The Shocking Real Life Writers Retreat; See what the buzz is about!

A Novel Writing Getaway to Jump Start Your Novel

March 17–18, 2012

START THE YEAR OUT WRITE!

This is not your average writer’s retreat! This writing seminar is a lively, active, results-oriented symposium of creative and accomplished authors, attendees and answers to the questions that have been dogging you for years regarding how to go about getting a book deal. At the end of this book-writing retreat you will have a surmountable format for mapping out your book, the components you need to pitch a literary agent, including the agent contact information and the sample pages you need to send the agent. So, with that said, what’s stopping you?

Okay, you have a fantastic idea for a book — but do you know how to begin, finish, and sell it? Or let’s say you’ve already finished a manuscript, but now you’re at an impasse trying to get the attention of agents and publishers.Whether you’re at the idea stage or in the home stretch, this weekend will show you how to navigate the competitive world of book publishing and get your project sold.

“I wanted to THANK YOU, Hollis, for your workshop. It played a crucial role in being able to complete and submit a successful book proposal.” Rachael Brownell, who became a best-selling author after taking the Shocking Real-Life “Develop and Sell Your Memoir” workshop. She’s since been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America and NPR’s Weeken Edition as a result of her book, Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore (2009).

“Hollis’ workshop gave me the confidence I needed to continue following my dream of becoming a published author. [It] was key to helping me fine-tune my proposal, and her personal involvement in my journey  has been invaluable.” Lisa Baron, Shocking Real Life graduate and award-winning columnist, who landed a book deal with Citadel for her memoir, My Burning Bush; How One Woman’s Career in Christian Politics Went Up in Flames. It’s a Chelsea Handler-meets-George Stephanopoulos exploration of the dismantling of the conservative movement — and why young (drinking, chain-smoking, and, well, you get it) political campaign staffers sometimes go rogue.

Warning: This is a retreat for people serious about publishing a book (which is not to say you have to take yourself too seriously) –  that said, (seriously) we are not in the business of hyping pipe dreams. The last thing we want to put you through is a litany of anemic sessions in which people sit around and bloviate about the difficulties of getting a book deal. The Shocking Real-Life Atlanta Book-Writing Boot Camp is an active writing retreat spanning THREE days devoted to your book, your idea for your book, formatting your book, writing your book, getting an agent for your book, selling your book to a publisher PLUS a special side workshop on how to write, publish and sell a profitable eBook. If you have an idea for a book — and especially if you have been sitting on your idea for a book — you owe it to yourself to enroll in this Shocking Real life writers boot camp hosted by best selling humor writer Hollis Gillespie.

Reserve Your Spot Now!

The Shocking Real-Life Book Writing Boot Camp with Hollis Gillespie March 17–18, 2012

Whether you’re at the idea stage or in the home stretch, this weekend will show you how to navigate the competitive world of book publishing and get your project sold.

• In this workshop, you’ll learn:
• The marketability of your idea, and how to make it more so
• How to pitch an agent for representation and write the perfect query
• What publishers and agents are really looking for and what they hate
• How to avoid the most common rookie mistakes
• Which pages to send to a literary agent as a sample of your work (hint: It’s rarely the very first pages)
• How publishing houses and literary agencies benefit the  author
• How to decipher the miasma of advances, royalties, subsidiary rights, foreign rights, and dramatic rights

Hollis Gillespie and a collective of other successful authors will share their secrets to unclogging your creative arteries so you can tell the world what you’ve been telling your friends all this time; that your book idea is a slam dunk, and now it’s time to cash it in. She and the other co-hosts will offer their candid critiques, suggestions for selling your work, and answer all your questions about breaking into book publishing.

Here’s some more things you will learn:

• How to pick an eye-grabbing title.
• Which genre best suits your idea (Memoir? Novel? Self-help? Humor?)
• When it’s permissible to embroider, improvise, and reorder real-life events.
• Exactly how to format your pitch letter.
• Exactly which agent to pitch (including contact info).
• How and when to contact agents.
• The difference between an illuminating essay and a journal entry.

And that’s not all, classes come with complimentary booze and fingerfood, as well as inappropriate conversation and other basic essentials for unleashing creativity and unlocking buried memories. Classes fill up quickly, so sign-up now!

Coming from out of town? CLICK HERE to save up to 67% on another local hotel stay courtesy of HalfOffDepot.com.

The Shocking Real Life Book-Writing Boot Camp Itinerary:

Saturday:

11:00 a.m.–5 p.m.

• Morning Workshop: Tips to Follow (and Pitfalls to Avoid!) When Nabbing a New York Super Agent  hosted by renowned magazine editor, author and agent-nabber Stephanie Davis. Learn the slew of rookie mistakes that keep your manuscript from the eyes of a literary agent, and the surprisingly simple insider tricks that put your pitch ahead of all the others. Stephanie Davis will recount, with insight and hilarity, her own journey through the process, including the mistakes and the unexpected, culminating in an exercise designed to help rocket your way to the publishing house. Stephanie Davis is the editor in Chief of The Atlantan, Contributing Editor to Jezebel and Men’s Book Atlanta and former  National Web Editor for skirt.com. She launched Get Married Magazine, a new bridal magazine with a 300,000 circulation started by Get Married TV on Lifetime Television and GetMarried.com in 2009. She was also on staff at GQ and SELF magazines, and has written for Gourmet, Details, Allure and msn.com.

• Continental Breakfast — coffee, tea, hot cocoa, etc. (doughnuts will definitely make a showing).

• Introductory discussion with Hollis Gillespie, topics to include finding an agent and publisher for your manuscript, determining the genre of your book, breaking down doors and ass-kicking writing techniques.
• Lunch is served with complimentary mimosas and inappropriate conversation (useful for dislodging buried creativity). Menu to include 5-cheese flatbread, mushroom-and-spinach flatbread, deli spirals, fresh fruit and POT LUCK!. Coffee, tea and snacks will also be available throughout the day during workdshops.
• Initial individual assessment of attendees’ manuscripts and ideas for manuscripts. Here is your chance to work on the preliminary format, working title and pointsof an elevator pitch for your manuscipt or manuscript idea. Anytime you pitch to an agent, you need to sum up your book in one sentence. It’s harder than it sounds, and believe it or not it often falls to this precise sentence to make or break an agent’s decision to take you on as a client.
• Writing exercises. Material assessment. Homework distribution. (Yep. Homework, though we don’t make you sit in a corner if you don’t turn it in the next day.) (It’s fun homework, though, so you will want to do it.)
• After 5 p.m. Happy hour at Elliott St. Pub, a true writer’s hangout just steps away. (Catch the pre-Super Bowl hullabaloo here.)

Sunday

11:00 a.m.–5 p.m.

• Continental breakfast.
• Format your book, pitch an agent, learn to avoid rookie mistakes AS WELL AS  learn the secrets that will put you ahead of 80 percent of the competition — it’s Hollis Gillespie’s sure-fire formula that has helped DOZENS of people get agent representation and/or book deals.
• Material assessment. Choosing the pages to present to the agent. (Hint: It’s almost never the very first pages.) How to treat, clean, edit and prepare your pages for presentation to an editor. Writing exercises.
• Lunch with complimentary mimosas and inappropriate conversation (marvelous for unblocking buried creativity)

Charles McNair

Afternoon workshop: The Con Game: Keeping Confidence That Your Work Will Work, hosted by Pulitzer Prize nominee Charles McNair, whose first novel, Land O’Goshen (St. Martin’s Press) received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for fiction and critical acclaim from the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, and other venerated publications . This workshop is a personal approach to helping writers who haven’t broken through to keep believing they will. Charles will discuss the little ways you can build and nourish confidence along the way, until the novel is ready to be born, or the big work. “This is a topic that really deeply matters to me, since I struggled 10 years before a first book was ready,” says Charles. His novel, Land O’ Goshen (St. Martin’s Press, 1994) received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for fiction and was critically acclaimed by The New York Times and Washington Post.

• Each attendee will be assigned the contact info of a literary agent who is in the market for their type of material, and by the end of the weekend they will have a pitch letter formulated to attract that agent, a workable format for their manuscript plus 10 sample pages to include with their agent pitch.
• Your goal, by the end of this book-writers boot camp, is to have completed a professionally written query package to pitch your book, which includes a surmountable and creative format for your manuscript or book idea, a researched, completed pitch letter to a literary agent, and 10 professionally edited and treated sample pages to include with your query. Just give us this one weekend! Your life will change.

• Reserve Your Spot Now! to attend the Shocking Real-Life Book Writing Boot Camp with Hollis Gillespie
  
• March 17–18, 2012
  

Location:

The Shocking Real Life Academy is located in the historic Castleberry Artist district in Atlanta! Click HERE for directions from your location to our space at 313 Nelson Ave., Atlanta, GA 30313. (It’s a large shopfront facing the street. Free covered parking is available, just turn into the covered parking garage next to J.R. Crickets.)

