Pitching My ‘60s Book at a Writers Conference

I’m off Sunday to my second Kauai Writers Conference (KWC). I’ll take master classes from A-list authors & publishers and meet literary agents for my memoir: Satsang Junkie. David Katz, our warmly supportive friend, is KWC cofounder and Director. Over the last 10 years, he has raised it to be a prestigious gathering of many of the brightest stars in the literary galaxy: https://kauaiwritersconference.com/

Dear friends: would any of you like to help or inspire, or beta-read this work? I would hugely appreciate it.

Satsang Junkie is the story of my life. Here’s what I wrote in Query Letters to the literary agents:

“In 1966, I was swept into the heart of the psychedelic movement. I rode its spectacular rise and fall from the high-water mark of the love & consciousness wave at the world’s first Be-In in San Francisco, January 1967, to its descent into contentious activism and, tragically, hard drugs. Haight-Ashbury fell from utopia to ghetto in the six months after the Be-In, pulling me down the drug spiral with it.

My debut memoir, SATSANG JUNKIE (first draft of approximately 80,000 words), traces a journey from altar boy to party boy to psychedelic explorer to discovering India’s ancient tradition of Yoga and Vedanta, leaving drugs behind, and jumping on the self-realization train. I’m still on that train today.

Many books about the ‘60s define that era by its lifestyle excesses and activism. SATSANG JUNKIE explores the less-examined undercurrent—the quest for enlightenment, the search for source. It captures the roots of today’s interest in meditation and consciousness through the lens of my tale, offering history, adventure, and insight for readers on their own paths to self-discovery.”

Let me know if you have suggestions, and visit my Homepage for more about my literary adventure—scroll down to Podcast for an interview about it. The Books tab also has more info.

 ~John