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Speechwriting

There is perhaps no discipline in writing that requires writers to so fully erase the evidence of their existence as speechwriting. 

When I write a speech for someone else to deliver, my first and highest priority is to give it the ring of their voice rather than mine. Nothing turns an audience off faster than a lack of authenticity, and nothing expresses inauthenticity faster than a cookie-cutter speech that doesn't reflect the speaker's natural rhythm, tone, and word choice. Two decades of training and working as a professional actor left me with a finely honed - if unconventionally acquired - capacity to think and write in the distinct voices of my clients. 

Below are excerpts of speeches I've written that were delivered in public settings by community leaders or elected officials. Clicking on any item below will bring up a link to a PDF of the excerpt, along with contact information for someone who can verify my authorship. 

Memorial Way Unveiling •

Indivisible

There is, I believe, a deep synchronicity between the naming of this memorial way and what Reverend Williams accomplished with Indiana Black Expo.

Commemorative naming is, first and foremost, a method of elevating the memorialized person’s visibility to the broader community. It’s a way of taking up some space. Of celebrating where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going. All of which, of course, Reverend Williams empowered Black people to do through Indiana Black Expo. His vision for Indiana and the world beyond was one in which Black people are visible – and not only visible, but celebrated.
Keynote address •

A New Environment for Public Health: Overcoming the Impact of Race & Place

When we visit the doctor, most of us know by now there will be some discussion of numbers: our weight, of course, our blood pressure, maybe our blood glucose number or cholesterol count, the number of alcoholic drinks we consume in a week or a month, possibly—I hope not, but possibly—how many cigarettes we smoke in a day, and, for those of us of a certain age, probably the number of months or years it’s been since our last cancer screening. And yet, even with all these numbers, the number that most affects our health is one our doctor will probably never mention: the number of our street address.
Ribbon Cutting •

Only in Indiana

The architect in me can’t help but enjoy a ribbon cutting, can’t help being curious to see how art and science have come together to complete a vision for a particular place or space, can’t help but marvel at the completed design. And it’s impossible for me today to not take particular pleasure and pride in celebrating the opening of Bicentennial Unity Plaza. Where, I ask you, where but Indiana can you find incredible works of public art and a basketball court working in harmony—in unity, one could say—to celebrate a community? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a space that so thoroughly reflects the city and state around it.
Groundbreaking •

From Hoosier Hospitality to Hoosier Chutzpah

In 1987, the Los Angeles Times ran a piece from famed Associated Press national reporter Sharon Cohen, in which she proposed that Indianapolis consider changing its residents’ namesake characteristic from “Hoosier Hospitality” to “Hoosier Chutzpah.” “Consider,” she wrote, “this city built a stadium before it had pro football, [and] a world-class swimming complex when the nearest [swim] team was 60 miles away,” before going on to note that, in 1983, Indianapolis had lured the headquarters of the U.S. Rowing Association away from Philadelphia, despite Indy not having a navigable river at the time, and had somehow beaten out West Palm Beach, Florida, to be named host of the 1989 World Water Ski Championships—despite Indiana’s status as a “double-landlocked” state.
Juneteenth Celebration •

The Last Link in the Last Chain

The Jewish poet and activist Emma Lazarus is best known for her famous poem engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty—“give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to be free.” But 50 years before she penned those verses, she wrote another poetic line, one that others have adopted in different forms and at different times but which I believe speaks just loudly to us today as it did when she scribbled it down in 1833: “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”