Cambridge Speechwriter

The Muses can be reluctant creatures, and creativity doesn’t always flow when you want it to. Throughout history, many great scholars have attempted to capture tonics, rituals, and structures to help inspire creativity. 

Aristotle gave us logical formulas to whet the mind, Cicero gave us structure to order it, and Quintilian told us how to wear our toga and gesticulate with our hands to both look and be impressive. Today, in the modern world, we still rely on many of their methods. I often find myself reusing the Ciceronian structure or Aristotle’s tricks and tropes. Quintilian’s handbook for how to wear a toga is, perhaps, less relevant; however, many still argue that how we dress or where we choose to work can affect our performance. Perhaps that is why so many writing retreats take place in serene spots of natural beauty?

I am always a fan of finding new ways to solve old problems and was delighted to learn of Neringa Bliūdžiūtė’s new method for approaching the art of speechcraft: Speechery – a deck of cards with inspiration and structure to guide and support anyone get through the process of speechwriting. With a modern twist for a modern audience, Neringa has done the same thing as Cicero, Aristotle, and Quintilian: she has given us a series of methods for channelling our creativity and becoming more effective public speakers. 

The cards are for ‘a clear, precise and compelling speech’. They serve as an instruction manual that covers all the essential stages of public speaking, from preparation to delivery. Whether you’re writing speeches for yourself or others, it is full of interesting ideas presented in an accessible way. 

The only problem was that they were only available in Lithuanian. That was until recently! Earlier this year Neringa relaunched the deck of cards in English (I was briefly involved in the refining of the translation). The creativity in the deck of cards ranges from the pleasantly quirky to professionally efficient. 

Neringa Bliūdžiūtė used to write for the Prime Minister of Lithuania and now runs her own consultancy The World Of Words (WoW). She has published the book called Everyone Can Speak Well and was a speaker for the European Speechwriter Network Spring Conference (ESN) in 2022 where she interviewed Obama speechwriter Terry Szuplat. 

She also won a copy of my book, How to Apologise For Killing a Cat, at the ESN conference in 2023 for her excellent after dinner speech. Perhaps she used the Speechery cards!?

My deck is proudly on my book case alongside some other very important (and some random) books…