Evie— I used to be petrified of speaking in front of people, except in a classroom situation where, for some reason, I've always felt at home. I love the idea of acting and was even the lead in some plays when I was growing up, but when performance night came, I’d panic. My mouth would get dry (it occasionally still does, but now I just bring along a bottle of water and sip as needed) and my underarms would get wet. If it wasn’t so embarrassing, it would be funny. My fluids were in all the wrong places!

Again, it’s a practice thing. I’ve been all over the country promoting my book these past six months—10 states in all—and loving each speaking engagement more than the previous one. I can’t wait to get on the road again. I look in the mirror, metaphorically speaking, and can hardly recognize myself!

Anyway, bravo for saying yes to presenting at the breakfast.

Don’t know if this helps or not, but a friend said to me last spring that the best public speakers, either consciously or naturally, incorporate the 3 H’s in their speeches: humor, humility and humanity. Just be yourself as they say. For a while, I thought humor meant telling jokes, which I'm TERRIBLE at; but then I realized that just letting my humanity shine through was humorous in itself.

Here are some other practical tips (I learned these at Toastmasters): (1) Don’t focus on yourself; focus on making the audience comfortable. (2) If your heart is racing and your hands feel clammy before you stand up and give your talk, squeeze your legs tightly together and feel the floor under your feet. It helps you get out of your head and into your body. (3) You can also practice belly breathing. (Do you know what that is?) These simple techniques really work for me.

As far as the teen driving thing goes, I can relate to your valium comment, although I’m so tiny (5’2") that even an Advil makes me feel doped up. But, yes, it can be terrifying to sit in a car with your inexperienced teenager at the wheel and just as nerve-wracking to be home at night while he's off driving around town with his buddies. Anyway, I wish you all the best. It's an adventure, that's for sure.

Finally, Smile, I appreciate your validation of my philosophy about story-telling. As I said earlier, I was teaching community college when I got the idea to write Defying Gravity. Many of my students took years to earn their degrees, and they performed intricate juggling acts to keep schoolwork, jobs and families simultaneously aloft as they realized their goals. They were dealing with so many serious issues—poverty, different types of abuse, a lack of English skills. One of my female students had even been raped by her father and gotten pregnant. There are no easy answers in cases like these, no simple steps to success. But I thought that if they digested a story like Jean Kelley’s (see my website and read her bio), they would say to themselves, “There’s hope for me.” And from the fuel of that hope, I thought that they might somehow forge a way, just like Jean Kelley did, to get where they dreamed of going.