You Better Tell Somebody!

The Shocking Real Life Writers Retreat; See what the buzz is about!

A Novel Writing Getaway to Jump Start Your Novel

November 12–13

This is not your average writer’s retreat! This writing seminar is a lively, active, results-oriented symposium of creative and accomplished authors, attendees and answers to the questions that have been dogging you for years regarding how to go about getting a book deal. At the end of this book-writing retreat you will have a surmountable format for mapping out your book, the components you need to pitch a literary agent, including the agent contact information and the sample pages you need to send the agent. So, with that said, what’s stopping you?

Okay, you have a fantastic idea for a book — but do you know how to begin, finish, and sell it? Or let’s say you’ve already finished a manuscript, but now you’re at an impasse trying to get the attention of agents and publishers.Whether you’re at the idea stage or in the home stretch, this weekend will show you how to navigate the competitive world of book publishing and get your project sold.

“I wanted to THANK YOU, Hollis, for your workshop. It played a crucial role in being able to complete and submit a successful book proposal.” Rachael Brownell, who became a best-selling author after taking the Shocking Real-Life “Develop and Sell Your Memoir” workshop. She’s since been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America and NPR’s Weeken Edition as a result of her book, Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore (2009).

“Hollis’ workshop gave me the confidence I needed to continue following my dream of becoming a published author. [It] was key to helping me fine-tune my proposal, and her personal involvement in my journey  has been invaluable.” Lisa Baron, Shocking Real Life graduate and award-winning columnist, who landed a book deal with Citadel for her memoir, My Burning Bush; How One Woman’s Career in Christian Politics Went Up in Flames. It’s a Chelsea Handler-meets-George Stephanopoulos exploration of the dismantling of the conservative movement — and why young (drinking, chain-smoking, and, well, you get it) political campaign staffers sometimes go rogue.

Warning: This is a retreat for people serious about publishing a book (which is not to say you have to take yourself too seriously) –  that said, (seriously) we are not in the business of hyping pipe dreams. The last thing we want to put you through is a litany of anemic sessions in which people sit around and bloviate about the difficulties of getting a book deal. The Shocking Real-Life Atlanta Book-Writing Boot Camp is an active writing retreat spanning THREE days devoted to your book, your idea for your book, formatting your book, writing your book, getting an agent for your book, selling your book to a publisher PLUS a special side workshop on how to write, publish and sell a profitable eBook. If you have an idea for a book — and especially if you have been sitting on your idea for a book — you owe it to yourself to enroll in this Shocking Real life writers boot camp hosted by best selling humor writer Hollis Gillespie.

Reserve Your Spot Now!

The Shocking Real-Life Book Writing Boot Camp with Hollis Gillespie November 12–13

Whether you’re at the idea stage or in the home stretch, this weekend will show you how to navigate the competitive world of book publishing and get your project sold.

• In this workshop, you’ll learn:
• The marketability of your idea, and how to make it more so
• How to pitch an agent for representation and write the perfect query
• What publishers and agents are really looking for and what they hate
• How to avoid the most common rookie mistakes
• Which pages to send to a literary agent as a sample of your work (hint: It’s rarely the very first pages)
• How publishing houses and literary agencies benefit the  author
• How to decipher the miasma of advances, royalties, subsidiary rights, foreign rights, and dramatic rights

Hollis Gillespie and a collective of other successful authors will share their secrets to unclogging your creative arteries so you can tell the world what you’ve been telling your friends all this time; that your book idea is a slam dunk, and now it’s time to cash it in. She and the other co-hosts will offer their candid critiques, suggestions for selling your work, and answer all your questions about breaking into book publishing.

Here’s some more things you will learn:

• How to pick an eye-grabbing title.
• Which genre best suits your idea (Memoir? Novel? Self-help? Humor?)
• When it’s permissible to embroider, improvise, and reorder real-life events.
• Exactly how to format your pitch letter.
• Exactly which agent to pitch (including contact info).
• How and when to contact agents.
• The difference between an illuminating essay and a journal entry.

And that’s not all, classes come with complimentary booze and fingerfood, as well as inappropriate conversation and other basic essentials for unleashing creativity and unlocking buried memories. Classes fill up quickly, so sign-up now!

Coming from out of town? CLICK HERE to save up to 67% on another local hotel stay courtesy of HalfOffDepot.com.

The Shocking Real Life Book-Writing Boot Camp Itinerary:

Saturday:

11:00 a.m.–5 p.m.

• Morning Workshop: Tips to Follow (and Pitfalls to Avoid!) When Nabbing a New York Super Agent  hosted by renowned magazine editor, author and agent-nabber Stephanie Davis. Learn the slew of rookie mistakes that keep your manuscript from the eyes of a literary agent, and the surprisingly simple insider tricks that put your pitch ahead of all the others. Stephanie Davis will recount, with insight and hilarity, her own journey through the process, including the mistakes and the unexpected, culminating in an exercise designed to help rocket your way to the publishing house. Stephanie Davis is the editor in Chief of The Atlantan, Contributing Editor to Jezebel and Men’s Book Atlanta and former  National Web Editor for skirt.com. She launched Get Married Magazine, a new bridal magazine with a 300,000 circulation started by Get Married TV on Lifetime Television and GetMarried.com in 2009. She was also on staff at GQ and SELF magazines, and has written for Gourmet, Details, Allure and msn.com.

• Continental Breakfast — coffee, tea, hot cocoa, etc. (doughnuts will definitely make a showing).

• Introductory discussion with Hollis Gillespie, topics to include finding an agent and publisher for your manuscript, determining the genre of your book, breaking down doors and ass-kicking writing techniques.
• Lunch is served with complimentary mimosas and inappropriate conversation (useful for dislodging buried creativity). Menu to include 5-cheese flatbread, mushroom-and-spinach flatbread, deli spirals, fresh fruit and POT LUCK!. Coffee, tea and snacks will also be available throughout the day during workdshops.
• Initial individual assessment of attendees’ manuscripts and ideas for manuscripts. Here is your chance to work on the preliminary format, working title and pointsof an elevator pitch for your manuscipt or manuscript idea. Anytime you pitch to an agent, you need to sum up your book in one sentence. It’s harder than it sounds, and believe it or not it often falls to this precise sentence to make or break an agent’s decision to take you on as a client.
• Writing exercises. Material assessment. Homework distribution. (Yep. Homework, though we don’t make you sit in a corner if you don’t turn it in the next day.) (It’s fun homework, though, so you will want to do it.)
• After 5 p.m. Happy hour at Elliott St. Pub, a true writer’s hangout just steps away. (Catch the pre-Super Bowl hullabaloo here.)

Sunday

11:00 a.m.–5 p.m.

• Continental breakfast.
• Format your book, pitch an agent, learn to avoid rookie mistakes AS WELL AS  learn the secrets that will put you ahead of 80 percent of the competition — it’s Hollis Gillespie’s sure-fire formula that has helped DOZENS of people get agent representation and/or book deals.
• Material assessment. Choosing the pages to present to the agent. (Hint: It’s almost never the very first pages.) How to treat, clean, edit and prepare your pages for presentation to an editor. Writing exercises.
• Lunch with complimentary mimosas and inappropriate conversation (marvelous for unblocking buried creativity)

Charles McNair

Afternoon workshop: The Con Game: Keeping Confidence That Your Work Will Work, hosted by Pulitzer Prize nominee Charles McNair, whose first novel, Land O’Goshen (St. Martin’s Press) received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for fiction and critical acclaim from the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, and other venerated publications . This workshop is a personal approach to helping writers who haven’t broken through to keep believing they will. Charles will discuss the little ways you can build and nourish confidence along the way, until the novel is ready to be born, or the big work. “This is a topic that really deeply matters to me, since I struggled 10 years before a first book was ready,” says Charles. His novel, Land O’ Goshen (St. Martin’s Press, 1994) received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for fiction and was critically acclaimed by The New York Times and Washington Post.

• Each attendee will be assigned the contact info of a literary agent who is in the market for their type of material, and by the end of the weekend they will have a pitch letter formulated to attract that agent, a workable format for their manuscript plus 10 sample pages to include with their agent pitch.
• Your goal, by the end of this book-writers boot camp, is to have completed a professionally written query package to pitch your book, which includes a surmountable and creative format for your manuscript or book idea, a researched, completed pitch letter to a literary agent, and 10 professionally edited and treated sample pages to include with your query. Just give us this one weekend! Your life will change.

• Reserve Your Spot Now! to attend the Shocking Real-Life Book Writing Boot Camp with Hollis Gillespie November 12–13
  

Location:

The Shocking Real Life Academy is located in the historic Castleberry Artist district in Atlanta! Click HERE for directions from your location to our space at 313 Nelson Ave., Atlanta, GA 30313. (It’s a large shopfront facing the street. Free covered parking is available, just turn into the covered parking garage next to J.R. Crickets.)

You Better Tell Somebody!

The Shocking Real Life Writers Retreat; See what the buzz is about!

