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Event Series Event Series: Oculus Series

Amanda Nguyen

Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope

Date:
Wednesday, March 12
Time:
7:30 pm PDT
Series:
Cost:
$10 - $50 + Optional Book Add-on
Learn more about Sliding Scale tickets.

Venue

The Great Hall
1119 Eighth Avenue (enter on Eighth Avenue)
Seattle, 98101 United States
+ Google Map

Note: Town Hall events are approximately 75 minutes long.

A livestream is also available for this event.

Content Note: This discussion will explore themes of resilience, justice, and advocacy, including references to experiences of sexual assault and healing.

Book cover for 'Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope' by Amanda Nguyen, featuring a portrait of Amanda (with long black hair, fair skin, and pink tweed jacket) overlaid with a starry texture in her hair. She is set against a soft beige background with a pink halo around the shape of her portrait.
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Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope

Third Place Books

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This event is part of the Oculus Series, connecting audiences to the most impactful writing and ideas of our time.

View this season’s Oculus Series events below.

Rebecca Solnit, with long gray hair is looking at the camera
Arts & Culture

In 2013, the trajectory of Amanda Nguyen’s life was changed forever when she was raped at Harvard.

Facing these unfathomable circumstances at odds with her goal to join NASA after graduation, Nguyen decided to delay legal action and file her rape kit under “Jane Doe.” She would then learn the harsh and limiting reality of her state’s legislation – anonymous kits were only held for six months before being destroyed, thus eliminating a survivor’s options for future legal action. This prompted Nguyen to pursue a cause larger than herself and in lieu of surrendering to a law that restricted her paths forward, she began to fight for change for survivors everywhere.

Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope combines Nguyen’s growth as an activist – eventually resulting in Congress unanimously passing of the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act in 2016 – with a dramatized imagined journey through chapters of Nguyen’s personal healing throughout her life. Told through the lenses of significant ages in her own story – five, fifteen, twenty-two, and thirty – Nguyen’s informed introspection guides her younger selves and readers alike on her path toward recovery.

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Building resilience from not only her rape, but from childhood trauma and turmoil as well, Nguyen’s work aims to highlight hope, change, and the courage to break new ground. Saving Five blends deeply personal memoir with skilled storytelling to show that the paths forward can be crafted by healing through action and with ambitious hands prepared to grab hold of necessary change.

Amanda Nguyen is an author, astronaut, and activist focusing on the intersection of race and gender. She is the founder and CEO of Rise, a civil rights organization committed to pushing legislation to protect the rights of sexual assault survivors, and was a prominent voice in the Stop Asian Hate movement. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 and was named a Time Woman of the Year in 2022. She will become the first Vietnamese woman to go to space when she flies on an upcoming Blue Origin launch on the New Shepard rocket.


Presented by Town Hall Seattle.