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Classes and Workshops

Workshops:

Remote Counseling:

Online Classes Available:

About the instructor, Peter Occhiogrosso

 


How to Write and Publish Spiritual Books
A Six-Day Workshop at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, N.Y.
July 17-22 2011 (Sunday-Friday)

Click here to register

Many of you have an important spiritual book inside that you want to get out to the world. After 25 years of writing and coauthoring books for major publishers, I have developed a simple way to translate spiritual ideas into a format that will appeal to agents and editors. Whether you want to find a commercial publisher, self-publish, or just structure a readable manuscript for your personal use, this workshop shows you how.

You will work on shaping and refining your central theme and ideas. You'll also learn the basic elements of a book proposal, and be able to share your writing with the group for feedback and guidance. Through journaling, dream interpretation, targeted breathing exercises, visualization, group discussion, and feedback from me, you gain access to deeper levels of your creativity and spiritual insight. Using a Wi-Fi-enabled classroom, you can work on your laptop and easily read each other's work and my editorial input in real time. I'll also show you how to surf the Net to locate appropriate agents, editors, and publishers.

Ultimately, you come away with the tools you need to create a professional proposal or manuscript outline. This workshop is open to writers at all levels of experience, both those who have been published and those who hope to be.

Workshop Details

  1. We’ll begin with a brainstorming session in which class members will meet each other, discuss their book ideas, where they came from, and how they’d like to implement them. Then I will ask the kinds of questions an agent or editor will ask about the specifics of your ideas, taking the conversation to a whole new level.

  2. Once we’ve whittled down what you actually want to write about, I will show you to condense it into a couple of short statements. Then I will lead you through a series of breathing exercises designed to calm your body and allow your mind to function with greater ease and clarity. Afterwards, you’ll have plenty of time to work on formulating, or reformulating, the basic premise of your book. You can write it yourself and in collaboration with small breakout groups. Finally, we’ll read our concept statements out loud.

  3. Once you have your main idea ironed out, we can begin to build the structure of your book around it. I’ll give you a series of short assignments, including the writing of an Overview, a two-page elaboration of your initial concept.

  4. On subsequent days, I’ll lead you through the process of creating a chapter outline and brief summaries of each chapter.

  5. The final stage is learning how to maximize your credentials and qualifications for writing your book—from personal experience to professional credits, if any. I’ll show you how to search the current market place for “comparable books,” and how to use brief descriptions of those to make your book sound as marketable as possible. Using a “wired” classroom, we’ll surf the Net together, searching for appropriate agents and editors for your project, so please do bring your wifi-ready laptop and/or smartphone. I’ll also use a large projection screen for group work.

  6. I’ll share the latest developments in print-on-demand and e-book technology to help you determine whether these formats may be appropriate for you

  7. You will have enough time to come up with a first draft of each aspect of your proposal or manuscript structure. That structure will form the basis on which you can create a professional-looking, full-length book proposal to show to agents and editors, or a highly detailed outline from which to create a complete manuscript for your own purposes.

  8. We’ll incorporate a wide range of techniques drawn from my extensive background as a spiritual counselor and teacher, including:

    • journaling to keep track of the evolution of your idea;

    • brainstorming to tease out variations on your main theme that may be more accessible and/or marketable;

    • dream interpretation to draw on input from your subconscious;

    • breathing and movement exercises to loosen up your body and get those creative juices flowing.

In the evenings, and all of Wednesday afternoon, you’ll have free time to write and prepare material for class the next day, as well as to compare notes with your fellow writers.

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Writing and Publishing Magazine Articles

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Magazine writing requires a special set of skills that are related to, yet different from, those needed to write a nonfiction book. Whether you want to create a feature story, celebrity interview, essay, concert review, advice column, or first-person account, you will have to go through a process of proposal, submission, and revision. Because magazine and newspaper editors are too busy to read hundreds of articles every month, you'll need to learn how to put your ideas into a Query Letter. Although it should fit on the equivalent of one typewritten page, your query must contain all the essential information to help an editor decide whether or not to offer to buy your story.

