If you’ve ever dreamed of writing and seeing your words in print, this professional writing program is your best opportunity to make that dream a reality.

You learn how to create the kinds of stories and articles that publishers are looking for by being paired with an experienced professional writer or editor as your personal mentor. He or she develops a teaching plan that meets your needs and goals, and works with you from your first assignment until the day you finish the program.

No other program offers you such intense personal instruction from nationally published writers and editors trained in nurturing new writers.

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Welcome to Long Ridge Writers Group

Creative writing you can get published

Breaking into Print is a home study writing program developed by a group of our writers and editors whose expert teaching and coaching over the last 18 years has produced thousands of published writers. It combines both basic forms of creative writing: articles and short stories. Virtually every piece of writing that you admire was created with elements of these same basic forms.

Tailored to meet your writing goals

Once you find that genre, your instructor will focus on its special editorial requirements and design your program to meet your particular needs and the writing goals that you set for yourself.

With the help of this customized training program and the steady guidance of your instructor, you’ll produce at least two manuscripts that are suitable to submit to editors of your choice by the time you’ve completed Breaking into Print.

While you’re learning to write for a particular market, your instructor will teach you the most effective techniques to market your finished work. You’ll learn the who, when, where, and how of breaking into print.

Our promise to you

The advantages of learning how to master both fiction and nonfiction writing in the same program, rather than studying each one separately, go far beyond the savings in time and money.

Learn fiction and nonfiction together
By alternating your assignments in fiction and nonfiction techniques, followed by alternate assignments of short stories and articles, Breaking into Print offers you clear insight into the possibilities that both forms hold for you.

This unique method of intertwining instruction also shows clearly how certain techniques of one form of writing can be used to enhance the strength, interest, and readability of the other.

You’ll learn fiction techniques and borrow certain nonfiction techniques to make your short stories solid and grounded. You’ll learn nonfiction techniques and learn how to use key fiction techniques to make your articles dramatic and compelling.

Discover your writing genre
An additional advantage of combined instruction is its value in giving you the best possible basis for choosing to focus on mystery, science fiction, humor, or any one of a dozen other genres in fiction; or travel, religion, crafts and hobbies, or any of the many other genres in nonfiction. Yet, you may prefer to continue your training in fiction/nonfiction combined rather than select a special writing genre.

The choice is entirely yours. The availability of these choices underscores the flexibility of Breaking into Print.

Flexibility and versatility
In terms of marketing versatility, you’ll have many more opportunities to break into print than those who take courses in short story or article writing alone. You’ll also be ready to handle both story and article assignments long before those who learn to write only fiction or nonfiction.

Whatever your personal or professional writing goals may be, Breaking into Print will give you the basic elements of all good contemporary writing—plus advanced training in fiction, nonfiction, or any genre in either of these major forms you choose—plus the marketing skills that will help you to succeed.

Our promise to you

By the time you finish our program, you will complete at least two manuscripts suitable to submit to editors. You’ll also write a character sketch, plans for six stories and articles, and eight complete manuscripts.

“The process of discovering the writer within you is just that—a process. As you change and grow, your writing will change and grow. And that’s what makes the writing experience so challenging and rewarding.”
—Karen O’Connor, Instructor

The wonderful world of
writing for publication

Or is writing your way of giving a gift to the world—and yourself? Whatever your special reasons for wanting to write and wanting to see your work published, you must start with the aptitude, professional training, and desire it takes to succeed.

Draw from your everyday life
Once you take up writing, you may find that it’s your most natural form of expression. You can begin at any age, and you don’t need to have a college degree. You don’t need arcane knowledge or extraordinary experiences. You can draw upon your everyday life and interests for the ideas that may inspire successful stories and articles.

You can pursue writing anywhere, anytime. Many writers have learned their craft at home—free from the rigidity of a classroom schedule—where writing time can be adjusted around other daily activities. What is required is determination, patience, and the willingness to work at developing your aptitude with the support of a trusted instructor.

Your stories and articles speak for themselves
As a writer, your stories and articles speak for themselves. You’ll find men and women of every age from every walk of life who are published authors, and their work is as diverse as life itself!

Apart from the monetary rewards or prestige you may earn as a published author, the creative act of writing also adds a deeply felt sense of fulfillment.

If you have the desire and the aptitude to write, we can offer you a trustworthy mentor to show you how to write for publication and how to find your writing genre, along with a superb program of training to help you learn how to market your writing.

Freelance writing:
part-time or full-time career?

As a trained freelance writer, you can keep your present job and supplement your income by selling articles and stories to hundreds of possible markets. If you become successful as a part-time writer, you may want to devote your full time to writing—as a freelancer, or on the staff of a publishing company or any of hundreds of other kinds of companies and organizations.

As even the most casual reader knows, there are simply never enough well-trained writers to go around; consequently, there are better opportunities and more meaningful rewards for those with professional training and the desire to succeed.

Your declaration of independence
For a freelance writer, there is no such thing as a dreary daily commute, punching a time clock, enduring office aggravations, layoffs, and pink slips. Of course, a writer has his or her own challenges: You work by yourself much of the time, and you must be resourceful to succeed.

On the other hand, you write in the comfort of your own home. You work on your own projects or on those you select or accept from publishers, editors, or other clients. You enjoy the prestige, personal recognition, and respect accorded a professional.

The benefits of a successful writing career
For a handful of best-selling authors, continuing royalties provide income that most writers only dream about. But even for celebrated authors, financial rewards are only part of the benefits of a successful writing career.

One of the most important reasons for writing is the sheer enjoyment of it! Every time you face a blank sheet of paper, you’re challenged. We prepare you to meet the challenge of writing by giving you thorough training from a professional instructor in the fiction or nonfiction genre that fits your goals and aspirations.

“There's no great mystery about learning how to write. It’s a process of hard work and a lot of practice. Nobody is born knowing how to write, and every writer who ever lived had to be taught how to do it.”
—Ernest Volkman, Instructor

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Our program, Breaking into Print, is recommended for college credits by the Connecticut Board for State Academic Awards and approved by the Connecticut Commissioner of Higher Education.