Susan Sparks

December Member Teleseminar

December 16, 2016

11 AM PST    12 PM MST    1 PM CST   2 PM EST

We’re so happy, literally, to have Susan Sparks as our guest for the end of the year member teleseminar. What better way to celebrate the holiday season than to have a writer, trial lawyer, standup comedian and Baptist minister—and my friend–Susan Sparks whip up an entertaining and instructional discussion. She is going to be funny and also offer us an angle through which to view our work as creative artists: humor. Many of you are writing serious stories, but still, a story can be told so many different ways.

I’m jazzed to be talking with Susan for our December teleseminar! I hope you can join us live on the phone, and if not, members will all receive the audio as our Christmas present. No, actually, you always get the audio after each of our teleseminars.

Have a great holiday season, everyone.

From Susan: 

Humor is, perhaps, the most undervalued tool we have—especially as artists. Laughter brings perspective, forgiveness, empathy and power to us as writers and depth, craft, intimacy, and honesty to our work. This is not about being a comedian. This is about discovering the gift of joy and hope in our own voice. Let’s find it together and take our work to new levels!

TAKEAWAYS:

• Discover the deeper power of humor and it how builds intimacy and honesty with your reader/listener
• Learn specific tools used in standup comedy that can improve your writing
• Identify places to find material
• Understand the times humor doesn’t work
• Learn how to use humor to deal with the hecklers, such as rejection letters and the voices in our head
• Discover how to use humor to address difficult topics, conflict, and crisis

BIO:

A trial lawyer, turned standup comedian and Baptist minister, Rev. Susan Sparks is America’s only female comedian with a pulpit. After ten years as a lawyer moonlighting as a standup, Susan left the practice and spent two years on a solo trip around the world, including working for Mother Teresa’s mission in Calcutta and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Upon returning home, she earned a Master of Divinity at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, writing an honors thesis on humor and religion entitled “Laughing Your Way to Grace.”

Currently, the Senior Pastor of the historic Madison AvenueBaptist Church in New York City (and the first woman in its 165-year history), Susan is also a professional comedian. She tours national with a Rabbi and a Muslim comic in the Laugh in Peace Tour. Susan’s work with humor and healing has been featured in such media outlets as the Oprah Magazine, the New York Times, CBS, CNN, and ABC. A blogger for Huffington Post and Psychology Today, her book Laugh Your Way to Grace, was named a best spiritual book and featured in USA Today and Good Morning America.