with a rigorous and challenging educational experience that will help them take their writing to the next level. To help students improve as much as possible in a short period of time, the classes place significant demands on them and encourage them to strive for excellence. Through lectures, discussions, critiquing, and assignments, Odyssey's Online Classes teach students the tools and techniques they need to improve their writing and guide them in the use of those tools and techniques through truthful and helpful feedback on their work.

STUDENT BEHAVIOR

Each student is expected to abide by the policies and rules set out in this handbook. Failure to do so may result in the expulsion of the student.

Any questions about the policies and rules should be taken to the instructor.

Class Behavior, Attendance, and Assignments

Students are expected to arrive on time for classes, to attend all classes, to complete all assigned work by the deadlines, and to behave in a professional and responsible manner, both in class and outside of it.

Class Materials

Class content, in any format, is for the individual student only. Such content includes handouts, assignments, emails, files, recordings of lectures, and the work of your fellow students. Class content may not be posted, copied, shared, or distributed. All content is copyright ©Jeanne Cavelos, unless otherwise noted.

Yahoogroup

Each student needs to sign up for a Yahoo ID, if he doesn't already have one, and join the class Yahoogroup. Students must choose the individual email option when they sign up, so that they will receive all class communications.

Because everyone in the class will receive every email sent to the Yahoogroup, we limit emails to those necessary for the class. We know that many students are taking the class at the same time that they are holding down jobs and dealing with many other responsibilities, so our goal is to make class interactions as focused and effective as possible.

The class Yahoogroup is to be used solely to post assignments, view assignments and handouts, receive class updates, and critique classmates' assignments.

All critiques should follow the guidelines discussed in class.

The Yahoogroup should not be used to ask the instructor questions, chat with classmates, argue with classmates, or flame classmates.

Email

Odyssey encourages an atmosphere focused on work, study, and writing. Email and other Internet activity tend to distract from this, so during the class term (the weeks during which the class is held), students are urged to minimize the time spent on email, blogging, computer games, and non-writing-related web surfing.

Because the classes are demanding and time is short, we ask that students refrain from sending out emails to the whole class. If you have questions, problems, or a grievance, please contact the instructor. If you have important information to convey, please give it to the instructor, and she will distribute it to the class. If you have jokes, save them until the class term is over. It's hard enough to keep up with the workload without an inbox full of things that are not related to your writing.

Once the class term is over, students can use the Yahoogroup to keep in touch with each other and encourage each other in their writing efforts.

Blogging

Though we cannot prevent people from blogging during the class term, we strongly discourage it. Blogging takes time away from your class assignments. Blogging can also cause a lot of difficulty and hard feelings in the class, and we ask students to think very carefully, and follow these rules, before posting anything on the Internet during and after the class term.

• Critiques are meant only for those in the class and not for anyone else. It is not appropriate to describe what anyone said in a critique, or how anyone reacted to a critique. It is not appropriate to quote from a critique, nor to air personal grievances over a critique on the Internet. Critiques are valuable because students feel free to give their honest analysis of the work they critique. Violating the protected atmosphere of the critiques violates the trust of your classmates and can damage the honest evaluation of your work. If you have a problem with a critique, you should go to the instructor to resolve it, rather than vent uselessly to the world.


• It should go without saying, but posting derogatory descriptions of your fellow students or mocking their writing is unprofessional in the extreme. Just don't.

Sexual and Other Unlawful Harassment

Odyssey will not tolerate the harassment of any student or instructor on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, national origin, age, disability or other unlawful reason. Sexual harassment includes a wide range of behaviors from the actual coercion of sexual relations, to requests for sexual favors, unwelcome sexual advances, offensive comments, jokes, innuendoes, and other sexually oriented statements and unwelcome emphasizing of sexual identity, when such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's performance at work or in the classroom, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment in which to work, live or study. Sexual harassment may be indirect and even unintentional. If you believe you are being harassed, often a clear statement to the person engaging in the offensive behavior is all that is necessary to stop the behavior. You're encouraged to make such a statement, but not required to do so. What you must do is report any harassment immediately to the instructor. If you don't do anything about it, then it's not going to get any better. So act immediately.

If you are uncomfortable with someone's behavior but unsure if it qualifies as harassment, please discuss the problem with the instructor.

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Except where noted, Content © 1996 - 2009 Jeanne Cavelos
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Updated Oct 11, 2009 send site feedback to jdonigan@swbell.net