A Novel Writing Getaway to Jump Start Your Novel

January 7–8

This is not your average writer’s retreat! This writing seminar is a lively, active, results-oriented symposium of creative and accomplished authors, attendees and answers to the questions that have been dogging you for years regarding how to go about getting a book deal. At the end of this book-writing retreat you will have a surmountable format for mapping out your book, the components you need to pitch a literary agent, including the agent contact information and the sample pages you need to send the agent. So, with that said, what’s stopping you?

Okay, you have a fantastic idea for a book — but do you know how to begin, finish, and sell it? Or let’s say you’ve already finished a manuscript, but now you’re at an impasse trying to get the attention of agents and publishers.Whether you’re at the idea stage or in the home stretch, this weekend will show you how to navigate the competitive world of book publishing and get your project sold.

“I wanted to THANK YOU, Hollis, for your workshop. It played a crucial role in being able to complete and submit a successful book proposal.” Rachael Brownell, who became a best-selling author after taking the Shocking Real-Life “Develop and Sell Your Memoir” workshop. She’s since been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America and NPR’s Weeken Edition as a result of her book, Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore (2009).

“Hollis’ workshop gave me the confidence I needed to continue following my dream of becoming a published author. [It] was key to helping me fine-tune my proposal, and her personal involvement in my journey  has been invaluable.” Lisa Baron, Shocking Real Life graduate and award-winning columnist, who landed a book deal with Citadel for her memoir, My Burning Bush; How One Woman’s Career in Christian Politics Went Up in Flames. It’s a Chelsea Handler-meets-George Stephanopoulos exploration of the dismantling of the conservative movement — and why young (drinking, chain-smoking, and, well, you get it) political campaign staffers sometimes go rogue.

Warning: This is a retreat for people serious about publishing a book (which is not to say you have to take yourself too seriously) –  that said, (seriously) we are not in the business of hyping pipe dreams. The last thing we want to put you through is a litany of anemic sessions in which people sit around and bloviate about the difficulties of getting a book deal. The Shocking Real-Life Atlanta Book-Writing Boot Camp is an active writing retreat spanning THREE days devoted to your book, your idea for your book, formatting your book, writing your book, getting an agent for your book, selling your book to a publisher PLUS a special side workshop on how to write, publish and sell a profitable eBook. If you have an idea for a book — and especially if you have been sitting on your idea for a book — you owe it to yourself to enroll in this Shocking Real life writers boot camp hosted by best selling humor writer Hollis Gillespie.

Reserve Your Spot Now!

The Shocking Real-Life Book Writing Boot Camp with Hollis Gillespie January 7–8

Whether you’re at the idea stage or in the home stretch, this weekend will show you how to navigate the competitive world of book publishing and get your project sold.

• In this workshop, you’ll learn:
• The marketability of your idea, and how to make it more so
• How to pitch an agent for representation and write the perfect query
• What publishers and agents are really looking for and what they hate
• How to avoid the most common rookie mistakes
• Which pages to send to a literary agent as a sample of your work (hint: It’s rarely the very first pages)
• How publishing houses and literary agencies benefit the  author
• How to decipher the miasma of advances, royalties, subsidiary rights, foreign rights, and dramatic rights

Hollis Gillespie and a collective of other successful authors will share their secrets to unclogging your creative arteries so you can tell the world what you’ve been telling your friends all this time; that your book idea is a slam dunk, and now it’s time to cash it in. She and the other co-hosts will offer their candid critiques, suggestions for selling your work, and answer all your questions about breaking into book publishing.

Here’s some more things you will learn:

• How to pick an eye-grabbing title.
• Which genre best suits your idea (Memoir? Novel? Self-help? Humor?)
• When it’s permissible to embroider, improvise, and reorder real-life events.
• Exactly how to format your pitch letter.
• Exactly which agent to pitch (including contact info).
• How and when to contact agents.
• The difference between an illuminating essay and a journal entry.

And that’s not all, classes come with complimentary booze and fingerfood, as well as inappropriate conversation and other basic essentials for unleashing creativity and unlocking buried memories. Classes fill up quickly, so sign-up now!

Coming from out of town? CLICK HERE to save up to 67% on another local hotel stay courtesy of HalfOffDepot.com.

The Shocking Real Life Book-Writing Boot Camp Itinerary:

Saturday:

11:00 a.m.–5 p.m.

• Morning Workshop: Tips to Follow (and Pitfalls to Avoid!) When Nabbing a New York Super Agent  hosted by renowned magazine editor, author and agent-nabber Stephanie Davis. Learn the slew of rookie mistakes that keep your manuscript from the eyes of a literary agent, and the surprisingly simple insider tricks that put your pitch ahead of all the others. Stephanie Davis will recount, with insight and hilarity, her own journey through the process, including the mistakes and the unexpected, culminating in an exercise designed to help rocket your way to the publishing house. Stephanie Davis is the editor in Chief of The Atlantan, Contributing Editor to Jezebel and Men’s Book Atlanta and former  National Web Editor for skirt.com. She launched Get Married Magazine, a new bridal magazine with a 300,000 circulation started by Get Married TV on Lifetime Television and GetMarried.com in 2009. She was also on staff at GQ and SELF magazines, and has written for Gourmet, Details, Allure and msn.com.

• Continental Breakfast — coffee, tea, hot cocoa, etc. (doughnuts will definitely make a showing).

• Introductory discussion with Hollis Gillespie, topics to include finding an agent and publisher for your manuscript, determining the genre of your book, breaking down doors and ass-kicking writing techniques.
• Lunch is served with complimentary mimosas and inappropriate conversation (useful for dislodging buried creativity). Menu to include 5-cheese flatbread, mushroom-and-spinach flatbread, deli spirals, fresh fruit and POT LUCK!. Coffee, tea and snacks will also be available throughout the day during workdshops.
• Initial individual assessment of attendees’ manuscripts and ideas for manuscripts. Here is your chance to work on the preliminary format, working title and pointsof an elevator pitch for your manuscipt or manuscript idea. Anytime you pitch to an agent, you need to sum up your book in one sentence. It’s harder than it sounds, and believe it or not it often falls to this precise sentence to make or break an agent’s decision to take you on as a client.
• Writing exercises. Material assessment. Homework distribution. (Yep. Homework, though we don’t make you sit in a corner if you don’t turn it in the next day.) (It’s fun homework, though, so you will want to do it.)
• After 5 p.m. Happy hour at Elliott St. Pub, a true writer’s hangout just steps away. (Catch the pre-Super Bowl hullabaloo here.)

Sunday

11:00 a.m.–5 p.m.

• Continental breakfast.
• Format your book, pitch an agent, learn to avoid rookie mistakes AS WELL AS  learn the secrets that will put you ahead of 80 percent of the competition — it’s Hollis Gillespie’s sure-fire formula that has helped DOZENS of people get agent representation and/or book deals.
• Material assessment. Choosing the pages to present to the agent. (Hint: It’s almost never the very first pages.) How to treat, clean, edit and prepare your pages for presentation to an editor. Writing exercises.
• Lunch with complimentary mimosas and inappropriate conversation (marvelous for unblocking buried creativity)

Charles McNair

Afternoon workshop: The Con Game: Keeping Confidence That Your Work Will Work, hosted by Pulitzer Prize nominee Charles McNair, whose first novel, Land O’Goshen (St. Martin’s Press) received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for fiction and critical acclaim from the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, and other venerated publications . This workshop is a personal approach to helping writers who haven’t broken through to keep believing they will. Charles will discuss the little ways you can build and nourish confidence along the way, until the novel is ready to be born, or the big work. “This is a topic that really deeply matters to me, since I struggled 10 years before a first book was ready,” says Charles. His novel, Land O’ Goshen (St. Martin’s Press, 1994) received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for fiction and was critically acclaimed by The New York Times and Washington Post.

• Each attendee will be assigned the contact info of a literary agent who is in the market for their type of material, and by the end of the weekend they will have a pitch letter formulated to attract that agent, a workable format for their manuscript plus 10 sample pages to include with their agent pitch.
• Your goal, by the end of this book-writers boot camp, is to have completed a professionally written query package to pitch your book, which includes a surmountable and creative format for your manuscript or book idea, a researched, completed pitch letter to a literary agent, and 10 professionally edited and treated sample pages to include with your query. Just give us this one weekend! Your life will change.

• Reserve Your Spot Now! to attend the Shocking Real-Life Book Writing Boot Camp with Hollis Gillespie on January 7–8
  

Location:

The Shocking Real Life Academy is located in the historic Castleberry Artist district in Atlanta! Click HERE for directions from your location to our space at 313 Nelson Ave., Atlanta, GA 30313. (It’s a large shopfront facing the street. Free covered parking is available, just turn into the covered parking garage next to J.R. Crickets.)

You Better Tell Somebody!

The Shocking Real Life Writers Retreat; See what the buzz is about!

