To Write a Speech, Write a Phrase
Some years ago, my wonderful young editor and publicist at Penguin UK managed to slot me into a lavish event that the publisher held in the London Palladium. Genuine bigshot …
Public speaking is easy …
The oldest canard in public speaking is that people fear it more than death. But nobody ever put “jumpy about the big speech tomorrow” in a suicide note. But people …
Rhetorical renewal
This Friday we will officially unveil the winners of the 2022 Cicero Speechwriting Awards. To give you a sense of why the judges and I take such pleasure in this annual …
You have to learn to be good ancestors to the future
From a 2006 Stanford University commencement address by Vartan Gregorian, who died this week at 87. Hat tip to speechwriter Harry Kruglik for passing it along. —DM Today information floods …
Curbing the Bite in the Beast of Our Words
It’s a rainy Sunday afternoon, I have a pot of soup simmering on the stove, and a stew of thoughts from last week rumbling and bubbling in my head. Soup …
Calling B.S. on straw-grasping CEOs
In a year that began rhetorically with “we’re all in this together” and wound up emptily with “this isn’t who we are,” corporate CEOs have found another phony framing that …
The Comedy Involved in Writing Speeches
“In the mid-1970s I began writing speeches for the Prince of Wales.” And thus begins a hilarious and fascinating section of journalist and author Byron Rogers’ superb 2009 memoir Me: The Authorized Biography. Rogers’ …
The preparation of our hearts, the arming of our hearts
Next week my company takes off for our annual Summer Recess, which you know is is official because we capitalize it. A lot of people I know aren’t taking lots …