Write with delight!
Rediscover the joys of writing with this 6-week online course for academic, professional, and creative writers who want to reframe their negative emotions about writing and find new paths to pleasure. Join writing expert Helen Sword and other writers from around the world as we explore writing-related pleasure in its many guises.
Next Pleasure Catalyst: Jan - Mar, 2027
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What is the Pleasure Catalyst?
Across six weeks of writing workshops, experiments, and prompts, Helen will introduce you to six key dimensions of pleasurable writing — patterns, tools, processes, identity, challenge, balance — and guide you through a sequence of pleasure prompts designed to transform your writing practice from a painful chore to a enjoyable challenge.
Weeks 1-6: Weekly Workshops
Every Saturday morning for the six weeks of the course, you’ll receive an email with a link to the Pleasure Catalyst module for the upcoming week. We recommend that you budget 1-2 hours per week (or more if you wish!) to complete your tasks for each module.
Week 1: Leylines & Lifelines (patterns)
Week 2: Ground & Sky (tools)
Week 3: Wind, River, Stone (processes)
Week 4: Star Navigation (identity)
Week 5: Chiaroscur0 (challenge)
Week 6: Island Time (balance)
On Wednesday mornings, you’ll receive an email prompting you to reflect on the week's activities and experiments.
Live sessions: Gather with writers from around the globe for Writing Masterclasses and Writing Clinics based around the Pleasure Catalyst themes. Check our guest calendar for the dates and times of these sessions.
Meet your facilitator
Greetings! I’m Helen Sword — a scholar, poet, teacher, and the author of six research-based books on writing and writers, including, most recently, Writing with Pleasure.
I’ve spent the past two decades studying when, how, and why academic and professional writers find joy and satisfaction in their writing practice — and when, how, and why they don’t.
My mission is to help you build a writing practice grounded in pleasure rather than pain, in joy rather than self-judgment, based on research-informed principles that really work. Let’s get started!
The Pleasure Catalyst curriculum
1. Leylines & Lifelines
Excavate your leylines and trace your lifelines: the invisible lines of emotional energy that influence and inform your writing life.
2. Ground & Sky
Explore the pleasures of the ground (analog writing tools), the sky (digital writing tools), and the blurred horizon line where they meet and mingle.
3. Wind, River, Stone
Embrace the elemental energy of wind (brainstorming), river (drafting), and stone (crafting) as you transform inchoate ideas into polished publications.
4. Star Navigation
Find your standing place (identity), map the constellations that guide you (culture), and sail into the uncertainties of writing with confidence and joy.
5. Chiaroscuro
Discover how the principle of chiaroscuro — the interplay of light and shadow in your writing practice — can help you master the challenges.
6. Island Time
Shift into island time and take a walk through the nourishing wetlands of your writing practice in search of rest, replenishment, and work-life balance.
Why you’ll love this course
Is the Pleasure Catalyst right for me?
Whether you love to write, hate to write, or experience a mix of positive and negative emotions about writing (as most people do), the Pleasure Catalyst will show you how to amplify your joy and cast light on the shadows. Join Helen and an international community of writers as we explore evidence-based strategies that will help you:
write with pleasure
Design and dwell in your personal WriteSPACE: a pleasure-focused writing practice that is socially balanced, physically engaged, aesthetically nourishing, creatively challenging, and emotionally uplifting.
publish with pleasure
Face down your critics and send your words into the world with confidence by deepening your sense of personal and professional identity and developing pleasure-centred drafting, crafting, and revision skills.
live with pleasure
The research-informed “Pleasure Principles” that you learn in this course will inspire and transform not just your writing life but your work-life balance as well!
Frequently Asked Questions
Don't see your question answered here? Contact us for more information.
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The Pleasure Catalyst has been designed primarily with academic and professional writers in mind: for example students, faculty, research fellows, lawyers, and business writers. However, the course materials can be adapted to suit any kind of writing. All writers are welcome!
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We recommend that you set aside at least 1-2 hours per week for the workshops, experiments, activities, and online discussions, plus additional hours if you plan to attend the Live sessions. Needless to say, the more time you put into the course, the more you will get out of it!
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Check our Calendar to find the dates and times of Helen’s Writing Masterclasses and Writing Clinics based around the Pleasure Catalyst themes. Catalyst participants are also invited to join our monthly Community Writing sessions.
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We’d love to see you at the Live sessions, but they’re entirely optional. Even if you can’t make it, you’ll still have access to all the resources you’ll need to benefit from the course.
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Once you’ve enrolled Pleasure Catalyst, you’ll have lifetime access to the course materials, so you can catch on any of the modules you’ve missed.
Former participants are warmly invited to re-do the live course each year. Many of our alumni return year after year!
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WriteSPACE members get a 10% discount, and WS Studio members and Catalyst alumni save 20%. To qualify for the WriteSPACE discount, please note that you must commit to maintaining your paid membership throughout the duration of the Catalyst course.
A limited number of scholarships are available (conditions apply). Most of our scholarships go to members of our WriteSPACE community who have demonstrated a clear dedication to improving their writing but are unable to access institutional funding for this course.
Residents of New Zealand and Australia may apply for discounted pricing via our Enabling Better Writers Australasia program, whereby the fee is charged in the local currency: AUD or NZD+GST.
If you would like to be considered for a scholarship or regional discount, please contact us.
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Helen will facilitate group discussions as part of the Live Writing Studio, and she will monitor the Comments portal throughout the course. For a more personalized coaching experience, we recommend that you consider enrolling in the Stylish Writing Intensive or one of Helen’s in-person writing retreats.
Write with delight!
Next Pleasure Catalyst: Jan - Mar, 2027.
We’d love to see you there!
Please see our Terms & Conditions here.
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Image credit: Collage by Helen Sword, with a nod to Gustav Klimt