Our Top Flight Speakers Bureau
Several months ago, Dick Weiss formed a speakers bureau with four award winning journalists -- Sylvester Brown, Todd Frankel, and Aisha Sultan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times. All (along with recent addition Rick Horowitz) have made their mark at their newspapers in a variety of ways -- moving readers with their stories, righting wrongs, and stimulating intelligent debate.
But Dick also believed they had something to say from a podium that could inspire, entertain and educate writers at a high school, college or professional level. Sylvester has the ability to keep an audience spellbound with stories from his difficult youth and his struggle to make it as a writer. Todd, a consummate storyteller, shows writers step-by-step how they can turn a mundane assignment into a small masterpiece or get an enterprise story into the paper in a very short period of time. Aisha, a young Muslim mother, speaks movingly about how we can help readers move past stereotypes through effective interviewing techniques and research to get to the heart of a story about minority communities. And effervescent Lane both delights and informs audiences with the techniques she uses to track down the quirkiest people in some of the oddest places. Those stories have won her acclaim and a devoted following in South Florida.
Recently Dick, Aisha, Todd and Sylvester spoke at the New York Press Association before hundreds of editors and reporters. (Lane had a conflict and couldn’t make it.) Evaluation sheets were handed out and the marks were incredibly high. Almost all of them rated us excellent or good.
We're sharing the comments on their work here in the hope you will consider us as speakers for your next event. Click here to learn more about the speakers and here to learn more about Dick and the workshops that he offers. To schedule any or all of us, send an e-mail to weisswrite@gmail.com.
The comments:
About Sylvester Brown:
- “I didn’t take notes because I was hanging on every word”.
- “He should be a Keynote Speaker – in 2008. EVERYONE in our business would love him and enjoy his comments.”
- “Thank you so much. You’ve inspired me to be a better writer – perhaps a better person.”
About Todd Frankel:
- "Good anecdotes and sample stories!"
· "....Thanks for finding good examples of short articles that show strong writing is valued in the industry."
About Aisha Sultan:
- Very important! Innovative!
- Great job! Speaker should be a required presentation for all journalists.
- This was by far the most informative and influential presentation at this conference. Aisha is a most articulate speaker.
- Weiss presented key topics in an engaging and often humorous way. Real examples of good writing helped cement his tips.
- Great speaker with a nice sense of humor who interacts well with the audience. Gave great examples for the points he was making.
- Picked up a bunch of good profile ideas. I am responsible for writing one soon and this provided me the enthusiasm to finally get cracking on it.