A Novel Writing Getaway to Jump Start Your Novel

November 12–13

This is not your average writer’s retreat! This writing seminar is a lively, active, results-oriented symposium of creative and accomplished authors, attendees and answers to the questions that have been dogging you for years regarding how to go about getting a book deal. At the end of this book-writing retreat you will have a surmountable format for mapping out your book, the components you need to pitch a literary agent, including the agent contact information and the sample pages you need to send the agent. So, with that said, what’s stopping you?

Okay, you have a fantastic idea for a book — but do you know how to begin, finish, and sell it? Or let’s say you’ve already finished a manuscript, but now you’re at an impasse trying to get the attention of agents and publishers.Whether you’re at the idea stage or in the home stretch, this weekend will show you how to navigate the competitive world of book publishing and get your project sold.

“I wanted to THANK YOU, Hollis, for your workshop. It played a crucial role in being able to complete and submit a successful book proposal.” Rachael Brownell, who became a best-selling author after taking the Shocking Real-Life “Develop and Sell Your Memoir” workshop. She’s since been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America and NPR’s Weeken Edition as a result of her book, Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore (2009).

“Hollis’ workshop gave me the confidence I needed to continue following my dream of becoming a published author. [It] was key to helping me fine-tune my proposal, and her personal involvement in my journey  has been invaluable.” Lisa Baron, Shocking Real Life graduate and award-winning columnist, who landed a book deal with Citadel for her memoir, My Burning Bush; How One Woman’s Career in Christian Politics Went Up in Flames. It’s a Chelsea Handler-meets-George Stephanopoulos exploration of the dismantling of the conservative movement — and why young (drinking, chain-smoking, and, well, you get it) political campaign staffers sometimes go rogue.

Warning: This is a retreat for people serious about publishing a book (which is not to say you have to take yourself too seriously) –  that said, (seriously) we are not in the business of hyping pipe dreams. The last thing we want to put you through is a litany of anemic sessions in which people sit around and bloviate about the difficulties of getting a book deal. The Shocking Real-Life Atlanta Book-Writing Boot Camp is an active writing retreat spanning THREE days devoted to your book, your idea for your book, formatting your book, writing your book, getting an agent for your book, selling your book to a publisher PLUS a special side workshop on how to write, publish and sell a profitable eBook. If you have an idea for a book — and especially if you have been sitting on your idea for a book — you owe it to yourself to enroll in this Shocking Real life writers boot camp hosted by best selling humor writer Hollis Gillespie.

Reserve Your Spot Now!

The Shocking Real-Life Book Writing Boot Camp with Hollis Gillespie November 12–13

Whether you’re at the idea stage or in the home stretch, this weekend will show you how to navigate the competitive world of book publishing and get your project sold.

• In this workshop, you’ll learn:
• The marketability of your idea, and how to make it more so
• How to pitch an agent for representation and write the perfect query
• What publishers and agents are really looking for and what they hate
• How to avoid the most common rookie mistakes
• Which pages to send to a literary agent as a sample of your work (hint: It’s rarely the very first pages)
• How publishing houses and literary agencies benefit the  author
• How to decipher the miasma of advances, royalties, subsidiary rights, foreign rights, and dramatic rights

Hollis Gillespie and a collective of other successful authors will share their secrets to unclogging your creative arteries so you can tell the world what you’ve been telling your friends all this time; that your book idea is a slam dunk, and now it’s time to cash it in. She and the other co-hosts will offer their candid critiques, suggestions for selling your work, and answer all your questions about breaking into book publishing.

Here’s some more things you will learn:

• How to pick an eye-grabbing title.
• Which genre best suits your idea (Memoir? Novel? Self-help? Humor?)
• When it’s permissible to embroider, improvise, and reorder real-life events.
• Exactly how to format your pitch letter.
• Exactly which agent to pitch (including contact info).
• How and when to contact agents.
• The difference between an illuminating essay and a journal entry.

And that’s not all, classes come with complimentary booze and fingerfood, as well as inappropriate conversation and other basic essentials for unleashing creativity and unlocking buried memories. Classes fill up quickly, so sign-up now!

Coming from out of town? CLICK HERE to save up to 67% on another local hotel stay courtesy of HalfOffDepot.com.

The Shocking Real Life Book-Writing Boot Camp Itinerary:

Saturday:

Stephanie Davis

11:00 a.m.–5 p.m.

• Morning Workshop: Tips to Follow (and Pitfalls to Avoid!) When Nabbing a New York Super Agent   hosted by renowned magazine editor, author and agent-nabber Stephanie Davis. Learn the slew of rookie mistakes that keep your manuscript from the eyes of a literary agent, and the surprisingly simple insider tricks that put your pitch ahead of all the others. Stephanie Davis will recount, with insight and hilarity, her own journey through the process, including the mistakes and the unexpected, culminating in an exercise designed to help rocket your way to the publishing house. Stephanie Davis is the editor in Chief of The Atlantan, Contributing Editor to Jezebel and Men’s Book Atlanta and former  National Web Editor for skirt.com. She launched Get Married Magazine, a new bridal magazine with a 300,000 circulation started by Get Married TV on Lifetime Television and GetMarried.com in 2009. She was also on staff at GQ and SELF magazines, and has written for Gourmet, Details, Allure and msn.com.
• Continental Breakfast — coffee, tea, hot cocoa, etc. (doughnuts will definitely make a showing).
• Introductory discussion with Hollis Gillespie, topics to include finding an agent and publisher for your manuscript, determining the genre of your book, breaking down doors and ass-kicking writing techniques.
• Lunch is served with complimentary mimosas and inappropriate conversation (useful for dislodging buried creativity). Menu to include 5-cheese flatbread, mushroom-and-spinach flatbread, deli spirals, fresh fruit and POT LUCK!. Coffee, tea and snacks will also be available throughout the day during workdshops.
• Initial individual assessment of attendees’ manuscripts and ideas for manuscripts. Here is your chance to work on the preliminary format, working title and pointsof an elevator pitch for your manuscipt or manuscript idea. Anytime you pitch to an agent, you need to sum up your book in one sentence. It’s harder than it sounds, and believe it or not it often falls to this precise sentence to make or break an agent’s decision to take you on as a client.
• Writing exercises. Material assessment. Homework distribution. (Yep. Homework, though we don’t make you sit in a corner if you don’t turn it in the next day.) (It’s fun homework, though, so you will want to do it.)
• After 5 p.m. Happy hour at Elliott St. Pub, a true writer’s hangout just steps away. (Catch the pre-Super Bowl hullabaloo here.)

Sunday:

11:00 a.m.–5 p.m.

• Continental breakfast.
• Format your book, pitch an agent, learn to avoid rookie mistakes AS WELL AS  learn the secrets that will put you ahead of 80 percent of the competition — it’s Hollis Gillespie’s sure-fire formula that has helped DOZENS of people get agent representation and/or book deals.
• Material assessment. Choosing the pages to present to the agent. (Hint: It’s almost never the very first pages.) How to treat, clean, edit and prepare your pages for presentation to an editor. Writing exercises.
• Lunch with complimentary mimosas and inappropriate conversation (marvelous for unblocking buried creativity)

Afternoon workshop: Grant Henry’s “Fuck Fear” Enlightenment Lecture, Grant Henry (aka Sister Louisa, aka The Beehived Bartender, aka “The Happiest Man Alive”), a bona-fide muse and recurring real-life character in Hollis Gillespie’s writings, is a self-proclaimed “Liver of Life, Loss Expert, and One Who Laughs When Told Not To.” Grant will provide a retrospective on the life decisions he’s made that have brought him to the point today where he is today, able to make a living by doing, saying, or creating any-damn-thing he decides. (He refers to this segment as “Grant Henry’s ‘Fuck Fear’ Enlightenment Lecture.”) (Ogling is allowed, though it’s advised to avoid eye contact.)

• Each attendee will be assigned the contact info of a literary agent who is in the market for their type of material, and by the end of the weekend they will have a pitch letter formulated to attract that agent, a workable format for their manuscript plus 10 sample pages to include with their agent pitch.
• Your goal, by the end of this book-writers boot camp, is to have completed a professionally written query package to pitch your book, which includes a surmountable and creative format for your manuscript or book idea, a researched, completed pitch letter to a literary agent, and 10 professionally edited and treated sample pages to include with your query. Just give us this one weekend! Your life will change.

• Reserve Your Spot Now! to attend the Shocking Real-Life Book Writing Boot Camp with Hollis Gillespie November 12–13
  

Location:

The Shocking Real Life Academy is located in the historic Castleberry Artist district in Atlanta! Click HERE for directions from your location to our space at 313 Nelson Ave., Atlanta, GA 30313. (It’s a large shopfront facing the street. Free covered parking is available, just turn into the covered parking garage next to J.R. Crickets.)

You Better Tell Somebody!

The Shocking Real Life Writers Retreat; See what the buzz is about!

A Novel Writing Getaway to Jump Start Your Novel

Sept. 17–18 (Hurry! 3 spots left!)

This is not your average writer’s retreat! This writing seminar is a lively, active, results-oriented symposium of creative and accomplished authors, attendees and answers to the questions that have been dogging you for years regarding how to go about getting a book deal. At the end of this book-writing retreat you will have a surmountable format for mapping out your book, the components you need to pitch a literary agent, including the agent contact information and the sample pages you need to send the agent. So, with that said, what’s stopping you?

Okay, you have a fantastic idea for a book — but do you know how to begin, finish, and sell it? Or let’s say you’ve already finished a manuscript, but now you’re at an impasse trying to get the attention of agents and publishers.Whether you’re at the idea stage or in the home stretch, this weekend will show you how to navigate the competitive world of book publishing and get your project sold.

“I wanted to THANK YOU, Hollis, for your workshop. It played a crucial role in being able to complete and submit a successful book proposal.” Rachael Brownell, who became a best-selling author after taking the Shocking Real-Life “Develop and Sell Your Memoir” workshop. She’s since been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America and NPR’s Weeken Edition as a result of her book, Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore (2009).

“Hollis’ workshop gave me the confidence I needed to continue following my dream of becoming a published author. [It] was key to helping me fine-tune my proposal, and her personal involvement in my journey  has been invaluable.” Lisa Baron, Shocking Real Life graduate and award-winning columnist, who landed a book deal with Citadel for her memoir, My Burning Bush; How One Woman’s Career in Christian Politics Went Up in Flames. It’s a Chelsea Handler-meets-George Stephanopoulos exploration of the dismantling of the conservative movement — and why young (drinking, chain-smoking, and, well, you get it) political campaign staffers sometimes go rogue.

Warning: This is a retreat for people serious about publishing a book (which is not to say you have to take yourself too seriously) –  that said, (seriously) we are not in the business of hyping pipe dreams. The last thing we want to put you through is a litany of anemic sessions in which people sit around and bloviate about the difficulties of getting a book deal. The Shocking Real-Life Atlanta Book-Writing Boot Camp is an active writing retreat spanning THREE days devoted to your book, your idea for your book, formatting your book, writing your book, getting an agent for your book, selling your book to a publisher PLUS a special side workshop on how to write, publish and sell a profitable eBook. If you have an idea for a book — and especially if you have been sitting on your idea for a book — you owe it to yourself to enroll in this Shocking Real life writers boot camp hosted by best selling humor writer Hollis Gillespie.

Reserve Your Spot Now!

The Shocking Real-Life Book Writing Boot Camp with Hollis Gillespie September 17–18

Whether you’re at the idea stage or in the home stretch, this weekend will show you how to navigate the competitive world of book publishing and get your project sold.

• In this workshop, you’ll learn:
• The marketability of your idea, and how to make it more so
• How to pitch an agent for representation and write the perfect query
• What publishers and agents are really looking for and what they hate
• How to avoid the most common rookie mistakes
• Which pages to send to a literary agent as a sample of your work (hint: It’s rarely the very first pages)
• How publishing houses and literary agencies benefit the  author
• How to decipher the miasma of advances, royalties, subsidiary rights, foreign rights, and dramatic rights

Hollis Gillespie and a collective of other successful authors will share their secrets to unclogging your creative arteries so you can tell the world what you’ve been telling your friends all this time; that your book idea is a slam dunk, and now it’s time to cash it in. She and the other co-hosts will offer their candid critiques, suggestions for selling your work, and answer all your questions about breaking into book publishing.

Here’s some more things you will learn:

• How to pick an eye-grabbing title.
• Which genre best suits your idea (Memoir? Novel? Self-help? Humor?)
• When it’s permissible to embroider, improvise, and reorder real-life events.
• Exactly how to format your pitch letter.
• Exactly which agent to pitch (including contact info).
• How and when to contact agents.
• The difference between an illuminating essay and a journal entry.

And that’s not all, classes come with complimentary booze and fingerfood, as well as inappropriate conversation and other basic essentials for unleashing creativity and unlocking buried memories. Classes fill up quickly, so sign-up now!

Coming from out of town? CLICK HERE to save up to 67% on another local hotel stay courtesy of HalfOffDepot.com.

The Shocking Real Life Book-Writing Boot Camp Itinerary:

Saturday, September 17

11:00 a.m.–5 p.m.

• Morning Workshop: Busting Balls, Blocks, & Barriers hosted by best-selling author Lauretta Hannon. You can catapult your writing forward only after you identify what has been holding it back. Lauretta will help you explore the barriers to your progress and then bust ‘em all to hell using her tried-and-true tips and strategies. Expect to be energized and more focused after this lively session, which includes pen-to-paper (or fingers to keyboard) exercises. Lauretta Hannon is described by Southern Living as “the funniest woman in Georgia. ” She has been teaching and encouraging writers for twenty years. Her literary debut, The Cracker Queen–A Memoir of a Jagged, Joyful Life, became a Southern Indie Bestseller three weeks after its release. Last year, The Cracker Queenwas named one of the Top Twenty-Five Books All Georgians Should Read.
  

  Author Lauretta Hannon

• Continental Breakfast — coffee, tea, hot cocoa, etc. (doughnuts will definitely make a showing).
• Introductory discussion with Hollis Gillespie, topics to include finding an agent and publisher for your manuscript, determining the genre of your book, breaking down doors and ass-kicking writing techniques.
• Lunch is served with complimentary mimosas and inappropriate conversation (useful for dislodging buried creativity). Menu to include 5-cheese flatbread, mushroom-and-spinach flatbread, deli spirals, fresh fruit and POT LUCK!. Coffee, tea and snacks will also be available throughout the day during workdshops.
• Initial individual assessment of attendees’ manuscripts and ideas for manuscripts. Here is your chance to work on the preliminary format, working title and pointsof an elevator pitch for your manuscipt or manuscript idea. Anytime you pitch to an agent, you need to sum up your book in one sentence. It’s harder than it sounds, and believe it or not it often falls to this precise sentence to make or break an agent’s decision to take you on as a client.
• Writing exercises. Material assessment. Homework distribution. (Yep. Homework, though we don’t make you sit in a corner if you don’t turn it in the next day.) (It’s fun homework, though, so you will want to do it.)
• After 5 p.m. Happy hour at Elliott St. Pub, a true writer’s hangout just steps away. (Catch the pre-Super Bowl hullabaloo here.)

Sunday, September 18

11:00 a.m.–5 p.m.

• Continental breakfast.
• Format your book, pitch an agent, learn to avoid rookie mistakes AS WELL AS  learn the secrets that will put you ahead of 80 percent of the competition — it’s Hollis Gillespie’s sure-fire formula that has helped DOZENS of people get agent representation and/or book deals.
• Material assessment. Choosing the pages to present to the agent. (Hint: It’s almost never the very first pages.) How to treat, clean, edit and prepare your pages for presentation to an editor. Writing exercises.
• Lunch with complimentary mimosas and inappropriate conversation (marvelous for unblocking buried creativity)

Charles McNair

Afternoon workshop: The Con Game: Keeping Confidence That Your Work Will Work, hosted by Pulitzer Prize nominee Charles McNair, whose first novel, Land O’Goshen (St. Martin’s Press) received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for fiction and critical acclaim from the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, and other venerated publications . This workshop is a personal approach to helping writers who haven’t broken through to keep believing they will. Charles will discuss the little ways you can build and nourish confidence along the way, until the novel is ready to be born, or the big work. “This is a topic that really deeply matters to me, since I struggled 10 years before a first book was ready,” says Charles. His novel, Land O’ Goshen (St. Martin’s Press, 1994) received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for fiction and was critically acclaimed by The New York Times and Washington Post.

• Each attendee will be assigned the contact info of a literary agent who is in the market for their type of material, and by the end of the weekend they will have a pitch letter formulated to attract that agent, a workable format for their manuscript plus 10 sample pages to include with their agent pitch.
• Your goal, by the end of this book-writers boot camp, is to have completed a professionally written query package to pitch your book, which includes a surmountable and creative format for your manuscript or book idea, a researched, completed pitch letter to a literary agent, and 10 professionally edited and treated sample pages to include with your query. Just give us this one weekend! Your life will change.

• Reserve Your Spot Now! to attend the Shocking Real-Life Book Writing Boot Camp with Hollis Gillespie September 17–18
  

Location:

The Shocking Real Life Academy is located in the historic Castleberry Artist district in Atlanta! Click HERE for directions from your location to our space at 313 Nelson Ave., Atlanta, GA 30313. (It’s a large shopfront facing the street. Free covered parking is available, just turn into the covered parking garage next to J.R. Crickets.)

You Better Tell Somebody!

The Shocking Real-Life “Write and Sell Your Book” Workshop

Sunday, December 12, 11-5  (2 SPOTS LEFT!)
Okay, you have a fantastic idea for a book — but do you know how to begin, finish, and sell it? Or let’s say you’ve already finished a manuscript, but now you’re at an impasse trying to get the attention of agents and publishers.

