Spiritual Stories for a Wired World – Online Course with Elizabeth Drescher

Event Date: September 15 – November 17, 2016

“Spiritual Stories for a Wired World” is an online learning opportunity with Dr. Elizabeth Drescher – Santa Clara University professor, author, consulting scholar for The BTS Center, and co-editor of Bearings: Navigating Life-as-Ministry. The course will help faith leaders develop more resonant and engaging public voices through blogs, local news outlets, social media, and other communication platforms.

Drescher is the author of three books, including Choosing Our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of America’s Nones. Her writing has also appeared in The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Jose Mercury News, The Los Angeles Times, Salon, Religion Dispatches, Sojourners, The Christian Century, and many other national outlets. In this course, she will guide participants through the process of developing engaging religion and spirituality stories for general audiences, identifying appropriate outlets for publication, effectively pitching stories to editors, and promoting stories to develop a wider audience.

The course will include four interactive online sessions with Dr. Drescher and special guests, weekly online discussions among participants, workshopping of potential story ideas, and feedback on a completed story with suggested publication outlets. Participants may also be invited to publish a story on the multiple award-winning Bearings blog.