Anne Lamott

I love Anne Lamott. I think I’ve read everything she’s written.

And one of my favorites is Bird by Bird:

“Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you’re conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.“

Anne wrote that decades before Covid and social media made loneliness an international epidemic.

And you don’t have to be a writer to use her advice. In fact, I’m sharing this specifically for air talent and programmers today.

Substitute the word “air talent” for “writer”…”speaking” for “writing”…and “listener” for “reader” in that quote above.

If you want people to actually listen to you, to what you’re saying rather than sort of passively hearing a voice after the song ends, you will find no better advice.