This is the workshop for you! Whether you’re at the idea stage or in the home stretch, this workshop will show you how to navigate the competitive world of book publishing and get your first project sold.

In this workshop, you’ll learn:

• How marketable is your idea, and how to make it more so
• How to pitch an agent for representation and write the perfect query
• What publishers and agents are really looking for and what they hate
• The 10 most common mistakes
• How publishing houses and literary agencies benefit the  author
• How to decipher the miasma of advances, royalties, subsidiary rights, foreign rights, and dramatic rights

Hollis will share her secrets to unclogging your creative arteries so you can tell the world what you’ve been telling your friends all this time; that your book idea is a slam dunk, and now it’s time to cash it in. She will offer her candid critiques, suggestions for selling your work, and answer all your questions about breaking into memoir writing.

Need convincing? Read about recent graduate (and book-deal recipient) Lisa Baron’s experience:

Shocking Real Life graduate Lisa Baron, an award-winning columnist and former aide to Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed, landed a book deal with Citadel for her memoir MY BURNING BUSH: HOW ONE WOMAN’S CAREER IN CHRISTIAN POLITICS WENT UP IN FLAMES. It’s a Chelsea Handler-meets-George Stephanopoulos exploration of the dismantling of the conservative movement — and why young (drinking, chain-smoking, and, well, you get it) political campaign staffers sometimes go rogue.

TWO QUESITONS with Lisa Baron:

1. How excited ARE you about your first book deal?
Lisa: The percentage of first time authors receiving book deals is very low. But I had two things working for me that I believe made the difference: determination and Hollis Gillespie’s kick ass work shop!

2. How did the Shocking Real Life “Secrets to Writing & Selling Your Book” Workshop help you?
Lisa: Hollis’ workshop confirmed that I had a sellable idea and that I was on the right track. The workshop gave me the confidence I needed to continue following my dream of becoming a published author. [Hollis] was key to helping me fine-tune my proposal and her personal involvement in my journey has been invaluable.

Need another example? Christal Presley, who is a past participant of both the Shocking Real-Life book-deal and blogging workshops, talks about how signing up for Hollis Gillespie’s workshops led to her becoming an instant media sensation and acquiring big-time NY literary agent Laurie Bernstein (who represents NYT bestsellers Catherine Coulter, Barbara Delinsky and Judith Michael, to name a few):

Here’s some more things you will learn:

• 
• How to pick an eye-grabbing title.
• Which genre best suits your idea (Memoir? Novel? Self-help? Humor?)
• When it’s permissible to embroider, improvise, and reorder real-life events.
• Exactly how to format your pitch letter.
• Exactly which agent to pitch (including contact info).
• How and when to contact agents.
• The difference between an illuminating essay and a journal entry.

And that’s not all, classes come with complimentary booze and fingerfood, as well as inappropriate conversation and other basic essentials for unleashing creativity and unlocking buried memories. Classes fill up quickly, so sign-up now!

Upcoming Class

Sunday, December 12, 2010, 11:00am – 5:00pm Cost: $175 Includes finger food, champagne, ping pong and inappropriate conversation. REGISTER NOW! Class held in the Castleberry Point live/work loft complex! 313 Nelson St., Atlanta, GA 30313 100% Safe and Secure – We are PayPal verified.Click now and you’ll get an immediate email confirming your seat. Instant confirmation only available online (to pay by check see below) * Did we say it includes champagne, fingerfood and inappropriate conversation.

1. Write a check for the cost of the class payable to “Hollis Gillespie” and mail to Hollis Gillespie, c/o of Shocking Real Life, P.O. Box 89083, Atlanta, GA 30312-0083.
2. Send Hollis a note at shockingreallife@gmail.com. Include your name, email, which seminar you are signing up for, and the date the check was mailed.
3. After Hollis receives your check, you will get a confirmation email notifying you that you are registered in the class.

CLASS Location is in the historic Castleberry Artist District at 313 Nelson St., Atlanta, GA 30313. The workshop space is a large live/work loft complex in Castleberry Point. There is ample street side parking as well as covered parking. CLICK HERE for directions from your location.

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Instructor Bio

Hollis Gillespie with Jay Leno

Hollis Gillespie, a Writer’s Digest “Breakout Author of the Year,” is an award-winning, syndicated humor columnist, NPR commentator and author of “The Ugly American,” a travel column in Paste magazine. Her books are titled Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch; Tales from a Bad Neighborhood (ReganBooks, 2003), the film rights of which were bought by Paramount, Confessions of a Recovering Slut and Other Love Stories (ReganBooks, 2005), and Trailer Trashed; My Dubious Efforts Toward Upward Mobility (Skirt!/Globe Pequot, 2008). Her monthly humor column can be found in Atlanta magazine, recipient of the National Magazine Award two years in a row.

_______________________________________________________

Special Guest Appearance by Charles McNair, whose first novel, Land O’Goshen (St. Martin’s Press) received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for fiction and critical acclaim from the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, and other venerated publications.

_________________________________________________________

ANOTHER SUCCESS STORy

Shocking Real-Life Alumni, Rachael Brownell, Becomes Best-Seller!

 

Rachael Brownell, author of Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore, became a best-selling author after taking this Shocking Real-Life “Develop and Sell Your Memoir” workshop. Her book, a series of funny and touching anecdotes about early motherhood and recovery, came out in August ’09 and she’s since been on the Today Show, Good Morning America and NPR. Visit her website and see for yourself. Brownell was also a contributor to a popular department of Blabber.com called Strollerderby, which served as a great platform for her book. (Click HERE to see how to make YOUR blog a platform for your upcoming book).

 Rachael Brownell’s testimonial:

“I wanted to THANK YOU, Hollis, for your workshop. It played a crucial role in being able to complete and submit a successful book proposal.”

Sunday, December 12, 2010, 11:00am – 5:00pm Cost: $175 Includes finger food, champagne, ping pong and inappropriate conversation. REGISTER NOW! Class held in the Castleberry Point live/work loft complex at 313 Nelson St., Atlanta, GA 30313.

More Success Stories:

 

SRL Alum Brenda Stockdale’s book, You Can Beat the Odds: Surprising Factors Behind Chronic Illness & Cancer–and the 6-Week Breakthrough Program for Optimal Immunity(Sentient Press, ‘09), debuted at the top of Amazon’s list of cancer-recovery books. Harvard scientist, best selling author Joan Borysenko wrote of Brenda’s book, “If you read only one health book this year, this should be the one.”

SRL alumn Lynn Coulter’s book Mustard Seeds: Thoughts on the Nature of God and Faith was released by B&H Books in September 2008. It earned a starred review from  Publisher’s Weekly and netted the author a second book deal.

SRL alumn Susan Contreras, graduate of “Publish Your Personal Essay” says, “It’s one of the best things I ever did for my writing career! By the end of the class, Hollis had helped me take one of those crazy ideas in my head and turn it into a finished essay, ready to be emailed to an editor. Within two months, that essay led directly to two assignments from a senior editor at Family Circle magazine.”

Wendy Merrill’s juicy tell-all, Falling Into Manholes; the Memoir of a Bad/Good Girl was just published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Amanda Lamb

Amanda Lamb’s book, Smotherhood, Wickedly Funny Confessions from the Early Years, was released by Skirt!press in 2007. Congratulations, Amanda! Her book is a laugh-riot “momoir” told in a series of interconnected vignettes. Amanda’s second book, Deadly Dose, will be coming out this year from Berkeley.

Dixie Feldman, just landed a book deal with HarperCollins to publish her manuscript The Lost Art of Being a Dame (working title).

Corinne Humphrey’s book The Tao of Rudy was recently published by Sage Press.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rhiannon Bowman landed gigs as a regular writer for Skirt! magazine and Creative Loafing Charlotte.

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You can be the next Shocking Real-Lifer to get a book deal! Check out our class schedule and get working on your book today!

What past participants say about the Shocking Real-Life Writing Seminar

“I made contact (totally used your letter) with a friend’s agent at Writer’s House. It worked! Now he wants to see the proposal. They loved the idea of the 5 People You Meet in Heaven, but from a female perspective. Thanks again! The class was great.” — Stephanie Davis, Editor, skirt! Magazine

“Hollis, thanks for being in touch so quickly.  Your seminar rocked!! I want to be one of your successes.  I’ll start with [the agent you suggested] and if a rejection, will just keep going.  I did not even realize I was so on fire about getting this book out there, until I felt the full Hollis Effect!!” –  Susan Campbell

“Hollis Gillespie’s writing workshop was the best I’ve ever attended.  Hollis was extremely encouraging and helpful in both creative and procedural modes.  And the yellow theme with the mimosas worked at a deep level of community which added to the enjoyment of the whole experience.” — David Ryback

“Hollis is a rule-breaker who will teach you things you won’t hear anywhere else.  If you don’t care about political correctness and want to learn a proven tactic to get an agent’s attention, Hollis can show you the way.” — Debbie Unterman

“Hollis and crew were positive and upbeat. ‘Can’t’ wasn’t spoken. The environment and food were ‘quirky and fun,’ one of the underlying themes of the workshop and Hollis’s principles: build a support system of writers, share your work and contacts, and hit the send, send, send button on your computer made sense. The agent list was an added bonus.” — Lynn Hesse

“The Hollis Gillespie workshop was money well spent and the day went by very quickly!  Hollis took time with each person to help them clarify details of the story that they’d like to tell, develop a creative title, found similar books to use as examples in a pitch letter and provided a list with a recommendation of an agent (or agents) to contact.  Hollis gave concise, realistic feedback to each person.  As an added bonus, Michael Alvear spoke and each offered excellent advice. I came home and began work immediately on my story! I’m impressed by Hollis and Michael’s philosophy of helping other writers.  Thank you for offering this wonderful seminar to AtlantaWriters Club members.” — Sharon LeMaster

“It was a great experience and nice to sit around a table with others who are dealing with the same obstacles I am.  I liked the advice given to ignore conventions and rules when querying agents and publishers which I will paraphrase: as long as it’s well written, go for it regardless of the ‘supposed’ hurdles or rules.  Receiving a rejection doesn’t necessarily mean you’re work isn’t any good or you didn’t follow the rules. I liked having published authors talk about their personal experiences and paths to success using somewhat unconventional means. I spent part of yesterday putting the advice in practice and sent out several queries with an entirely different attitude.” — Kathy Lewis

The Shocking Real-Life “Secrets to Writing & Selling Your Book” Seminar with Hollis Gillespie Sunday, December 12, 2010, 11:00am – 5:00pm Cost: $175 Includes finger food, champagne, ping pong and inappropriate conversation. REGISTER NOW! Class held in the Castleberry Point live/work loft complex! 313 Nelson St., Atlanta, GA 30313.

Questions? For more information contact Hollis.

We’re located just north of Downtown Atlanta in the Poncey-Highlands area. Our Atlanta blogging seminar students come from Fulton, Dekalb, Cobb, and Gwinnett County. They come from midtown, Marietta, Norcross, Sandy Springs, near the perimeter, outside the perimeter, on Peachtree or north of metro Atlanta. That includes Suwanee, Lithonia, Lawrenceville, Kennesaw, Emory, Douglasville, Decatur, Chamblee, Conyers, Buford, Alpharetta, Saturn, Pluto, and the ocassional escapee from the nearest black hole.

Terms and conditions subject to change.

Copyright 2009 Hollis Gillespie | All rights reserved

To pay by check:

1. Write a check for the cost of the class payable to “Hollis Gillespie” and mail to Hollis Gillespie, c/o of Shocking Real Life, P.O. Box 89083., Atlanta, GA 30312-0083.
2. Send Hollis a note at shockingreallife@gmail.com. Include your name, email, which seminar you are signing up for, and the date the check was mailed.
3. When Hollis receives your email, she will email you a preliminary confirmation. After Hollis receives your check, you will get a confirmation email notifying you that you are registered in the Atlanta blog course.. . . .

We’re located just north of Downtown Atlanta in the Poncey-Highlands area. Our Atlanta blogging seminar students come from Fulton, Dekalb, Cobb, and Gwinnett County. They come from midtown, Marietta, Norcross, Sandy Springs, near the perimeter, outside the perimeter, on Peachtree or north of metro Atlanta. That includes Suwanee, Lithonia, Lawrenceville, Kennesaw, Emory, Douglasville, Decatur, Chamblee, Conyers, Buford, Alpharetta, Saturn, Pluto, and the ocassional escapee from the nearest black hole.

ALUMNI REGISTRATION FOR The Shocking Real-Life Secrets to Writing & Selling Your Book Seminar, Sunday, December 12, 2010, 11:00am – 5:00pmUse the button below and SAVE $25 on this class! (Credit-card users look for the credit-card icon at the bottom left of the screen after clicking ”continue”) 100% Safe and Secure – We are PayPal verified.Click now and you’ll get an immediate email confirming your seat. Instant confirmation only available online

Refund policy: Enrollment is limited. If you need to cancel your registration for a class or seminar, please notify shockingreallife@gmail.com by email as soon as possible. Refunds, minus a $25 administration cost, will be remitted for cancellation notifications made up to two weeks in advance of elected seminar. For cancellations made up to one week in advance of the elected seminar, a credit, good for one year, will be issued towards a future Shocking Real-Life class or seminar of the same price. Any cancellation made within one week of the elected seminar results in forfeiture of the registration fee.

You Better Tell Somebody!

The Shocking Real-Life “Write and Sell Your First Book” Workshop

Sunday, October 3, 11-5   

Okay, you have a fantastic idea for a book — but do you know how to begin, finish, and sell it? Or let’s say you’ve already finished a manuscript, but now you’re at an impasse trying to get the attention of agents and publishers.

This is the workshop for you! Whether you’re at the idea stage or in the home stretch, this workshop will show you how to navigate the competitive world of book publishing and get your first project sold.

In this workshop, you’ll learn:

• How marketable is your idea, and how to make it more so
• How to pitch an agent for representation and write the perfect query
• What publishers and agents are really looking for and what they hate
• The 10 most common mistakes
• How publishing houses and literary agencies benefit the  author
• How to decipher the miasma of advances, royalties, subsidiary rights, foreign rights, and dramatic rights

Hollis will share her secrets to unclogging your creative arteries so you can tell the world what you’ve been telling your friends all this time; that your book idea is a slam dunk, and now it’s time to cash it in. She will offer her candid critiques, suggestions for selling your work, and answer all your questions about breaking into memoir writing.

Need convincing? Read about recent graduate (and book-deal recipient) Lisa Baron’s experience:

Shocking Real Life graduate Lisa Baron, an award-winning columnist and former aide to Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed, landed a book deal with Citadel for her memoir MY BURNING BUSH: HOW ONE WOMAN’S CAREER IN CHRISTIAN POLITICS WENT UP IN FLAMES. It’s a Chelsea Handler-meets-George Stephanopoulos exploration of the dismantling of the conservative movement — and why young (drinking, chain-smoking, and, well, you get it) political campaign staffers sometimes go rogue.

TWO QUESITONS with Lisa Baron:

1. How excited ARE you about your first book deal?
Lisa: The percentage of first time authors receiving book deals is very low. But I had two things working for me that I believe made the difference: determination and Hollis Gillespie’s kick ass work shop!

2. How did the Shocking Real Life “Secrets to Writing & Selling Your First Book” Workshop help you?
Lisa: Hollis’ workshop confirmed that I had a sellable idea and that I was on the right track. The workshop gave me the confidence I needed to continue following my dream of becoming a published author. [Hollis] was key to helping me fine-tune my proposal and her personal involvement in my journey has been invaluable.

Need another example? Christal Presley, who is a past participant of both the Shocking Real-Life book-deal and blogging workshops, talks about how signing up for Hollis Gillespie’s workshops led to her becoming an instant media sensation and acquiring big-time NY literary agent Laurie Bernstein (who represents NYT bestsellers Catherine Coulter, Barbara Delinsky and Judith Michael, to name a few):

Here’s some more things you will learn:

• 
• How to pick an eye-grabbing title.
• Which genre best suits your idea (Memoir? Novel? Self-help? Humor?)
• When it’s permissible to embroider, improvise, and reorder real-life events.
• Exactly how to format your pitch letter.
• Exactly which agent to pitch (including contact info).
• How and when to contact agents.
• The difference between an illuminating essay and a journal entry.

And that’s not all, classes come with complimentary booze and fingerfood, as well as inappropriate conversation and other basic essentials for unleashing creativity and unlocking buried memories. Classes fill up quickly, so sign-up now!

Upcoming Class

Sunday, October 3, 2010, 11:00am – 5:00pm Cost: $175 Includes finger food, champagne, ping pong and inappropriate conversation. REGISTER NOW! Class held in the Castleberry Point live/work loft complex! 327 Nelson Ave. #313, Atlanta, GA 30313 100% Safe and Secure – We are PayPal verified.Click now and you’ll get an immediate email confirming your seat. Instant confirmation only available online (to pay by check see below) * Did we say it includes champagne, fingerfood and inappropriate conversation.

1. Write a check for the cost of the class payable to “Hollis Gillespie” and mail to Hollis Gillespie, Shocking Real Life, 353 9th Ave., Atlanta, GA 30308.
2. Send Hollis a note at shockingreallife@gmail.com. Include your name, email, which seminar you are signing up for, and the date the check was mailed.
3. After Hollis receives your check, you will get a confirmation email notifying you that you are registered in the class.

CLASS Location is in the historic Castleberry Artist District at 327 Nelson Ave. #313, Atlanta, GA 30313. The workshop space is a large live/work loft complex in Castleberry Point. There is ample street side parking as well as covered parking. CLICK HERE for directions from your location.