But that's only the beginning. Once you get the green light, you'll need to structure a piece of anywhere from 300 to 3000 words or more. In my course, you'll begin by learning to

  1. focus your ideas into a format that will work for most magazines
  2. write a query letter containing the required information, and
  3. conceive and write the article itself.

At times, our class will recreate the atmosphere of an actual publication of which I am the editor-in-chief. You will propose articles to me and I will suggest why your ideas do or don't work, how to shape them into workable ideas, and how to come up with different approaches to the same subject matter that will appeal to different kinds of publications. You will then write the article we've agreed on, and submit it to me. I will "edit" the article by suggesting ways to revise and improve it--everything from grammatical and stylistic tips to ideas for restructuring.

At the same time, you'll be receiving helpful feedback from the other members of the class, who will be busy proposing and writing their own articles. Most class members are at the beginning stage of writing magazine articles, so you'll essentially be working with your peers. You'll learn to revise and polish your piece while gaining an understanding of how the process works. We will also discuss how to approach editors, what magazines may work best for the story you want to write, how to track down subjects for new stories, and other technical aspects of the magazine writing craft.

In the process, I'll share my experience from over 30 years of writing and publishing my own magazine articles.

How It Works.

The class takes place in cyberspace, using what's known as a list server. The list includes you, me, and everyone who has paid to take the class. It is inaccessible to anybody I don't let in, so no outsiders will be looking over your shoulder. Once you join the class, you will receive all the e-mails from me and the other workshop members. Anything you send to me or another member can be read by anybody else in the class. This way, you all see each other's work and profit from one another's input, reactions, suggestions, and ideas for expanding your own material. You're under no obligation to reply to others' e-mails or to critique their work, but most students find that to be one of the most helpful aspects of the workshop.

I lead the class and give you one-on-one instruction when you need it, and I also monitor exchanges between class members, stepping in to comment or correct misimpressions whenever that's called for. By the time we're done, you should have a finished article ready for submission.

Click here to register

 


NEW One-on-One Class
Writing and Publishing Spiritual Books

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I often receive requests about when I'll be offering my online class on Writing and Publishing Spiritual Books. Because it's hard to arrange a time frame that works for everyone, I am now offering the class on an individual basis, starting whenever you're ready. When you register to take the class solo, you get the same instructional course materials e-mailed to you weekly that I would normally send to a class. I will give you personal feedback once a week on your assignments as you submit them. This will help you formulate the structure and voice for your book—e.g., whether it should be in first or third person—and determine whether it works better as a how-to book, spiritual memoir, or other approach. The course also assesses the relative merits of self-publishing via print on demand and e-book formats. All the details are contained in the course description that follows.

When you work solo, you obviously won't be getting feedback from other class members, but you also don't have to spend time reading and responding to their posts. And you don't have to wait for everyone to catch up. Once you complete an assignment and I give you feedback, you can move on to the next class lecture if you like. That way the whole course might take less than the 8 weeks it normally consumes.

The rate for the solo class is $295 for 8 sessions over a maximum of 8 weeks.

Personal instruction is still available separately, at an hourly rate, which includes e-mail correspondence, editing and revising on my end, and phone consultations. Go to Peter's Personal Consulation Page.

How to Write & Publish Spiritual Books

You may have an important spiritual book inside you that you want to get out to the world. Yet, you may feel overwhelmed by the prospect of completing a manuscript and getting it published. After writing and coauthoring 20 books for major publishers, Peter Occhiogrosso has developed a simple way to translate your book ideas into a proposal format that will appeal to agents and editors. Whether you want to find a commercial publisher, self-publish, or just structure a readable manuscript for yourself, family, or clients, this workshop shows you how.

"Spiritual" is a remarkably broad category in today's market, encompassing books about health and healing; environmentalism and activism; self-help and psychology; mystical experience, channeled wisdom, the law of attraction; and all the world's religious traditions. You will be able to share your writing with the group and get expert feedback and guidance from your teacher. You will even learn some basic breathing exercises and other spiritual practices to help you access the deepest levels of your creativity and insight. As you learn to create a professional proposal, you will receive guidance on writing an Agent Query Letter, as well as surfing the Net to locate appropriate agents, editors, and publishers. You will also learn the pros and cons of self-publishing via print on demand and e-book technology. Ultimately, you come away with the tools you need to create a professional proposal or manuscript outline.

