From time to time organizations have asked me to speak. Although most of my presentations are not business related, a few have been, so I am including links here to the text of a number of talks and book reviews I have given.* Most documents are in Adobe PDF format.

“Microsoft Word Tips for Writers,” presentation to the Pensters Writing Group, October 13, 2018.

• Slide deck from the presentation

• Handout from the presentation

“The Lonely Pilcrow: Microsoft Word Tips for Writers,” presentation to the Wordsmiths Workshop (sponsored by the Baldwin Writers’ Group), Daphne, Alabama, April 16, 2005, including a template for novel or short story manuscripts

• This is the handout workshop participants received.

• The manuscript template workshop participants were promised is available here.

“Why Every Writer Needs a Copy Editor,” presentation to the Baldwin Writers’ Group, November 15, 2003

• In the talk above I refer to an article by Anne Fadiman, which you can read here.

• This is the compilation of “howlers” I refer to in the talk.

“A View from the Other Side of the Pen,” presentation to the Pensters Writing Group, November 9, 2002

Review of Grandfather Stories, by Samuel Hopkins Adams, Fairhope Public Library, November 28, 2000

• This is the Adams bio referred to in the talk.

• This is a handout listing publications of Samuel Hopkins Adams.

Review of The Dilbert Principle, by Scott Adams, Fairhope Public Library, November 26, 1996

Review of The Day I Became an Autodidact, by Kendall Hailey, Fairhope Public Library, November 28, 1995

• Outline of The Day I Became an Autodidact

• Kendall Hailey’s Reading List

Review of A Book of Country Things, told by Walter Needham, as recorded by Barrows Mussey, Fairhope Public Library, March 8, 1994

“The Perfect Detective Novel,” presentation in the Fairhope Public Library Book Review & Lecture Series, November 26, 1991 (note that all the handouts reflect the information available to me at the time, without Internet access)

• Handout 1: The Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction

• Handout 2: Some of the Classics

• Handout 3: Current and Choice

• Handout 4: New and Noteworthy

Not business related at all, and not even exactly a “personal appearance,” but I do have a blog at WordPress.

Since this page was created, I have, in my capacity of program chairman for the Fairhope Public Library Tuesday Book Review & Lecture Series, scheduled myself for book reviews regularly, as follows:

Spring 2007     Marilyn Johnson, The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries

Fall 2009         “Susan Wittig Albert’s ‘Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter’ Series”

Spring 2011     Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life

Spring 2012     “Louisa and the Alcotts in Fact and Fiction”

Spring 2015     “The Ian Rutledge Novels of Charles Todd” (last-minute substitution for the scheduled speaker)

Fall 2015         Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II

Spring 2016     Bill Bryson, The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain (another fillin)

Spring 2017     Tom Shroder, The Most Famous Writer Who Ever Lived: A True Story of My Family

Spring 2018     Geraldine Brooks, People of the Book

Spring 2019     Henry Petroski, The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance

Fall 2021         Anton Tantner, House Numbers: Pictures of a Forgotten History

In addition, in January 2016 I presented a Sunday “Written Word” program on A Wilder Rose, by Susan Wittig Albert.