No, Kids, Life Is Not a ‘Journey’

Earlier this month, we pulled together the annual commencement speech issue ofย Vital Speeches of the Day.ย  Though I donโ€™t love commencement speeches as much asย the best commencement speech writer of …

Et tu, Harvard Business Review?

โ€œThe formal speech is dying,โ€ was one typical anguished speechwriterโ€™s response to the Speechwriters’ Census 2021, released last month by the Professional Speechwriters Association. โ€œThe verbatim speech is on its way …

A party foul, to say the least

Thereโ€™s an unwritten tradition that the previous president doesnโ€™t criticize the sitting president.  Thereโ€™s an unnecessary tradition that the previous presidentโ€™s speechwriters donโ€™t critique the sitting presidentโ€™s scribes. Unnecessary, because it always …

Make Speeches Boring Again

As some of us allow ourselves to imagine a time in the comprehensible future when we donโ€™t feel like weโ€™re hurtling through history backward, forward and sideways in a tumbling …

To a Writer Who Wants to Break Into Speechwriting

Speechwriting, now!

From a 2015 post on my personal blog, Writing Boots. โ€”DM My pals were meeting me at the corner tavern in 15 minutes, when my wife came to me needing …