Speakers Forum
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Readings, debates, lectures and so much more. Hear fascinating talks by authors, intellectuals, officials and regular folks with important stories recorded live all around Seattle.
Episodes
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‘Weep. Scream. Hate. Disbelieve. Go numb. Breathe.’ Hard-earned lessons about loss and grief
‘A Little Book of Self-Care for Those Who Grieve began as notes scratched out over many midnights; thoughts formed as I lay sleepless, or in the aftermath of painful dreams.’
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Chinks in the armor: An investigative call to reform the Secret Service
‘The agents say they’ll put themselves between a bullet and the president. They’ll take a bullet for the president. Well, they felt like more and more they were just dodging a bullet.’
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Lies, the First Amendment, and the limits of free speech
‘If people hear something that’s false, and they’re immediately told it’s false, then they will remember it in some sense or in some part of their mind as true for the long-term. That’s insidious!’
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Anna Qu’s fierce memoir grapples with child labor, immigration, and love
As a teen, Chinese American author Anna Qu was forced by her mother to work in their family's garment factory in Queens, New York. At home she was the family’s maid, and faced punishment for doing things like schoolwork. Qu contacted Child Protective Services to report her mother, but due to bureaucratic bumbling she was left her to fend for herself. Now as an adult, Qu reckons with life, family, and not so easy answers to past trauma in her memoir.
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Civil political discourse is alive and well at 'Civic Saturday'
Social Distancing may be drawing to a close, but that doesn’t mean folks are eager to come together just yet. The potential unity among Americans, involving civil civic discourse, continues to prove a bumpy road, to say the least. But according to the speakers in this talk, it’s a journey still worth committing to, having ‘faith’ in, and suffering through, together.
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Sasha Issenberg tells the surprising story of how marriage equality was won
It has been just over six years since the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. In his new, exhaustively researched book The Engagement: America’s Quarter-Century Struggle Over Same-Sex Marriage, author Sasha Issenberg shares many of the stories and successful strategies that led to marriage equality.
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Ecologist Suzanne Simard’s life work is highlighted in ‘The Mother Tree’
‘Nothing should be lost. Everything has a purpose. Everything is in need of care.’
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A democracy worth saving: Author Ben Rhodes on the rise of global nationalism
In his new book After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made, author Ben Rhodes grapples with the dissolving notion of American exceptionalism in a post-Covid world. Using a global lens, Rhodes presents a glimpse of a highly possible democracy-free future, presently modeled by countries like Hungary, Russia, and China.
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'Shame changer': Sex tech CEO disrupts Asian stereotypes with adult films
Make Love Not Porn founder Cindy Gallop says the future of pornography is "social sex" and the end of fetishizing women of color.
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'The ingredients for madness': Author Grace M. Cho’s memoir on colonialism, food, and love
Author Grace M. Cho breaks bread with the numerous voices haunting her ‘pained spirit’ in her new novel.
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Liberty’s white roots and the racial history of that idea
White Freedom: ‘The belief (and practice) that freedom is central to white racial identity, and that only white people can or should be free.’
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Author M. Leona Godin shares the trope-free history of 'blindness'
Godin’s new book sheds an intriguing light on the tropes surrounding those on the spectrum of blindness.