Name: Karen Polinsky and Ian Mackay
Start: 2025-05-06T19:30:00-07:00
End: 2025-05-06T19:30:00-07:00
Location: The Wyncote NW Forum

Karen Polinsky and Ian Mackay

Ian's Ride: A Long-Distance Journey to Joy

Date:: Tuesday, May 6
Time:: 7:30 pm PDT
Cost:: $10 – $35 Sliding Scale

Get Tickets

Venue

: The Wyncote NW Forum
: 1119 8th Ave (Entrance off Seneca St.)
Seattle, 98101 United States + Google Map

Event Format: In-Person, Livestream

Note: Town Hall events are approximately 75 minutes long.

A livestream of this event is also available.

From left to right: Headshots of Karen Polinsky (with fair skin, short grey hair, eyeglasses) and Ian Mackay (with long blonde hair, black beanie, and orange winter jacket) sitting in his electric wheelchair

Arts & Culture

At 26, Ian Mackay loved the outdoors, natural sciences, and cycling. While studying as a biology undergrad at UC Santa Cruz, he crashed his bike into a tree on campus and forever changed his relationship with how he – and others like him – experienced nature. After sustaining a spinal cord injury that would leave him paralyzed from the shoulders down, Mackay was challenged with rehabilitating his body, his mental wellness, and his adventurous lifestyle. In Ian’s Ride: A Long-Distance Journey to Joy, author Karen Polinsky traverses both Ian’s personal journey to recovery against all the odds and the path his work has cleared for fellow nature lovers.

In this intimate memoir brought to life through more than one hundred hours of interviews, journal entries, and more, Polinsky depicts Ian’s story with heartfelt honesty. As he adapted to his new life in the Pacific Northwest with the help of his dedicated mother Teena, as well as family and friends, he grew inspired to revisit his bond with the outdoors. After years of personal growth, advocacy, and accessibility research, Ian has become a community leader, an innovator with Apple, and a world-record-breaking athlete. Ian’s Ride is an inspirational tale of perseverance and an adventure quest for nature lovers, endurance athletes, and anyone struggling with a life-changing loss or diagnosis. This deftly narrated saga examines the passions and challenges that inform how we exist in our hearts, our bodies, our communities, and our natural world.

Karen Polinsky is a novelist and playwright, as well as a former journalist and high school teacher. Her written works include the book Dungeness, the dance drama Heart of Stone, and more than a dozen staged plays.

Ian Mackay, a C2/3 quadriplegic, is a nature lover, mobility technology innovator, and endurance athlete. Mackay is the executive director of the nonprofit Ian’s Ride, which aims to increase accessibility to the outdoors. He also serves as an ambassador for the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and is a proud board member of The Here and Now Project, a chapter of the United Spinal Association.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle.