Speechwriting Illustrated

All but a pair of snapshots were taken by the great speechwriter / photographer Ren Mueller. A larger photo feast is available for a small donation. —DM

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My dad used to do an impression of a cocktail party as he, a shy man, experienced it. A muffled, rising, falling sound of garbled voices, occasionally punctuated by clear words. Mfaargrgthrurhomf the yankees are in third place fmaflalllllmalughtrop over my dead body alglllrrrrlabllhmmaigrrerol boats.

I remember the 2026 PSA World Conference that took place at new digs at The George Washington University last week much the same way, except the clear words had to do with what speechwriters need to know about audiences (what are they proud of? what are they afraid of? said Eleonoor Russell, who keynoted the conference with her client, retired Admiral Rob Bauer).

(These two have collaborated on 500 speeches and a book, on the theme of, “If You Want Peace, Prepare for War,” a challenge to European citizens to take civic responsibility for war-prevention in Europe. I’ve been convening conferences for speechwriters for decades, and there is no more inspiring keynote session than one that shows what can be achieved by long-term partners in rhetoric who sincerely admire one another’s intellects and skill and courage in the cause of a serious communication effort.)

Another clarion call from the cacophony came from comic and author Viv Groskop, who strongly advised speechwriters to stop taking the usually unrewarded risk of trying to make their insurance-executive speakers funny. Go instead for “levity, lightheartedness, brightness-in-the-face, warmth … hostliness,” Groskop said.

We celebrated winners of the 2026 Cicero Speechwriting Awards.

And the Grand Award winner Charles Crawford gave a fascinating little speech in which he questioned the wisdom of President Reagan’s call to “tear down this wall,” calling for a more collaborative kind of rhetoric. (More on that later this week, at ProRhetoric.com.)

And then we heard a vision for a happier future in presidential rhetoric, on a refreshingly genial panel that included speechwriters from the Nixon to the Obama White Houses—though not necessarily seated in that order. Left to right, David Kusnet (Clinton), Lee Heubner (Nixon/Ford), Ed McNally (Bush 41), Robert Schlesinger (moderator, and author of White House Ghosts), Mark Busse (Bush 43) and Terry Szuplat (Obama).

And there were cocktails, on the veranda. (Left to right, World Conference stalwarts Felicity Barber of Thoughtful Communications, Executive Communication Council Senior Advisor Sharon McIntosh, Federal Reserve Bank of New York speechwriter Julie Lasson and Pluck Works’ Justine Adelizzi.)

And there was the annual woman’s dinner.

Any cobwebs the next morning were vibrated off by an intense panel led by the aforementioned Adelizzi, who hosts an annual conversation at the conference …

… and this year outdid herself by moderating a panel of intensely different points of view among—left to right but not necessarily in that political order—the variously AI-sanguine Mike Long, Michael Franklin and PSA AI guru Brent Kerrigan, and the AI-loathing Viv Groskop. It was the friendliest donnybrook you ever saw. (But it was a donnybrook nevertheless.)

The conference closed with a talk that was at once remote and anything but: a sermon on the essential difference that can be made “imaginaries” in rhetoric, by Reverend Kelly Brown Douglas of Harvard Divinity School, recruited to the conference and introduced by the PSA’s longtime European consigliere Isabelle Gaudeul-Ehrhart.

Sharon McIntosh summarized the experience: “One minute, we’re in an MMA match: Use AI more effectively or abandon it to protect humanity? The next, we swear we’re in a pew at the Washington National Cathedral, as Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas tells us God is big enough to hold all our doubts. That’s the whiplash experience of attending David Murray’s Professional Speechwriters Association World Conference.” 

And the participants were engaged with the speakers … (Teresa Zumwald, pictured here, hasn’t missed a single World Conference beginning with our barn-raising event in 2014).

… and they engaged with one another …

… and with themselves.

And the PSA crew was happy. 

Left-to-right, Mike King, Jen Mazurek, yours truly, Benjamine Knight Barger and Brian Malone.

We’ll wait a few weeks to ask each other: What will we do for an encore?