2016 Faculty Spotlight: Dennis E. "Doc" Hensley

If you have never heard Dennis "Doc" Hensley, you don't know what you are missing.

Dennis E. Hensley, Ph.D., is chairman of the Department of Professional Writing at Taylor University, where he holds the rank of full professor. He is a monthly columnist for Christian Communicator magazine and an annual judge for the Evangelical Press Association Awards and the Christy Fiction Awards. Dr. Hensley's ten novels include The Caribbean Conspiracy and Pseudonym (Whitaker House), and his 50 nonfiction books include How to Write What You Love and Make a Living at It (Random House), Millennium Approaches (Avon), Jesus in All Four Seasons (Bold Vision Books), Man to Man (Kregel), and Jesus in the 9 to 5 (AMG Publishers).  His best-selling motivational book, The Power of Positive Productivity (Possibility Press) has been translated into eight languages, including Russian, Romanian, Italian, and Turkish.  Dr. Hensley has had more than 3,500 articles, features, devotions, interviews, and short stories published in such periodicals as The Writer, Reader's Digest,  People, Essence, Writer's Digest, War Cry, Evangel, The Detroit Free Press, The Indianapolis Star, and The Secret Place, among many others.  He is a recipient of the "Elizabeth Sherrill Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing and Speaking" and the "Indiana University Award for Teaching Excellence."   Dr. Hensley served as a sergeant in the United States Army and was awarded six medals for service in Vietnam. He and his wife Rose have two grown married children and four grandkids.

Workshops:

·         Foundational Aspects of Nonfiction Writing: In this first session Doc Hensley will offer 18 points of contemporary writing, explaining how to communicate effectively with modern readers who are used to split screens, text and tweet messages, and email blitzes. He will also teach participants how to gain writing momentum, face down writer’s block, and quickly organize ideas for articles and features.

·         The Nuts and Bolts of Nonfiction Writing: In this third session Doc Hensley will reveal how to create titles that grab readers’ attention, how to write gripping leads, how to find article ideas that always interest editors and readers, and how to make an effective book proposal pitch when selling a nonfiction book. By sharing successful techniques he has used to sell thousands of articles and more than 50 books, Doc will provide key insights on how to write and sell manuscripts to contemporary markets