Southwestern Association of Episcopal Schools
Conference 2009

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Keynote Speakers

Suzie Humphreys

Suzie Humphrey’s background is as varied as her audiences...from administrative secretary to Television Talk Show Host, to 20 years in radio. She has hobnobbed with movie stars and politicians, interviewed the great and the “near” great. She has made motion pictures and hundreds of  commercials. She has been fired, been broke, been disappointed, been a petrified expectant mother when she was 40 years old and lived her life with a passion for learning not only how to be better...but to see things differently.

Suzie is uproariously funny, blatantly honest and plain spoken. She takes her message to corporations, hospitals and classrooms. She lifts, jolts, and nurtures her audiences and they love every minute of it. When she leaves the stage, there remains the unmistakable warmth of having been touched, and the unshakable affirmation that whether ordinary or extraordinary, through good times or bad, caught in mid-frailty or new accomplishment, life really is the greatest thing ever!

As a motivational and inspirational humorist, Suzie Humphreys got one of the longest standing ovations on record from the National Speakers Association when she spoke to 2500 of her peers at their National Convention in Palm Springs, California. In 2002, Suzie was inducted into The Speaker Hall of Fame at their National Convention in Orlando and was awarded "The Council of Peers Award of Excellence". In 2004, she was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame and, as Suzie says…"All that for a D minus student! You never know do you?"

Suzie’s philosophy is “It’s not life that gets me! It’s my reaction to it”. Her formula for staying UP in down times is perfect for the times….changing and challenging but filled with great opportunity to stretch and grow.

Get Ready to laugh, live and learn with Suzie Humphreys

Elizabeth Berg

Elizabeth Berg is the New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including The Year of Pleasures, The Art of Mending, Say When, True to Form, Never Change, and Open House, which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection in 2000. Durable Goods and Joy School were selected as American Library Association’s Best Books of the Year, and Talk Before Sleep was short-listed for the ABBY award in 1996. The winner of the 1997 New England Booksellers Award for her body of work, Berg is also the author of a  nonfiction work, Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True. She lives in Chicago.

Elizabeth will present a variety of readings from different works, with an emphasis on her books used in classrooms (ie. the "Katie" trilogy ("Durable Goods," "Joy School," and "True to Form") as well as the non-fiction, creative writing tool, "Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True."

Her books have been translated into twenty-six languages. Thus far there have been three television movies made: from Range of Motion, Open House and Say When.

 “Berg’s gift as a storyteller lies most powerfully in her ability to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, the remarkable in the everyday.”—Boston Globe

 “Quietly uplifting . . . Berg is a sensitive and controlled writer with an uncanny way of         capturing how women think and what they say.”—USA Today