Speaking
What people tell you when you're not trying to fix it.
The material for these talks comes out of years I've spent in rooms with people who are in the middle of something hard and doing the work anyway, through my books, journalism, and photojournalism. A wildlife sanctuary in one of the poorest counties in Missouri. A gymnasium in Sand Springs where nineteen tattoo artists give away a day of their lives. Farming communities in rural Uganda. What I bring to a stage comes out of those rooms, not out of a framework.
Speaker reel in edit. References available on request.
The talks
Every talk is shaped for the room it's in
Before I take a stage I want to know who's actually in the room, not the titles on the registration list, but where the audience really is, which is usually somewhere different from where the agenda assumes. Every talk gets shaped to that rather than delivered off a shelf.
One keynote and one workshop. Both come out of the same practice, years spent sitting with people in the middle of something hard, and they're built for very different rooms.
Keynote · 45 minutes
Make It Before You Understand It
What four people taught me about creating through the hard part
A man picks up an orphaned squirrel outside a Denny's two days after burying his twenty-year-old son. He has no idea he has just begun the next fifteen years of his life. A woman writes poetry about the thing she's been told she can never say out loud; two decades later those lines are songs strangers sing back to her. Neither of them knew at the time. Nobody does. This is a talk about creative work as survival rather than achievement, and about the sequence almost no one names: you make the thing first, and you understand it afterward. That isn't a failure of insight. That's the order. Which means the absence of clarity is not evidence you're on the wrong road.
What the audience leaves with
- 01How to start something you can't explain yet
- 02How to take action without waiting for permission
- 03How to follow the turn you didn't plan
Workshop · 90 minutes · teens or adults · best with 40 or fewer · participants leave with a drafted why in their own words
Ask Me Why
How to find your why by helping someone else find theirs
Most of us have never said out loud why we do what we do. We've written it on an application or borrowed a phrase that sounded right, but we haven't said it to another person and watched it land. So nobody writes a mission statement alone at a table here. You interview each other, which turns out to be the faster route; most people can't excavate their own reasons, but they can ask a real question, wait through the pause, and hear something in someone else's answer they recognize in themselves. A mission might last a lifetime or a single season. Both are real, and either can be solid enough to stand on when things get hard.
What the audience leaves with
- 01How to ask a question that opens something instead of closing it
- 02How to sit in a silence long enough for the real answer to arrive
- 03How to tell whether a why is really yours or one you inherited
Formats
Four ways to bring me in.
Keynote
45–60 minutes, plus Q&A. Conferences, summits, and annual meetings.
Workshop
90 minutes to half a day. Hands-on, built for teams and cohorts.
Moderated panel
As panelist or moderator, on communication, storytelling, and impact.
Book club / library visit
In person or virtual, around Fields of Resilience or Resonance.
Speaker bio
For your program and your host.
Intro line · 25 words
Janelle Nightingale is an author, photojournalist, and strategic communications leader whose documentary work follows resilience and quiet compassion across Uganda and North America.
Short bio · 100 words
Janelle Nightingale is an author, photojournalist, and strategic communications leader with more than twenty years of experience on stage and behind it. She has produced hundreds of corporate and community events, coached executives for high-stakes rooms, and served as emcee for programs ranging from black-tie galas to industry conferences. Her first book, Fields of Resilience, documents farmers, refugee youth, and community builders in Uganda, with 80% of proceeds supporting Agri Planet Africa. Her second book, Resonance: The Quiet Revolution of Compassion, arrives November 10, 2026. She speaks on creative work as survival, and on how to be in a room with someone's hardest story.
Credentials
Credentials
Background
- M.A., Strategic Communication and Digital Strategy · University of Oklahoma, Gaylord College
- B.S., Organizational Leadership · Southern Nazarene University
- 20+ years in strategic communications
Professional
- Produced more than 700 corporate and community events between 2020 and 2025, from logistics and run of show through live execution. Emceed or presented at a portion of them.
- Designs modular 45-minute keynote and panel formats adapted by region, sector, and audience.
- Coaches executives and subject-matter experts internally ahead of stage, panel, and on-camera appearances.
- Produces a national industry podcast, from guest development through episode structure.
- Designed and executed a national fundraising campaign for UFC fighter Sarah “Too Sweet” Alpar. $34,000 raised in four days, closing at 118% of goal across 146 donors.
Author & Nonprofit
- Fields of Resilience (Akiiki Press, 2025) and Resonance (2026)
- Founder and President, Agri Planet Foundation · 80% of Fields of Resilience proceeds support Agri Planet Africa
- Former Executive Director, Agri Planet Uganda
Agri Planet Foundation
80% of Fields of Resilience proceeds support Agri Planet Africa.
Booking
Tell me about your event.
The more you can share about your audience and the moment in your program, the better I can tell you whether I'm the right fit. I reply to every inquiry, usually within a few days.
Forthcoming · November 10, 2026
Resonance: The Quiet Revolution of Compassion
A collection of portraits and stories from people across the United States and Canada whose quiet acts of compassion are changing their communities. Not heroes. Just humans doing the necessary work.