I’ve owed my teacher Steven Shaw a rave since I took the first food blogging course at the ICC this past year. He’ll be teaching the course again starting February 18 at the French Culinary Institute, and I absolutely recommend it to anyone interested in new media, starting their own blog or food writing. I browse listings for writing courses and workshops all the time. While they sound interesting, the fear is always that you’re going to pay for a teacher to ignore you and your fellow students to analyze you, at best a writer’s group and at worst group therapy with deadlines. Absolutely, none of these fears materialized in Steven’s class. A founder of eGullet.org and James Beard award winning writer, he was beyond generous with his time both in and out of class, so that you saw real development in everyone’s blogs from week to week (plus the speakers were great and the class drew together a perfect mix of writers, chefs, and starters). Click here for more information and here for five more reasons you should take this class!