This Isn’t Writing, It’s Mincing
Last week at the Executive Communication Summit that my company convened, I interviewed the famed Yale Management School Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who took us back to the beginning of the …
The Story of the Subversive Speechwriter
Review of: Edgar Julius Jung, Right-Wing Enemy of the Nazis by Roshan Magub (published 2017, 297 pages, Boydell and Brewer) This year marks the 91st anniversary of the execution by a Nazi hit …
This Isn’t Just About Protests in L.A.
I want to say a few words about the events of the last few days. This past weekend, federal agents conducted large-scale workplace raids in and around Los Angeles. Those …
How Writers Can Beat AI At Its Own Game
Today my company launched AI for Speechwriting and Executive Communication, a webinar that should signal to you that this stuff is in the leadership communication biz to stay. The question is, …
Who Wants to Be a Speechwriter in 2025?
First published in Pluck: A Newsletter for Fearless Communicators, produced by Justine Adelizzi, an award-winning speechwriter and communications leader. Subscribe to Pluck. *** Within the communications field, being a speechwriter comes …
We Are All Children of 8 May
You know we always expected it. (…) But it’s still hard to bear when defeat is suddenly there, and we have lost. Defeat is hard to bear—those are the words …
Boe’s Work Is Our Work Now
Well, Boe Workman is retiring this Friday, after a career that began with rhetoric scholarship, continued with political work and self-employment, and concluded with a short stint as the head …
A Timely Guide to Preparing and Delivering ‘Do-Good’ Speeches
Review of: Speaking on Climate: A Guide to Speechwriting for a Better Future by Rune Kier Nielsen (204 pages, published April 2025) In his comprehensive collection of life advice addressed to his son …
From ‘Word Donkey’ to ‘Fireman’: A Speechwriter’s Life
Review of: Behind Closed Doors: In the Room with Reagan & Nixon by Ken Khachigian (Post Hill Press, 496 pages, published July 2024) In his magisterial memoir, former White House speechwriter and …
‘Does European Speechwriting Have a Future?’
Tuesday. I am on a train. Behind me is a world full of chores: the kitchen lights that flicker like the world’s worst, most desperate, domestic disco; the disintegrating garden …