Jenny Riddle

A week ago today, I was standing at the head of the table in the conference room at the National Fair Housing Alliance in D.C. doing a 3 hour public speaking training for their staff. Straightaway I told them that out of everything I could share with them about communicating effectively the most important thing was to be themselves--to be authentic. Authenticity is the foundation for everything else.

When I first started teaching high school English, I wanted to be just like my dad. He was … [Read more...] about Authenticity: Find YOUR Voice

Yesterday was a day of mistakes. First, I was at my gig at Wheaton Library performing my show Pets at the White House that I do with my friend and colleague, Elizabeth Doyle. Our Pets show is completely innocuous, politically speaking. We sing and share fun and interesting anecdotes about the roles pets have played in the lives of the First Families, everything from the fact that Thomas Jefferson had a pet mockingbird who sat on his shoulder while he worked to George and Barbara Bush walking the … [Read more...] about A Day of Mistakes: Adele and Me

Growing up, there was only one kind of chocolate chip cookie in our house--Toll House. When my mom made them, she always let us eat the dough. Oh, joy, the good old days when we never gave salmonella a second thought. I can still remember digging my spoon into that mound of dough dotted with chocolate chips. I would almost make myself sick eating the dough--but it was worth it!

By the time I was in fourth or fifth grade, I could whip up a Toll House batch by heart. No need to even look at the … [Read more...] about A Little Spice is Nice!