This workshop is open to writers at all levels of experience, including those who have been published and those who hope to be.

Class Outline

Week 1   We'll begin by brainstorming your book idea and how you'd like to implement it. The kinds of real-world questions that an agent or editor might ask about the specifics of your concept will help you narrow and focus your book on a whole new level.
Week 2   Once we've whittled down what you actually want to write about, you will learn how to condense your Concept into just a few short statements. A series of simple deep breathing exercises will help to calm your body and allow your mind to function with greater ease and clarity.
Week 3   Once you have ironed out your principal theme, you can begin to build the structure of your book around it. You'll start by the writing an Overview, a two-page elaboration of your initial concept.
Week 4   We'll discuss the difference between a Table of Contents, a Chapter Outline, and Chapter Summaries-three practical, incremental steps to creating an overall structure for your book.
Week 5   Along with structure, you'll learn how to describe your book to agents and editors in terms of competing titles in the marketplace, and ideas for building your author platform, identity, and promotional strategy.
Week 6   Most editors and agents want to see at least one Sample Chapter. Here you'll get some pointers on how to select the best candidates for a sample (hint: it's probably not the first chapter!), and some overall tips on what to include.
Week 7   The marketplace is changing rapidly, both in commercial publishing and self-publishing. Print on demand and e-book technology offer enormous potential, but also numerous pitfalls that you'll need to be aware of.
Week 8   Once you have a viable structure for your book, you can begin to write it at your own pace. But at the same time, you can be searching for the right agent to help you find a commercial publisher. You'll learn all about how agents work, what fees they should and shouldn't charge, and how to write an Agent Query Letter that will help you land the agent you want.

Click here to register.

 


Sacred Journaling

This class is for anyone who is having difficulty journaling on a regular basis or looking for ways to make journaling more accessible, enjoyable, and part of a regular spiritual practice. We explore how to use your daily journal writings to examine the way Caroline Myss's teachings can be integrated into your life on a daily basis, whether working with Sacred Contracts and Archetypes or Entering the Castle. I will spell out suggestions to help facilitate the release of journaling energies. I will also give examples of what journaling can look like, and suggest various techniques that will help you overcome blocks and resistance to journaling.

That's only part of the process, however. Although journaling is an essentially private practice, you can gain support from others who may be encountering some of the same challenges that you face in making journal writing a daily practice. CMED members who have taken this course have reported to me that among its greatest assets for them was the way in which it helped validate their own experiences in journaling by seeing others working through the process. They also were relieved to see the great variety of ways that one can journal about and work with one's archetypes, and that all paths are valid.

If you are unfamiliar with Caroline's teachings, either through her books, CDs or workshops, please contact me before registering.

The next class has not yet been scheduled.
Please contact me if you are interested: peter@joyofsects.com

How to Register
All classes take place entirely via e-mail. The distribution and group discussion of lectures and assignments uses secure e-mail lists. The classes start as soon as enough people sign up, which can be as few as 2 or 3 or as many as 8.

You will still receive individual attention and instruction. All students submit their work and to take part in critiques of other students' work if they choose to.

All classes cost $295 and take about 6-8 weeks. To sign up for a class, see the "click here to register" link within the description of the class.

If you have any questions please e-mail me, peter@joyofsects.com.

 

Testimonials
I have been teaching these classes through Writers on the Net (writers.com) for the past 10 years. Here are some of the testimonials from my students, solicited by the company and sent to me by its owner, Mark Dahlby:

“Mark, since taking Peter's first class, I am so busy with my freelance writing assignments that I don't have time for a follow-up!! Seriously, I leapt into the freelance writing arena shortly after taking Peter's class and the results, due in large part to Peter's help, have been terrific. I'd recommend his class to anyone who really wants to write for publication. Please keep me on your update list.”

