Category: Audio Video

Video of My TED Talk

Last December, I delivered a talk for TED. In fact it was the first ever TEDWomen and was a great event. I met  many amazing, dedicated men and women whose work is to help women around the globe. The editors at TED just released the video of my talk.

Writing the talk took over a month. It began as long  speech, and I spent weeks pairing it down to the six minutes I was allotted.  I also worked with a very talented coach, Trisha Bauman, who helped be understand many new (to me) key elements for successful public speaking and performance.  While I have given numerous talks over the years, this was the first one that I felt I should memorize. In fact,  memorization really frees you up, and allows you to connect with the audience and with what you are saying much more naturally.

The audience at the conference was wonderful. In fact you can hear me laughing with them because I was so taken aback by their loud spontaneous laughter. It was great. Many of the other  talks were (rightfully) serious, and I sense that the audience was looking for relief, which I provided. While many of the other speakers were serious with touches of humor, I was humorous with an underlying note of serious.  My favorite way to be.

Slide show from When Do They Serve The Wine?

For the past three years, I have been contributing weekly cartoons for a website called wowowow.com.  It is the brainchild of publishing wonderwoman Joni Evans.

Every time I  publish a book, Joni and her team have kindly done a slide show for me.  Interestingly, When Do They Serve The Wine? was inspired by Joni.  Right after my last book  Sex and Sensibility,  Joni took me to lunch near the wowowow offices. I asked her what she would suggest my next book be.  I figured she is a master at knowing publishing trends, so why not get her input?  What she said was “women of a certain age” (I am paraphrasing).  She continued to explain that older women are a huge demographic with spending power, and I would do well to create a book for them.  So I decided to write about the generations of a woman’s life, including youth and old age. What I am discovering is that women of all ages–and men–love this book. This makes me very happy, as I think the different ages of women need to speak to one another more.   And is there a better way to connect than through humor?  I think not.   Thank you, Joni!

Here is the slide show they created for my new book.

United Nations: Cartooning for Peace/my speech

The other day, I was looking around the web, and found a clip of the speech that I gave at The United Nations. This was a time following the initial events of the Danish Cartoon Controversy. I was invited to participate with other members of Cartooning for Peace, an organization founded by Jean Plantu, a French cartoonist. Cartooning for Peace is very active, and I feel very fortunate to participate when I can.

Speech is here (to hear what I had to say, click on my name on the UN page):

L to R: bottom: Jeff Danziger, Gado, Carsten Graabaek, Cintia Bolio, Baha Boukari, Kofi Annan, Ann Telnaes, Michel Kichka, No-Rio, Ranan Lurie, Holli Semtko. Top: unkown, Gerard Vandenbrouke, Liza Donnelly, Shashi Tharoor, Jean Plantu, unknown
Liza and Jean Plantu