Finding My Voice as a Public Speaker

After enjoying both successful and disastrous public speaking engagements, I learned the most important lessons of all for engaging an audience.  

There had to be a mistake. I was sure of it. No one in their right mind would have arranged such a lopsided line-up of speakers, all competing against one another for an audience during the same time slot. It was so ludicrous that I laughed out loud when I saw the schedule of authors for Jewish Book Week at American Jewish University, where I would soon discuss my most recent book, The Women’s Daily Irony Supplement.

Still shaking my head in disbelief, I picked up the phone to call the organizers and alert them to the error. My three competitors for audience share were all bestselling writers and celebrities whose books had sold millions: Judith Viorst; Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whose first book, Kosher Sex, prompted the Washington Post to dub him “Dr. Ruth with a yarmulke;” and at the top of the heap, Spartacus–AKA Kirk Douglas. Born Issur Danielovitch Demsky, the Hollywood legend had just published a memoir, Let’s Face It: 90 Years of Living, Loving, and Learning. And then there was . . . me, author of three humor books that—cumulatively—sold in the low thousands.

Facing off against these heavyweights, I felt like a bruised piece of fruit left on the “Last Chance!” rack at the supermarket. So this schedule had to be a mistake. Right?

I wasn’t exactly a nobody. My features and essays were published regularly in Jewish and secular media outlets. I had finally broken into writing for major women’s magazines including Ladies Home Journal and Woman’s Day. I had landed a gig as a regular monthly columnist with Religion News Service, a true source of pride. I felt uniquely positioned to convey Jewish values to a wide audience, having been raised and educated in a secular world I had embraced until my mid-twenties. But then I discovered (at first to my shock and horror) that Torah observance was relevant to my life, and that I could still be a strong, independent woman in the Orthodox Jewish world. I had messages to bring “out there” from my side of the mechitza, and I felt a growing desire and responsibility to communicate them.

Still, facing off against these heavyweights, I felt like a bruised piece of fruit left on the “Last Chance!” rack at the supermarket. So this schedule had to be a mistake.

Right?

“It’s not an error,” the woman at AJU told me with bureaucratic coolness. “That is your time slot.”

“But. . . but. . . Kirk Douglas? Viorst and Boteach? Who will come to hear me speak? I might not even come to hear me speak!”

“The schedule is already printed and the ads are running in the local press,” she said with finality. I hung up the phone, gobsmacked. So I guess I’d be speaking to an empty room.

Each November, Jewish Book Week showcases Jewish authors and their new books at festive events nationwide. AJU’s event ran for a whole week, but Sunday would draw the big crowds, so they stuffed each time slot with several authors to accommodate the literary motherlode. My new book was a collection of humor essays in categories including “A Woman’s Home Is Her Hassle,” “Reading This Warning Label May Kill You (and Other Observations) and “Just Wait ‘Till You Have Stretch Marks of Your Own,” among others.

Seeing the Gruen last name with the wrong first name, a first-time author and instant overnight success, I nearly burst with unholy jealousy. I had chosen to write in genres that virtually ensured that I would never have a bestselling book or become airport bookshop bait.

I had “auditioned” for this opportunity months earlier in New York, where I had traveled at my own expense to make my pitch to a room filled with Jewish book week organizers from throughout North America. Hosted by the Jewish Book Council, it was like “speed dating” for authors and event organizers. Every author or their publisher had paid handsomely to participate, and each of us had 120 seconds to make the sale. Anyone still jawing when the two minutes were up heard a bell ring as a program official off to the side and said, “Your time is up.”

It’s much tougher to speak meaningfully and memorably in two minutes than if you had ten minutes. Every word needs to add value. I knew I was a good speaker. I had hit a home run as a keynote speaker at a conference (at AJU, in fact) attended by more than 300 women, and had done well at a smattering of much smaller (and unpaid) events. There was the fiasco in St. Louis, however, when, based on a coin toss, I had to speak immediately after a tall, glamorous, New York television broadcaster. Unlike me, she delivered her talk without notes, walking among the audience like a goddess sprinkling blessings of confidence, elegance, and wealth. She was everything that I was not, and I sat there with my typed speech, awaiting the apocalypse. It was a train wreck that left me physically ill for two days afterward, but I learned my lessons—never read from a script again and ensure that I wouldn’t ever share a speaking slot with someone who was so completely out of my league. The woman had a “handler,” for God’s sake.

Yet somehow, despite how much was on the line, my brain froze each time I began to prepare for the Jewish Book Council. My book had barely any Jewish content, but one of my favorite stories in

it recounted the time I revived a half-dozen sick relatives who all infected one another with the flu while in my house. They were all languishing pathetically until I medicated them—with a massive infusion of Chinese food. The aroma of hot Lo Mein and Kung Pao Chicken roused them from their stupors and got them shuffling toward the table, inhaling the bouquet of the real Jewish penicillin.

