Affiliate Program

Writing Your Dream Cookbook

Sunnye Tiedemann

Course ID: LC016

Current Openings: Yes

Your dream cookbook can be anything you want: A keepsake cookbook full of favorite family recipes and memories, a community project to promote your church or favorite charity, or a collection of recipes on one particular food or cooking technique.

Whatever you decide, your cookbook will be yours alone. No matter how many cookbooks you find on a particular subject, your very own ideas and style will make it special.

In this course you will learn: how to find an idea; how to organize your workspace; how to develop your cookbook (theme, tone, title); how to write your recipes and why style matters; how to test and develop recipes; publishing: computer software, cookbook publishers, and more.

Click here to pay via PayPal! (No account required!)

Course Type:

Private mentoring.

Objective:

To create your own special cookbook and prepare it for publication.

Learner Prerequisites

At least a high school degree with some cooking experience.

Start Date Ongoing, open enrollment.
Duration 8 Lessons, one every two weeks.
Limit N/A
Class Materials Provided via attachments and e-mail.
Cost $240
Tutorial Option For this course, the teacher is always available. Since writing a cookbook is such a large project that it can't be completed in 16 weeks, the instructor is available on a continuing basis until your project is complete. Additional mentoring and critiquing is available from the instructor. The fee is $45 per hour. Please contact deanwlc@writinglearningcentre.com to register.

What do you have in mind and why are you writing a cookbook? This course is geared to the needs and expectations of the individual.

Course Outline

Lesson 1: Putting together a workspace and testing.

  • Setting up a home office
    • Making your kitchen a test kitchen.
    • How to find an idea if you don't already have one.
  • What will be involved in testing recipes.
  • Copyright issues and permissions.

The first assignment challenges students to begin to define their cookbook project: they are told how to set up a project notebook and organize it.

Lesson 2: How to develop the cookbook

  • Analyzing published books
  • What you learn from them

Lesson 3: Writing Recipes

  • Style and why it matters
  • Making your writing appetizing

Lesson 4: Testing, developing recipes

  • Extra ways to make recipes more useful to readers
  • Editing your recipes

Lesson 5: Cookbook Manuscripts

  • Different kinds of manuscripts
  • Constructing your manuscript

Lesson 6: Cookbook Concepts

  • The Keepsake Cookbook
  • The Community Project Cookbook

Lesson 7:

  • Lessons from a prominent Cookbook critic

Lesson 8:

  • About publishers
  • About Food writing

Instructor Bio

Sunnye Tiedemann published her first cookbook in 1995 and was delighted when it and several recipes were featured in several issues of Southern Living magazine in 1996. She taught creative writing ranging from Freshman Composition to fiction and nonfiction writing adult education classes. Now semi-retired (writers never retire), she has been teaching writing classes online for 8 years and is heavily involved in bi-partisan political blogging online.

Her stories, magazine articles and book reviews have appeared in a wide variety of publications for the past 20 years, including Southern Living, Writer’s Digest, The Tulsa World, Kansas City Star, Horizon (The Magazine of the Arts), Persimmon Hill, Rave Reviews, Murderous Intent, Futures, New York Magazine and more.