Speakers Forum

The first 100 days of the Donald Trump era have come and gone. There’s been plenty to fathom, through 24-7 reporting and frequent tweets, but if you’re ready to take a deep breath and consider the big picture, here’s your chance.

The Storywallahs series provides a stage for Puget Sound residents with roots in India and South Asia to tell stories. This time around the theme concerned the question of belonging. In the era of "making America great again," these stories help illuminate what it means to be great in the first place.

Since 2011, the people behind Sandbox Radio have been putting together live performances of the kind of variety show you don’t hear much these days. There’s comedy, drama, sound effects and music — all percolating up from the minds and talents of local artists and featured guests.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson was elected in 2012 after a career path that included service on the King County Council, litigation for a major Seattle law firm, clerkships for federal judges, and a stint as a traveling chess master. In this talk, he tells the story of his fascination with chess and the behind-the-scenes drama of his challenge to President Donald Trump’s so-called Muslim ban.

Every year the Citizen University conference takes place in Seattle. Civic-minded people from around the country gather to make connections, listen and share messages of challenge and progress. This year the theme was Reckoning and Repair in America.

Civic Saturday is the brainchild of Eric Liu and Jená Cane, co-founders of the Seattle-based non-profit Citizen University. They call it the civic analog to church. Like church, it brings people together but to ponder our civic lives. And like church, the gathering includes songs, readings of “scripture” taken from great American texts, silent reflection and a “sermon” given by Liu.

Before Chris Hayes became an Emmy Award-winning MSNBC host and a best-selling author, he was a kid trying to navigate New York City in the 1990s. His experience of borders, between neighborhoods and classes of people, informed his world view.

Human beings have depended on mythology since the beginning of our existence. Myths told us how the world began, how to understand its trials and wonders, and how it might end. Yet now, when many of us believe something is not true, we call it a myth. What happened?

Ballerina Misty Copeland started her dance training at the late age of 13. Nonetheless, she was soon recognized as a prodigy and rose quickly to opportunity and success. In 2015, she became the first African-American woman promoted to principal ballerina by American Ballet Theatre.

There are many reasons to be thankful for the life and work of author Betty MacDonald. If you have a love/hate relationship with chickens, her best-seller “The Egg and I” will satisfy both passions. If you have children in your life, her “Mrs. Piggle Wiggle” series will likely delight and challenge them. And if you suffer from self-doubt her book about finding work in the Great Depression, “Anybody Can Do Anything,” may help.

What difference can a day make? For half of the world’s population who struggle with social, economic, and political inequity, a day honoring women may be only symbolic, but could be life changing.

Before Viet Thanh Nguyen became the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the novel “The Sympathizers,” he was a 4-year-old boy uprooted from war-torn Vietnam and transported to a refugee camp in the United States. Nguyen’s experience as a refugee marked his journey towards becoming an American in crucial ways. He describes the experience of being both a refugee and an American as being “split in two.”

In a recent double bill, journalist Matt Taibbi joined author and anti-poverty advocate Joel Berg to discuss what happened in our recent presidential election and what’s next. Their talks and conversation cover ample ground, from the realities of the campaign trail and our political system, to our tendency to blame politicians instead of taking personal responsibility.

There are many things to know about Roxane Gay . She grew up in Nebraska. Her family is of Haitian descent. She came to critical attention in 2014 for her best-selling collection of essays “Bad Feminist.” She teaches creative writing at Purdue University. She is the first black woman hired to write a Marvel Comics series, “Wakanda.” She kind of owns Twitter. But perhaps the most crucial thing you need to know about Roxane Gay is that she is awed by and in love with her craft, fiction writing

The term "gaslighting" comes from the 1944 film "Gaslight," about an abusive husband who secretly manipulates the lighting in his house in order to drive his wife mad. It has been used more recently to refer to a political phenomenon involving the dissemination of untruths to an extent that causes the public to doubt truth from falsehood.