— Denise Wolf

“I was very happy with this class. I liked that we worked on one piece for the whole eight weeks and that Peter took us through each step of the process. For me this was much more helpful than having someone give a thumbs up or thumbs down and then not tell me how to shape the piece so that it is ready for publication. Peter, of course, made all the difference. He said he was going to be tough but really, he was very kind and helpful. I also felt Peter was totally approachable and open to any questions we had about writing. He also treated us all the same no matter what level we were at and was encouraging at every step of the way. I thought of him as a mentor as much as a teacher.”

— Suzan Tessier

“Overall, I found the class to be a rewarding experience -- having never taken a course over the Internet I wasn't sure what to expect, but I feel I got my money's worth and will very likely take another class or two in the near future. ... Peter Occhiogrosso was excellent. The structure of his class was laid out comprehensively and was challenging enough to get the juices flowing, but not daunting. He was fluid and articulate with the assignments and he responded succinctly to questions we had. Give the man a hearty cheer and some organic apples! I came away from the course with sharper skills and new knowledge that will undoubtedly help me with all areas of my writing... And lastly, yes I would recommend your classes to friends (and family too!) And have done so... Thank you all for an excellent effort and for providing quality instructors to teach valuable courses available to mere mortals on the fringes of cyberspace. I look forward to joining another class soon.”

— Mel Bearns

“I took a magazine writing class from Peter Occhiogrosso this fall with Writers on the Net. My piece that came out of that class is being published. I wanted to share that news with Peter and thank him.”

— Amanda LeBrun

“His lectures were extremely thoughtful and comprehensive. He took the writing of them seriously, too, as if he was writing a piece for publication. His lectures, suggestions, and editing of our work felt like sitting at the side of a guru who generously shares his personal and professional experience in the field. . . . It would be great if there was a follow-up workshop offered directly after the course. We were just warming up!”

— Anon

“One of the best teachers I've had, writing or otherwise. The time he took with each of our assignments as well as what he put into the email "lectures" was invaluable. It would be great to be able to continue the momentum. I really hope you offer Peter's spiritual book writing class.”

— Anon

 


About Peter Occhiogrosso

Peter Occhiogrosso has written, co-authored, or ghostwritten 18 books in both the spiritual and secular fields. A member of the Authors Guild, his 1996 book The Joy of Sects: A Spirited Guide to the World's Religious Traditions, has become an underground favorite at colleges, prep schools, and Web sites around the world, and was recently republished by the Authors Guild. He began his writing career as a jazz critic and reviewer, writing for numerous publications in the U.S., England, and Japan.

Published books include:

1987    Once A Catholic: Prominent Catholics and Ex- Catholics Reveal the Influence of the Church on their Lives and Work (Houghton Mifflin/Ballantine).
 
1988    Tell It to the King with Larry King (Putnam/Jove).
 
1989    The Real Frank Zappa Book with Frank Zappa (Poseidon Press).
 
1990    Tell Me More with Larry King (Putnam/St. Martin's).
 
1991    Through the Labyrinth: Stories of the Search for Spiritual Transformation in Everyday Life (Viking/Arkana).
 
1996    The Joy of Sects: A Spirited Guide to the World's Religious Traditions (Doubleday/Image).
 
1997    The Healing Path of Prayer: The Modern Mystic's Guide to Spiritual Power with Ron Roth (Harmony/Three Rivers).
 
1999    Prayer and the Five Stages of Healing with Ron Roth (Hay House).
 
2000    Holy Spirit with Ron Roth (Hay House).
 
2001    Holy Spirit for Healing with Ron Roth (Hay House).
 
2002    Reclaim Your Spiritual Power with Ron Roth (Hay House),
 
1997    Why People Don't Heal and How They Can, by Caroline Myss (Harmony) New York Times Bestseller
 
2000    The 3-Season Diet: Solving the Mystery of Food Cravings, Weight-loss, and Exercise, by Dr. John Douillard (Harmony)
 
2002    Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential, by Caroline Myss (Harmony) New York Times Bestseller
 
2006    Arthritis Rx: A Cutting-Edge Program for a Pain-Free Life, by Vijay Vad, M.D. (Gotham)