Lynn Aliya is known in the Valley for her work as a Colorado Mountain College (CMC) professor and as the drive-home gal on KMTS.
Recently, she released her first book, “Speakeasy: A Radically New Approach to Public Speaking (Less Fear, More Fun),” in October of 2024. It’s an interactive, fill-in-the-blank and step-by-step breakdown of her “Speakeasy Method,” which she created and used with a group of public speaking students she taught 15 years ago while at CMC.
On Jan. 10, Aliya will be at Explorer Books in Aspen for a book signing event where she will also be hosting a 60 to 90-minute interactive workshop based on the book’s contents. Like her former students, participants will learn how to craft an entire speech in five or fewer minutes.
“It’s a high-energy, fast-paced, hands-on interactive workshop. I’ll teach you the Speakeasy Method, and you’ll craft a full speech in under five minutes,” Aliya told the Sopris Sun. “With audience participation, it’s fun, full of laughter, and will transform how you approach public speaking.”
She delved a bit into how she came up with the method. Initially, she used outlines to guide her students in how to write and deliver their speeches, which is typical of the subject. But she soon switched that up once a particular group helped change her instruction techniques.
“This group of students I had about 15 years ago was so much fun. We played extemporaneous games, did improv introductions and had the best time ever. When I tried to present this outline, it was like I had betrayed them. It was like all the energy had drained from the room,” Aliya stated.
Then, she had the idea for her students to make what she called a “Mad Lib for Public Speaking.” They each grabbed a piece of paper and made a tic-tac-toe board, with the only rules being to be spontaneous and not to second-guess themselves. Within five minutes, these students had written their speeches.
“I thought to myself as they were giving their speeches, ‘Oh my god, this is like magic.’ From there, I used that model with my students for a very long time,” she said.
Having wanted to launch an app based on this method of speech writing, but not going through with it due to the cost at the time, Aliya decided to impart her method through a book. This took some time as she needed to find an illustrator who could accurately capture her thoughts with imagery. Eventually, and fortunately, Aliya connected with the book’s illustrator, Tonia Jenny.
“I can sell you anything and I could hand hold you, but I can’t draw. But I can write. It took me a long time to be able to find someone, an illustrator, to be able to take my thoughts and distill them into illustrations so that anybody can do this,” Aliya explained.
When discussing what sets her book apart from other books within the same genre, she said, “I think what my book offers that most books do not … is how to make the words come alive. We all have our shtick down, and this helps to break out of the things that we do. I think the other thing is that I don’t have any platitudes in my book. I have strategies.”
When asked what she hopes readers will gain from the book, Aliya said she hopes anyone who reads it will gain a profound understanding and confidence in what they are discussing in their respective fields.
“We know deep inside of ourselves what we want to say,” she concluded, and the book is meant to help people tell the world.
“Speakeasy” is available for purchase on Amazon. For more updates on Aliya’s method, visit www.speakeasymethod.net