Jul 5“Poetry In Motion”Why one speechwriter’s favorite speech isn’t really about speech at all — The average American utters a whopping 16,000 words per day — nearly 1,000 per waking hour. Most of us pay no mind to how we speak them. …Speechwriting7 min read
Jun 9Commencements Worth OvationsWhat this year’s graduation speeches can teach us about effective communication — After two years of canceled commencements, Zoom ceremonies, and socially distanced celebrations, graduation season has finally returned. Commencement speeches need to check a particular set of boxes: they have to reach graduates at a similar stage in life, mark their transition to a new adventure, and hold their attention —…Commencement5 min read
Mar 7When Instagram Becomes a DaisWhat speechwriters can learn from AOC — Throughout history, the most effective form of political communication has been the speech, often dressed in formality. Of course, it’s in my best interest as a speechwriter to say as much, but it is true: the backdrops have been grand, the rhetoric elegant, the ideas provocative. When Martin Luther King…Speechwriting6 min read
Dec 15, 2021“Everything I need to know about speechwriting, I learned from the jury of Survivor: MicronesiaThe 2000s are back, baby. Britney is free again, cool girls are re-buying butterfly clips, and the other day, I saw a magazine at the grocery store with a tweenage Daniel Radcliffe on its cover. But there is one relic of the early-aughts that never went away: Survivor, the Y2K…Speechwriting10 min read
Nov 11, 2021How Does the Truth Sound?The pastor lived in a mansion atop a limestone hill studded with ammonite fossils. One Sunday, when I was maybe ten, he passed out slips of paper on which the adults might write the names of sinners needing prayer. Then he preached his semimonthly come-to-Jesus sermon. While he introduced the…Speechwriting5 min read
Nov 8, 2021Three Martyrs, a Truck Bed, and the Awful Grace of GodSenator Robert F. Kennedy did not discuss his brother’s assassination. Robert had been his brother’s protector, attack dog, and confidant, and in the wake of that terrible loss, his depression ran so deep that Senator Ted Kennedy later noted the family came close to a “tragedy within a tragedy.” Even…Politics5 min read
Nov 1, 2021The People’s FilibusterContent warning: This piece contains mention of rape. When State Senator Wendy Davis arrived at the Texas Capitol on a sweltering summer day in 2013, she laced up the same bright-pink sneakers she wore running the streets of her Fort Worth neighborhood. …Speechwriting7 min read
Aug 26, 2021Good Morning? Good Morning.What Maya Angelou can teach us about finding hope in 2021 — I coped with 2020 in all the common ways — binging Love Is Blind, eating too much Halo Top, and Zooming with my camera off whenever possible. …Speechwriting5 min read
Aug 2, 2021Eulogizing Without LionizingAndrew Cuomo, Jimmy Breslin, and the power of telling the complicated truth — Writing a good eulogy is hard, partially because it’s a speech no one wants to write. Conventional wisdom and how-to guides will instruct you to stay positive, avoiding any unflattering attributes or anecdotes about your loved ones. …Speechwriting5 min read
Jul 14, 2021Jimmy V’s Final Locker-room AddressWe caught Regina in flagrante, her pernicious fingers already groping deep inside the metaphorical cookie jar. And as she worked her fingers into our lives, we resolved not only to stop her but to kill her — to excise her before she shattered the jar to pieces. Regina was the…Speechwriting7 min read