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Instructor Bio

Hollis Gillespie with Jay Leno

Hollis Gillespie, a Writer’s Digest “Breakout Author of the Year,” is an award-winning, syndicated humor columnist, NPR commentator and author of “The Ugly American,” a travel column in Paste magazine. Her books are titled Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch; Tales from a Bad Neighborhood(ReganBooks, 2003), the film rights of which were bought by Paramount, Confessions of a Recovering Slut and Other Love Stories(ReganBooks, 2005), and Trailer Trashed; My Dubious Efforts Toward Upward Mobility (Skirt!/Globe Pequot, 2008). Her monthly humor column can be found in Atlanta magazine, recipient of the National Magazine Award two years in a row.

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Special Guest Appearance by Charles McNair, whose first novel, Land O’Goshen (St. Martin’s Press) received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for fiction and critical acclaim from the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, and other venerated publications.

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ANOTHER SUCCESS STORy

Rachael Brownell, author of Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore, became a best-selling author after taking this Shocking Real-Life “Develop and Sell Your Memoir” workshop. Her book, a series of funny and touching anecdotes about early motherhood and recovery, came out in August ’09 and she’s since been on the Today Show, Good Morning America and NPR. Visit her website and see for yourself. Brownell was also a contributor to a popular department of Blabber.com called Strollerderby, which served as a great platform for her book. (Click HERE to see how to make YOUR blog a platform for your upcoming book).

 Rachael Brownell’s testimonial:

“I wanted to THANK YOU, Hollis, for your workshop. It played a crucial role in being able to complete and submit a successful book proposal.”

Sunday, October 3, 2010, 11:00am – 5:00pm Cost: $175 Includes finger food, champagne, ping pong and inappropriate conversation. REGISTER NOW! Class held in the Castleberry Point live/work loft complex at 327 Nelson Ave. #313, Atlanta, GA 30313.

More Success Stories:

SRL Alum Brenda Stockdale’s book, You Can Beat the Odds: Surprising Factors Behind Chronic Illness & Cancer–and the 6-Week Breakthrough Program for Optimal Immunity(Sentient Press, ‘09), debuted at the top of Amazon’s list of cancer-recovery books. Harvard scientist, best selling author Joan Borysenko wrote of Brenda’s book, “If you read only one health book this year, this should be the one.”

SRL alumn Lynn Coulter’s book Mustard Seeds: Thoughts on the Nature of God and Faith was released by B&H Books in September 2008. It earned a starred review from  Publisher’s Weekly and netted the author a second book deal.

SRL alumn Susan Contreras, graduate of “Publish Your Personal Essay” says, “It’s one of the best things I ever did for my writing career! By the end of the class, Hollis had helped me take one of those crazy ideas in my head and turn it into a finished essay, ready to be emailed to an editor. Within two months, that essay led directly to two assignments from a senior editor at Family Circle magazine.”

Wendy Merrill’s juicy tell-all, Falling Into Manholes; the Memoir of a Bad/Good Girl was just published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Amanda Lamb

Amanda Lamb’s book, Smotherhood, Wickedly Funny Confessions from the Early Years, was released by Skirt!press in 2007. Congratulations, Amanda! Her book is a laugh-riot “momoir” told in a series of interconnected vignettes. Amanda’s second book, Deadly Dose, will be coming out this year from Berkeley.

Dixie Feldman, just landed a book deal with HarperCollins to publish her manuscript The Lost Art of Being a Dame (working title).

Corinne Humphrey’s book The Tao of Rudy was recently published by Sage Press.

Rhiannon Bowman landed gigs as a regular writer for Skirt! magazine and Creative Loafing Charlotte.

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You can be the next Shocking Real-Lifer to get a book deal! Check out our class schedule and get working on your book today!

What past participants say about the Shocking Real-Life Writing Seminar

“I made contact (totally used your letter) with a friend’s agent at Writer’s House. It worked! Now he wants to see the proposal. They loved the idea of the 5 People You Meet in Heaven, but from a female perspective. Thanks again! The class was great.” — Stephanie Davis, Editor, skirt! Magazine

“Hollis, thanks for being in touch so quickly.  Your seminar rocked!! I want to be one of your successes.  I’ll start with [the agent you suggested] and if a rejection, will just keep going.  I did not even realize I was so on fire about getting this book out there, until I felt the full Hollis Effect!!” –  Susan Campbell

“Hollis Gillespie’s writing workshop was the best I’ve ever attended.  Hollis was extremely encouraging and helpful in both creative and procedural modes.  And the yellow theme with the mimosas worked at a deep level of community which added to the enjoyment of the whole experience.” — David Ryback

 “Hollis is a rule-breaker who will teach you things you won’t hear anywhere else.  If you don’t care about political correctness and want to learn a proven tactic to get an agent’s attention, Hollis can show you the way.” — Debbie Unterman

 “Hollis and crew were positive and upbeat. ‘Can’t’ wasn’t spoken. The environment and food were ‘quirky and fun,’ one of the underlying themes of the workshop and Hollis’s principles: build a support system of writers, share your work and contacts, and hit the send, send, send button on your computer made sense. The agent list was an added bonus.” — Lynn Hesse

 “The Hollis Gillespie workshop was money well spent and the day went by very quickly!  Hollis took time with each person to help them clarify details of the story that they’d like to tell, develop a creative title, found similar books to use as examples in a pitch letter and provided a list with a recommendation of an agent (or agents) to contact.  Hollis gave concise, realistic feedback to each person.  As an added bonus, Michael Alvear spoke and each offered excellent advice. I came home and began work immediately on my story! I’m impressed by Hollis and Michael’s philosophy of helping other writers.  Thank you for offering this wonderful seminar to AtlantaWriters Club members.” — Sharon LeMaster

 “It was a great experience and nice to sit around a table with others who are dealing with the same obstacles I am.  I liked the advice given to ignore conventions and rules when querying agents and publishers which I will paraphrase: as long as it’s well written, go for it regardless of the ‘supposed’ hurdles or rules.  Receiving a rejection doesn’t necessarily mean you’re work isn’t any good or you didn’t follow the rules. I liked having published authors talk about their personal experiences and paths to success using somewhat unconventional means. I spent part of yesterday putting the advice in practice and sent out several queries with an entirely different attitude.” — Kathy Lewis

The Shocking Real-Life  “Secrets to Writing & Selling Your First Book” Seminar with Hollis Gillespie Sunday, October 3, 2010, 11:00am – 5:00pm Cost: $175 Includes finger food, champagne, ping pong and inappropriate conversation. REGISTER NOW! Class held in the Castleberry Point live/work loft complex! 327 Nelson Ave. #313, Atlanta, GA 30313.

Questions? For more information contact Hollis.

We’re located just north of Downtown Atlanta in the Poncey-Highlands area. Our Atlanta blogging seminar students come from Fulton, Dekalb, Cobb, and Gwinnett County. They come from midtown, Marietta, Norcross, Sandy Springs, near the perimeter, outside the perimeter, on Peachtree or north of metro Atlanta. That includes Suwanee, Lithonia, Lawrenceville, Kennesaw, Emory, Douglasville, Decatur, Chamblee, Conyers, Buford, Alpharetta, Saturn, Pluto, and the ocassional escapee from the nearest black hole.

Terms and conditions subject to change.

Copyright 2009 Hollis Gillespie | All rights reserved

To pay by check:

1. Write a check for the cost of the class payable to “Hollis Gillespie” and mail to Hollis Gillespie, Shocking Real Life, 353 9th Ave., Atlanta, GA 30308.
2. Send Hollis a note at shockingreallife@gmail.com. Include your name, email, which seminar you are signing up for, and the date the check was mailed.
3. When Hollis receives your email, she will email you a preliminary confirmation. After Hollis receives your check, you will get a confirmation email notifying you that you are registered in the Atlanta blog course.. . . . .

We’re located just north of Downtown Atlanta in the Poncey-Highlands area. Our Atlanta blogging seminar students come from Fulton, Dekalb, Cobb, and Gwinnett County. They come from midtown, Marietta, Norcross, Sandy Springs, near the perimeter, outside the perimeter, on Peachtree or north of metro Atlanta. That includes Suwanee, Lithonia, Lawrenceville, Kennesaw, Emory, Douglasville, Decatur, Chamblee, Conyers, Buford, Alpharetta, Saturn, Pluto, and the ocassional escapee from the nearest black hole.

ALUMNI REGISTRATION FOR The Shocking Real-Life Secrets to Writing & Selling Your First Book Seminar ATLANTA, GA Sunday, October 3, 2010, 11:00am – 5:00pm Use the button below and SAVE $25 on this class! (Credit-card users look for the credit-card icon at the bottom left of the screen after clicking ”continue”) 100% Safe and Secure – We are PayPal verified.Click now and you’ll get an immediate email confirming your seat. Instant confirmation only available online

You Better Tell Somebody!