CLASS OF 2017

Spending the past six weeks at Odyssey has been an extraordinary experience. I have learned so much about the writing process that would have taken me much longer to learn by myself. Jeanne Cavelos is amazing, as an instructor, lecturer, and mentor. I highly recommend Odyssey to anyone considering it!

Odyssey has transformed my writing to a level I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to reach.

I have workshopped with Ernest Gaines at University of Louisiana, with Robert Olen Butler, with Steve Almond, and for 4 years at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Odyssey Writing Workshop is head and shoulders above all of that. Jeanne Cavelos has built the best workshop available anywhere, in my opinion.

This is the most professional workshop I had ever been in, including an MFA program. Express lane to a career as professional writer.

Odyssey is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and lived up to the very high expectations I had coming in. I learned more in 6 weeks here than an entire MFA program.

Odyssey has been a life-changing step in my writing journey. I am a college professor (teaching for 17 years) and I seriously think Jeanne Cavelos is one of the best educators I have ever met. The curriculum is demanding, comprehensive, and eye-opening—it is so worth it to take the 6 weeks to attend Odyssey.

Odyssey is the most demanding, and rewarding thing I have done in the pursuit of professional goals. Jeanne is incredibly inspiring as a teacher and as an example. I know I will be able to build on this amazing experience and feel so lucky I have been able to participate.

Thank you Jeanne, thank you fellow students, and thanks to everyone else who made the experience possible.

Jeanne is a genius and even bestsellers could learn from her. I don’t know how anyone fumbles their way into a book without her guidance after having learned from her. I look forward to the day Jeanne becomes the accepted overlord on all things genre fiction writing.

Odyssey gave me the boost I needed to finally go and write that novel! Honestly, I see it as a huge turning point in my career.

I try not to think about my alternate timeline, the one where I did not get to attend the Odyssey Writing Workshop. In that world, a writer struggles without guidance, without practical experience, without the essential tools needed to succeed in the world of published fiction. The thought of this doomed self haunted me, until I realized this: he can always try again next year.

Odyssey is an amazing and transformative experience that has forever altered how I read, write, and think. Jeanne is a supportive teacher who offers invaluable feedback and even more invaluable encouragement.

The primary challenge of this course is mental. Odyssey requires a degree of endurance that will test the most assiduous writer. I gave it my all, and I learned more than I’d dreamed I could in six short weeks.

Pat Conroy once famously said that teaching is an art form. If this is the case (and I believe it is) then Jeanne Cavelos is fantastic fiction’s very own Michelangelo. More than a person with a near encyclopedic knowledge of literature, Jeanne embodies a rare combination of superior editing skills with an exceptionally creative mind and talent for applying even the most difficult to grasp concepts in a way that is accessible to her students. The result is nothing short of transformative; a word you will hear bandied about by many of Jeanne’s former students, and with good reason. Under Jeanne’s tutelage I was able to, for the first time, truly understand, and, most importantly, pinpoint my own weaknesses. Through deep daily practice and an exhaustive lesson in revision, I now possess the tools necessary for launching my professional career as a writer. Perhaps, if I am very lucky, I will be another one of her many success stories. Odyssey is indeed an odyssey, and Jeanne Cavelos the only captain fearless enough to steer its crew through the storm towards clear skies. Anyone who finds him or herself working alongside Jeanne is a very lucky soul indeed.