Name: Great Minds
Start: 2023-09-30T19:30:00-07:00
End: 2023-09-30T19:30:00-07:00
Location: The Great Hall

Great Minds

On the Unreliable Narrator, the Necessity of Joy, and What Doesn’t Make the Cut

This event has already occurred

Date:: Sat Sep 30, 2023
Time:: 7:30 pm PDT

Venue

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

Rentals

Part of Hedgebrook’s 2023 Writers Conference, experience an evening of empowering conversations at Town Hall Seattle! Seattle Arts & Lectures and Bushwick Book Club Seattle join in the celebration as we uplift, and delight in, the work of Hedgebrook alumnae Sonora Jha, Ijeoma Oluo, and Idrissa Simmonds-Nastili.

The evening begins with a reception at 6:30 PM where folks will have the opportunity to connect and engage in lively discussions before the main event. The lobby and cafe will come alive with a bit of whimsy, and guests will get a taste of Hedgebrook’s trademark “Radical Hospitality” in a warm and inclusive space. Be sure to explore the rich selection of books from Hedgebrook alum and activists, available for purchase from Elliott Bay Books.

The main event begins at 7:30PM and includes performances by the Youth Poet Laureate and the Bushwick Book Club Seattle, followed by a dynamic conversation with the speakers.

We hope you’ll join us at Town Hall and be part of a community that celebrates joy, resilience, and the power of storytelling.

Idrissa Simmonds-Nastili is a poet, novelist, coach, and facilitator. Recipient of the Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize, she has been a finalist for the Commonwealth Short Story Award and a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in poetry. Her work has most recently appeared in Vogue.com, Literary Hub, WIRED Magazine, Black Renaissance Noire, Fourteen Hills Press, Room Magazine, Adirondack Review, among others. She has been the recipient of fellowships and residencies from Hedgebrook, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Poets House, and VONA/Voices. She is co-editor of BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Books). She curates Brunch & Word, a bi-coastal literary salon. She holds an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College’s Program for Writers and is at work on her first novel, which charts the lives of revolutionary Haitian women in the early twentieth century.

Ijeoma Oluo is a writer, speaker, and internet yeller. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, So You Want to Talk About Race, and most recently, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America. Her work on race has been featured in The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, among many other publications. She was named to the 2021 TIME 100 Next list and has twice been named to The Root 100. She received the 2018 Feminist Humanist Award and the 2020 Harvard Humanist of the Year Award from the American Humanist Association. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

Sonora Jha is the author of the novels The Laughter (2023) and Foreign (2013) and the memoir How to Raise a Feminist Son (2021). After a career as a journalist covering crime, politics, and culture in India and Singapore, she moved to the United States to earn a Ph.D. in media and public affairs. Dr. Jha’s op-eds, essays, and public appearances have been featured in the New York Times, on the BBC, in anthologies, and elsewhere. She is a professor of journalism in the Communication and Media Department and Associate Dean of Academic Community in the College of Arts & Sciences at Seattle University. Her new book, The Laughter, has been described by New York Times bestselling author Celeste Ng as “a deliciously sharp, mercilessly perceptive exploration of power.”

Presented by Town Hall Seattle.

Community Partners: Seattle Arts & Lectures and The Bushwick Book Club Seattle

This event is sponsored by The Unicorn Authors Club.