My trip to New York seemed ill-fated from the start. I was seized with a crippling headache the night before my flight, and it was torture to rise at 4:30 in the morning to get to the airport. I desperately needed a massage or chiropractic treatment, neither of which would be available for a day or more. At the airport, I stopped to stare at a display rack in front of a bookstore–every slot was filled with a copy of Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants. Seeing the Gruen last name with the wrong first name, a first-time author and instant overnight success, I nearly burst with unholy jealousy. I had chosen to write in genres that virtually ensured that I would never have a bestselling book or become airport bookshop bait.

My outfit was also a mistake. I had bought a new ensemble for my big moment, but the oatmeal-colored skirt was too long to be flattering on my short figure; I might as well have been dressed for the reboot of “Little House on the Prairie.” And it couldn’t have been a worse choice to navigate the stinky, sticky stairwells of the New York subway system, either. After traipsing from Brooklyn to Manhattan in my linen prairie outfit, I looked like an accordion by the time I arrived at the hall.

After two disastrous publishing experiences with my first books, including one low-down crook of a publisher, I was incredibly grateful to finally work with a publisher whose business and character were both steady and solid.

And so, when I was called to the podium, I was inexcusably ill-prepared for the first time in my professional life. I smiled at the audience and waved my book cover in front of them, as if the sight of it might hypnotize them and convince them to fly me to Seattle or Toronto, or Kansas City to entertain their audiences. Ultimately, that was my angle: the healing and restorative power of humor, something Jews understood very well. Why else were we so wildly overrepresented in the fields of comedy and humor?

At the end of the evening, I simply felt relief that it was over; I’d have plenty of time for self-flagellation later. I struck up a conversation with “Irene,” a first-time author who was making waves with a historical novel about the daughter of a famous religious sage. It was the first in a planned series and so highly acclaimed that while she had self-published the first installment, the next two had been snapped up by a big New York publisher. I had read her novel and was impressed by the amount of research she had done and her writing style. However, she gave this daughter who lived in the Middle Ages a decidedly 21st-century outlook, particularly on matters of sexuality. This was a savvy strategy from a marketing standpoint, but one that I found offensive. In fact, I felt it bordered on the sacrilegious.

Irene was warm, gracious, and had worked very hard to achieve her success. We stood on the dark street together for quite a while, swapping stories about our writing and publishing experiences, until she hailed a taxi (paid for by her New York publisher) to take her to a nice hotel (paid for by her New York publisher). In my dumb, impractical outfit, I hoofed it back to the smelly, sticky subway steps and onto the train that would rattle me back to Brooklyn where I was bunking down in a creaky old apartment with a friend.

On my subway ride, I decided to focus on the bright side. After two disastrous publishing experiences with my first books, including one low-down crook of a publisher from whom I had to ransom my books back after hiring an attorney, my new book had found a home with a wonderful publisher who strongly believed in my work. She and I both worked hard to publicize The Women’s Daily Irony Supplement and had entered it in several industry contests. I was incredibly grateful to finally work with someone whose business and character were both steady and solid.

I hired a consulted whose priceless advice helped me retool my whole approach to public speaking. My style and delivery improved immediately, a bonus for both me and my audiences.

As my engagement at AJU grew near, I consulted with a public speaking expert who helped clients deliver their messages to key audiences with power and panache. She reinforced the most important lesson I ever would learn about public speaking: know my subject, stories, and ideas well enough that I could improvise as needed. It was so obvious once she said it. Of course I knew my stories! I don’t know why I had felt captive to a script in the first place. She advised having a few index cards with only keywords and phrases written down to use as prompts. No more worrying about losing my place in a script or suddenly blanking on a word from a talk I had memorized. She injected my spirit with confidence, and her priceless advice helped me retool my whole approach to public speaking. My style and delivery improved immediately, a bonus for both me and my audiences.

With my son Noah while selling books during Jewish Book Week in 2007.

I corralled my son Noah to come with me to the Sunday event. (Oddly, everyone else in my family suddenly had other plans…) At least I could talk to him if no one else showed up! My shabby treatment by the program organizers continued that day. It was bad enough that they assigned me a tiny room with several oversized chairs, but they hadn’t bothered to provide any signage indicating where I would be speaking. They escorted us through a maze of hallways to get to my assigned cubby. Good luck finding me without an escort, I thought. Meanwhile, Spartacus held court in the big theater on campus; Viorst and Rabbi Boteach were in halls that could hold a few hundred.

Despite it all, I was happy. I had made peace with the situation, even if no one showed up. So when one person opened the door, I nearly threw myself at him in gratitude. Then another person came. And another. And another! Four people—it was standing room only! These intrepid souls had searched me out; that meant I really was their first choice!

I told my stories from the heart and didn’t need any script for that. It was the smallest audience I ever had, but the one I appreciated the most.