Speakers Forum

If you’re familiar with the Dear Sugar advice column, you know who Steve Almond is. For the uninitiated, he was the first “Sugar” — a purportedly female advice columnist on The Rumpus. After a while, Almond says, that got weird.

You don’t have to score tickets to Hamilton to know that debate played a crucial role in U.S. history. When it comes to charting the course of a nation, there is no substitute. The same is true in planning for the future of cities like Seattle. So, here’s a query for a modern debate: Is Amazon, the behemoth internet retailer, good for Seattle?

We hear all the time about the social-political divide in the United States, mostly from the comfort of our respective bubbles. When UC Berkeley-based sociology professor Arlie Russel Hochschild realized the extent to which she didn’t understand the experience of right-leaning Americans, she decided to do something about it. She choose to embed herself in Lake Charles, Louisiana, for an ethnographic experiment.

For 26 years, Seattle’s African-American Writers’ Alliance has held a reading at The Elliott Bay Book Company on the last Saturday in February. The group’s mission is to provide support for new and published writers, provide peer review and create opportunities for public readings.

Marriage conjures up so many things, but here’s a longish shortlist: union, promise, vow, relationship, interdependence, security, sacrifice, contract, commitment, hard work, choice. Why do people get married? According to a Pew Research Center study, the top three reasons are for love, long-term commitment and companionship. Given our culture’s relatively high divorce rate (which is actually trending down), would you be surprised to hear that the best marriages today are better than the best

If you listen to David Barsamian’s long-running public affairs program Alternative Radio, you know his distinct voice, full of passionate analysis and notable raspiness. But while as host he always introduces his featured speakers, a who’s who of progressive thinkers, we don’t normally hear Barsamian himself at length.

Journalist David Cay Johnston has known and reported on President Donald Trump for nearly 30 years. When they first met in Atlantic City, Johnston says he recognized Trump as “the P.T. Barnum of our age.” He has also said about Trump, and repeats in this talk, that “Donald doesn’t know anything.”

Here’s a test for you. Who was the first U.S. President to be born an American, i.e., after the Revolution? Hint: He is the same man who said “As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it.” That would be President Martin Van Buren. The U.S. Presidency is marked by pomp, circumstance and widespread reference to its occupant being “the most powerful man in the world.” It’s also known to age a person prematurely. According

Several years ago, Seattle poet Tina Schumann was inspired to compile an anthology of memoir, essays and poems by children of immigrants in the United States.

Americans eat a lot of chicken. The National Chicken Council reports per capita consumption of 91 pounds a year in 2016. Compare that to 28 pounds a year in 1960.

Seattle-based writer Ijeoma Oluo has been widely recognized for some time now as a person who speaks sometimes uncomfortable truths about racism in America. That recognition reached a crescendo in recent days with the release of her first book, “So You Want to Talk About Race.”

In a parallel universe, poets stand on street corners and recite for us. We stop what we’re doing and gather together with friends and strangers to listen. Then we pay them some tribute and go on with our days, moved and enriched in some way.

"Art is going to save us, right?" Choreographer Bill T. Jones opens his talk. He says it’s not a laugh line. His answer is sobering. In the iconoclastic world of modern dance, Bill T. Jones has long searched for answers to questions like, “What is love? What is death? And what does art have to do with it?” He explores those themes in this talk “Analogy/Form: Finding Meaning in Confusing Times.” Jones is the artistic director, choreographer, and co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company.

The second annual Women’s March was celebrated in Seattle on January 20. Organizers say as many as 100,000 people attended. But those organizers had more in mind than a one-day march. They want to make a change.

As of the 2010 Census, 80 percent of U.S. citizens lived in urban areas. Human beings are drawn to cities for work, culture, camaraderie and hipster coffee shops (among other things). Every city starts somewhere. Some plug along, while others take off with growth most inhabitants never imagined. Seattle has been both types of city, from the home of the last person leaving turning out the lights, to construction-crane magnet.