Finally!

At long last, the Professional Speechwriters Association introduces Speechwriting School. A friend recently unearthed the logbook of his first and only skydiving jump many years ago. The instructor noted his position in freefall: “On his back and kicking.”

Isn’t that the way most communicators enter the speechwriting business? And isn’t it about time there was a more dignified, safer, saner way to break in?

“When I wrote my first speech I was terrified because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,” says star corporate speechwriter Fletcher Dean.

Well, Dean is now director of Speechwriting School, a new one-day course from the Professional Speechwriters Association that’s carefully designed to help communicators avoid a reckless entry into one of the most arduous communication specialties.

Taught by a faculty of seven of the best speechwriters and speechwriting teachers in the world, this course steeps participants in the techniques of researching, writing, editing and packaging a speech. It also gives hands-on experience, so that the first speech participants write on the job won’t be the first speech they ever wrote.

The PSA’s Speechwriting School takes place Oct. 6 at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, in Washington, D.C.

Learn more, and sign up—and just as importantly, please spread the word to all your corporate communication colleagues.

The Speechwriting School will become a corp comms institution, useful to all of us, as we sharpen our own skills and build a reliable bench. Let’s get it on the map.