Spotlight
UNGA Pressure: An Insider’s Guide to Diplomacy’s Biggest Week
By: Sarah Gruen · 08/11/2026
As the former Director of Speechwriting for the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, UNGA was my Super Bowl (right down to the halftime
The Name is Mamdani.
By: West Wing Writers · 01/13/2026
Zohran Mamdani is a relentlessly disciplined messenger on affordability. So it’s all the more interesting when he gives a speech about something else. A week
What Abraham Lincoln Understood About the Founders
By: Jeff Shesol · 09/15/2025
Co-founder and Executive Director Jeff Shesol reviews a new book by Akhil Reed Amar that paints a sprawling portrait of 19th-century America in thrall to
In an Era of Deep Polarization, Unity Is Not Trump’s Mission
By: Jeff Shesol · 09/15/2025
Co-founder and Executive Director Jeff Shesol comments on the President’s failure to unify the country in moments of tragedy, in the New York Times.
Punchlines With a Point: How to Use Humor to Make Your Message Heard
As progressive speechwriters, published humorists and veterans of the political comedy world, Chandler Dean and Sarah Gruen have it on good authority: comedy is alive
Is There Fascist DNA in the U.S. Body Politic?
By: Jeff Shesol · 10/15/2023
Jeff Shesol reviews Rachel Maddow’s “Prequel” and Heather Cox Richardson’s “Democracy Awakening,” two new books about plots against America hatched by homegrown autocrats.
‘We’ve got one shot to open up this bookstore’: First Light Books opens in Hyde Park
By: Kris Pauls · 08/22/2023
In the construction of First Light Books, Taylor and Robin Bruce, along with general manager Breezy Mayo, put thought into every aspect of their new
The Tragedy of John Roberts
By: Jeff Shesol · 07/03/2023
The chief justice is portrayed by some as a tragic figure, powerless to save his court from itself. But the tragedy of John
West Wing Writers Is Now an Employee-Owned Business
By: West Wing Writers · 05/15/2023
Kate Childs Graham and Annie Farber Join Jonas Kieffer, Vinca LaFleur, Paul Orzulak, Jeff Shesol, and Ben Yarrow as Executive Directors
WASHINGTON,
The Story is the Difference
By: Vinca LaFleur · 03/22/2023
Vinca LaFleur joins IBM’s Making Data Simple podcast to share insights into leadership and communication. In this episode, she discusses the research process behind effective
The Rise and Fall of a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan
By: Jeff Shesol · 03/20/2023
In a new book, Timothy Egan traces the Klan’s expansion in the 1920s across American political and civic life. Then its leader, David C. Stephenson,
What to Say When the World is Ending
By: Kate Childs Graham & Jeff Shesol · 03/10/2023
Kate Childs Graham and Jeff Shesol presented to a packed house at this year’s SXSW. They encouraged attendees to ditch old school crisis comms for
Why Speechwriters Take Humor Seriously
In honor of silly season in Washington, our resident humorists Chandler Dean and Sarah Gruen unpack the strategy behind the hilarity — and share techniques that
A Murder Mystery Is Revisited in the #MeToo Era
By: Janet Potter · 02/21/2023
Janet Potter reviews Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You, a boarding school novel and a murder mystery, and the story of a woman reexamining
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