Syllabus 

“SPIRITUAL WRITING”—Self-Guided Version 

FIVE-WEEK ONLINE CLASS (ASYNCHRONOUS)
Mon. July 7-Sun. Aug. 10, 2025

Curious about how I teach? Check out “Shaping the Spiritual.”

Class Description

This class will ask what, if anything, can make nonfiction writing “spiritual.” Read selections from essays and memoirs in the spiritual writing genre and try composing your own versions of this material. How to write about something so personal and powerful and share it with an audience of differing beliefs or traditions? How do writers move beyond saccharine sentimentality to illuminate a truth? Choose a spiritual question or subject to explore in depth by writing two optional 500-word pieces and one article/essay between 1,000 and 3,000 words. The course will provide tips and inspiration for getting started, gathering material, and revising your work for publication. Writers from all backgrounds and faiths are welcome.

How It Works

You will go through the class without an instructor, accessing materials on your own schedule and at your own pace. Note: due to its independent focus, this class might not be for you if you are looking for guaranteed engagement with other writers. New lessons will open on 7/7, 7/14, 7/21, 7/28, and 8/4. The course site will close on 8/10, after which you will be sent a zip file of all course materials (written lectures, readings, exercises, discussion questions).

Each week provides:
• discussion questions on assigned readings and other writing topics; since self-guided class is asynchronous, post responses through the learning platform at your own time.
• written lectures (with audio and video formats) and a selection of readings 

Some weeks also include:
• writing exercises and/or assignments
• opportunities to share a full-length essay for optional peer review (1,000 to 3,000 words)
• Though the class is without an instructor, for an extra $50 join me for one open office hour live via Zoom to discuss your writing on any of these four dates/times (p.m./ET): Mon., July 14 1-2, Mon., July 21 3-4, Tues., July 29 2-3., or Tues., Aug. 5 3-4.

There is no need to be online at any particular time of day.

Class Plan

WEEK 1: SHAPING THE SPIRITUAL (July 7-13)
This week will cover how writers working in the genre might begin to define or describe “spiritual writing.” You'll take a look at how the body, culture, or identity might shape its parameters and your approach. Writing itself can serve as spiritual practice, both playful and prayerful. To get the juices flowing, you will have the option to write a short piece (up to 500 words), and you will choose a subject for your primary assignment.

WEEK 2: FRAMING THE “I” IN FAITH (July 14-20)
You'll confront challenges of placing individual perspectives of faith—so close to the heart—on the page as art. Often, we do not speak of spiritual or religious subjects because they can be just as divisive as inclusive, as sappy as salient. How can you mine your relationship to belief without alienating readers or losing the complexity that marks lived experience, particularly in the realm of emotion? You'll consider how form, voice, or narrative distance can frame such issues in creative ways. In preparation for the primary assignment, you will have the option to write another short piece (up to 500 words). First office-hour option for those registered.

WEEK 3: ENGAGING THE OTHER (July 21-July 27)
Spiritual writing often engages people, places, or things that perplex, disturb, or mystify, and that draw us out of ourselves. Whether you face a religious institution’s complicated history, a family tradition, a desert, or a baffling stranger, you encounter uncertainty in stuff seen and unseen. You’ll imagine how to embrace such tensions with the “Other” in your work, and the ways in which you might incorporate disparate backdrops or backgrounds without losing the personal element or forward flow. You will also complete your primary assignment (an essay/article between 1,000 and 3,000 words). Second office-hour option for those registered.

WEEK 4: SPEAKING TO YOU (July 28-Aug. 3)
Martin Buber writes that you “not only speak of God but also speak to him,” and Madeleine L’Engle adds that you don’t love in general, you love in particular—to live a spiritual life means risking closer communion with each other, with the earth, with the divine. Study how writers might embody such desire—and its difficulties—through character or charism, prophecy or plea. If they choose to participate, you will also have the option of sharing your primary assignment with a small group of classmates for peer review. Third office-hour option for those registered.

WEEK 5: RE-SEEING AND REPRESENTING YOUR WORK (Aug. 4-10)
This week will cover techniques to revise and sharpen a spiritual writing piece to make it ready for publication. You’ll learn about submitting work to journals but also consider the bigger picture: allowing for risk and even failure, loving the roadblocks, and sustaining a practice. Fourth office-hour option for those registered.

© 2015, 2017, 2024, 2025 Jonathan Callard