This class will offer a comprehensive overview of the multitude of publishing outlets that exist for aspiring writers. We will cover literary journals, commercial magazines, column and opinion writing, blogging, and travel writing. I will talk about submission protocols for each, do's and don'ts of submitting and talking to editors, the difference between a pitch and a cover letter and how to write both, handling rejection, and the very real value of persistence. Bring your questions and join in this fun, informative conversation. Included in the course cost is the offer to edit/discuss (via email) one cover letter or pitch for each student, to be redeemed within a month of taking the course.

Dana Shavin's essays and articles have appeared in Garden and Gun, Oxford American, The Sun, Today.com, Psychology Today, Parade, Bark, The Writer, PBS's Next Avenue, AARP's The Ethel, Fourth Genre, Appalachian Review, storySouth, Alaska Quarterly Review, Chatter, Get Out, and numerous other commercial and literary magazines (full publishing history at Danashavin.com). She is an award-winning humor columnist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, the author of a memoir, The Body Tourist: A Memoir of Hunger and the Search for Home (Little Feather Books, 2014), about the intersection of her struggle with anorexia with her mental health career, and of Finding the World: Thoughts on Life, Love, Home and Dogs, a collection of her most popular columns spanning twenty years. She has conducted writing workshops at the Meacham Writers Workshop, Keystone College in PA, and at Chattanooga State, and has been a guest speaker at fundraisers, book clubs, writers’ groups, colleges, and alternative worship centers. She was a therapist for many years, and is a Certified Professional Life Coach. Dana brings a spirit of fun to her teaching, and loves nothing more than to encourage aspiring writers to publish.

So You Want to Be a Writer?

By Chattanooga Public Library Foundation

So You Want to Be a Writer?

Writing Workshop with Dana Shavin