Dr. Martin has taught public speaking at the University of Virginia, Strayer University, and Fork Union Military Academy.
He has won public speaking awards as a member of Toastmasters International and has been featured both on a Chamber of Commerce television segment and on a New Jersey radio station.
He initiated and participated in a Richmond, Virginia, CBS station’s presentation that won the producer an Emmy.
Furthermore, Dr. Martin has been certified in New Jersey and Virginia as a teacher of public speaking and has a minor in rhetoric and communication with his doctoral degree from the University of Virginia.
While at the university, he was honored with the Richard A. Meade Award in recognition of an “outstanding piece of published research”—his doctoral dissertation.
He has made speeches or participated in presentations in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio, Tennessee, Connecticut, Maine, Washington, Rhode Island, Florida, Michigan, New York, Virginia, and Washington D.C.
FRESH Writing Conference Proposals
Proposal One
Using Bolts & Nuts of Screenwriting to Energize Your Writing
In this interactive session, we will explore how lessons learned from screenwriting (including formatted excerpts from one or more films) can bring the visual element of screenwriting into your own writing. We will begin by watching a short movie clip, followed by your describing in writing what you see; papers will be turned in to the presenter, and selected ones will be read aloud and comments and suggestions made by the audience. You will also be provided with excerpts from movie scripts and discuss how the dialogue in the scripts can be incorporated into effective, believable dialogue in your own writing.
Duration: 45-60 minutes, depending on the needs of the conference.
As early participants take their favored seats, they hope and expect that the session will be informative, interactive, and even entertaining.
Proposal Two
Utilizing an Aesthetic Stance to Break Writers’ Block
(Prior to the session, the presenter will place a blue, green, yellow, or red 5” x 8” index card by each seat in the room.)
Too often we are stymied in developing our writing because of the way we were trained to write. This interactive program will begin by asking participants to react to a projected nature scene with the simple instructions “Look at the picture and write a few lines. using only the front and back of the card by your seat. Do not include your name.”
Participants are told they may also copy their writing somewhere else if they choose.
This activity will be followed by the presenter collecting all cards, reading a few or more from each color and reading their writing aloud. He will then inform the participants what constitutes both an aesthetic and an efferent stance.
The presenter will then classify responses as esthetic in nature, or efferent in nature, and the former is too often ignored and results in writers’ block.
Duration: 45-60 minutes, depending on the needs of the conference.
Time permitting and if attendees have an interest in the nature and scope of writing from an aesthetic stance, the presenter will provide examples of sentences students have written in that manner with the use of Classics Illustrated Comics.