Try something new
Explore these free writing resources, workshops, and tools developed by international writing expert Dr. Helen Sword for writers in any discipline or genre. To learn about new resources as they become available, sign up for Helen’s free newsletter, Helen’s Word.
The Writing BASE
Are you a Seabird? A Spinnaker? A Bullet Train? Our featured resource, the Writing BASE, is a free diagnostic tool created by Helen based on her research for her book Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write, published by Harvard University Press in 2017. This innovative tool will help you amplify your key strengths as a writer, address your key challenges, and broaden the foundations of your Writing BASE: the Behavioral, Artisanal, Social, and Emotional dimensions of your writing practice.
You’ll find an advanced version of the Writing BASE in your WS or WSS membership area, along with further resources to support your development into a more prolific, polished, [ ], and confident writer. Not a member? [join the WriteSPACE] to try free for 30 days etc WriteSPACE
Resources, workshops, and tools
⭐️ Items marked with a star are the free demo versions of advanced writing and editing resources available exclusively to WriteSPACE members.
The Writer’s Diet
⭐️ sentence diagnostics
Shape up your sentences and strip unnecessary padding from your prose with Helen’s famous Writer’s Diet workout.
SPACE Gallery
joyful journeys
Lost touch with the pleasures of writing? This gallery — a collection of images from Helen’s Writing with Pleasure research — will help you remember.
The Wayfinder
⭐️ writing roadmaps
Some text about the Wayfinder.
Roadblock Quiz
⭐️ journey planner
Turn your roadblocks into your rocket fuel with our free “What’s Your Writing Roadblock?” quiz.
Helen’s Word
Explore these free YouTube videos for academic writers, professional writers, creative writers – anyone who wants to develop and maintain a flourishing writing practice.
Zombie Nouns
Zombie nouns transform simple and straightforward prose into verbose and often confusing writing. Keep your sentences free of elongating nominalizations!
WriteSPACE Quiz
Not sure where to begin your writing journey? Take our “What’s Your Writing Roadblock?” quiz to find your own best route to productive, pleasurable writing.
Smudge Skittle
Prompt your students (and yourself!) to write more critically and creatively with this playful open-ended card game that tangles artistic thinking with written reflection.
Digital Writing Tools
Learn about the key features, advantages, limitations, and pedagogical potential of six popular online spelling, grammar, and style checkers.
Writing Writing Everywhere
Read about how academics from across the disciplines have engaged their students with the theme of “writing writing everywhere,” both in and beyond the classroom.
The Stoneflower Path
Explore the creative potential of digital poetry and poetics by wandering the The Stoneflower Path, a gallery of digital poems that can be experienced either as static texts, audio recordings, or interactive multimedia hypertexts.
The Artist*Academic
Browse our collection of resources and case studies for incorporating arts-inspired practices into your own research, teaching, and leadership.
Links
Click into this compendium of writing-related videos, articles, interviews, and book reviews.
Main image credit - Artist: Helen Sword, Rēinga