Ep. 42. Speechwriters of the world, unite! Creating communities of practice: interview with Elana Aptowitzer

Writing is usually a pretty solitary pursuit. But solitary doesn’t have to mean isolated. Find out how Elana Aptowitzer created a community of speechwriters inside the Canadian public service — and how you can start building a community of your own.

About my guest: Elana Aptowitzer heads up speechwriting at Canada’s Department of National Defence. She launched the federal government’s first speechwriters’ community of practice, where public service speechwriters can share tools, resources and best practices.

In the last three years, she has received several awards for continual professional excellence in her demanding role, including the 2019 Emerging Leader award from the Deputy Minister and Chief of the Defence Staff. Elana has taught annual speechwriting seminars at Carleton University for three years, and this year she became a full-time public-servant-in-residence there, developing and teaching a speechwriting training program for fourth-year undergraduate students.

She holds a Masters in Strategic Communications and Speechwriting from American University in Washington, DC.

Links: Dana Rubin runs the 3,000-member-strong Leadership Communications Roundtable on LinkedIn. (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/145130/)

Music: Theme: “Good Times” by Podington Bear (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/).

Incidental music by Lee Rosevere (https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/) including “Night Caves” and “Thinking It Over.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: Mario Purisic on Unsplash

Listen here