While many people don't much like talking in front of others, I garner tremendous satisfaction from speaking in front of groups of people, large or small. I enjoy speaking in front of all ages - elementary, middle school, high school and college groups, as well as adults. My talks always contain plenty of multimedia moments - still photos, video, text, music - and even a song or spoken word poem (or two). I also work hard to tailor my talk to an organization or event's specific interests or needs. If you are interested in discussing keynote or public speaking possibilities, don't hesitate to get in touch.

The following presentations can be easily tailored for time length, group size, and age-appropriate content, and all feature a fun and engaging Q- and-A style rapport, along with a wide variety of multimedia clips and examples. If you don't see a topic of interest listed here, contact me for design possibilities!

• Beyond Bullies, Exploring Bullying in Both Hollywood Media and Real Life: This presentation looks at the ways in which Hollywood movies often romanticize or celebrate bullying and violence, and how bullying plays out in real-life social situations in classrooms and communities. Beyond Bullies also looks at the ways in which people who witness the "bully/victim" relationship play roles as either bystanders or rescuers, and considers how each of us can move from passive onlooker to active rescuer.
• Making Sense Of Media: Instead of health, wealth, and wisdom, our mainstream commercial media culture promotes addiction, disease, and debt. This interactive multimedia presentation is a good introduction to our 21st century mainstream media culture.
• Butts in Hollywood: Big Tobacco industry executives and Hollywood filmmakers conspire to target our kids with popular movies that glamorize and normalize smoking. How can we teach our kids to recognize this insidious relationship? This interactive multimedia presentation features clips from recent popular Hollywood movies.
• Spin The Bottle: The alcohol industry is second-to-none in using commercial television to target kids with pro-drinking messages, sex-drenched advertisements, and insidious branding campaigns. How can we teach our kids to recognize and analyze alcohol industry propaganda? This interactive multimedia presentation features clips from recent television commercials.
• Challenging Cool: Big Media create the concept of “cool” to market addictive behaviors and compulsive lifestyles to kids. How can we teach our kids to challenge corporately-constructed “cool”? This interactive multimedia presentation features clips from a wide variety of popular programs and ad campaigns.
• Food For Thought: Our mainstream media culture sends conflicting messages about food, nutrition, body image, and health. How can we teach our kids to make healthier choices about their diets, in terms of both media and food? This interactive multimedia presentation features clips from a wide variety of advertisements, documentaries, and news reports.
• Screening Democracy: How does Big Media undermine democracy through the creation of “news,” the use of censorship, and the creation of voter apathy and citizen cynicism? How can we use independent media to revive civic engagement in our classrooms and communities? This interactive multimedia presentation features clips from a wide variety of media sources.
• Selling (Out) The Soldier: Our corporate commercial media system enjoys a cozy relationship with the military industrial complex, producing, packaging and marketing entertainment media that glorifies violence, promotes anti-social behavior, and “spins” war coverage. How can we cut through the media hype to talk honestly about supporting our troops? This interactive multimedia presentation features clips from recent television commercials and documentaries on the connections between entertainment and news media and war.
• Green Mountain Noise: Vermont video production company memeFILMS (www.memefilms.org) has spent the past several years making movies about media and public health/civic issues with young people from all over Vermont. This interactive multimedia presentation features the voices of Vermont's youth, making movies about media that both educate and entertain. These mini-movies cover a wide variety of topics, from tobacco and alcohol marketing, to voting, to advertising, to corporate media consolidation.