Bridge Builder, Journalist, and Writer
Mónica Guzmán
author of
I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times
in conversation with series host
Michael N. McGregor
author of The Last Grand Tour and the forthcoming memoir
An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life
6 p.m., Thursday, March 13
Cascadia Art Museum, 190 Sunset Ave, Edmonds, WA 98020
(To order tickets through the Cascadia website, click here)
As the author of I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times and host of the podcast A Braver Way, Mónica Guzmán is exactly the kind of voice we need right now in our country and world.
Since doing the interviews that led to the writing of her book, she has been a fierce advocate for engaging our curiosity and bravery to ask thoughtful questions of–and listen with an open mind to–those who differ from us. Her book has been embraced by people across the political spectrum who feel desperate to find a way to move forward together.
In addition to being an author, podcast host, and popular speaker, Guzmán is the founder and CEO of Reclaim Curiosity, an organization working to build a more curious world. She is also a Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels and serves on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Multipartisan Education.
As the inaugural McGurn Fellow at the University of Florida, Guzmán has worked with researchers at the UF College of Journalism and Communications to find the best ways to employ the techniques described in her book to boost understanding. Her past work includes time as a fellow at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, where she studied social and political division, and at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where she studied how journalists can better meet the needs of a participatory public.
Guzmán’s work has been featured in The New York Times, the Glenn Beck Podcast, Reader’s Digest, BookTV, and EconTalk, and she is an advisor for Starts With Us and the Generations Over Dinner project.
A Mexican immigrant, Latina, and dual US/Mexico citizen, she lives in Seattle with her husband and two children and is the proud liberal daughter of conservative parents.
You can read more about her and her work at moniguzman.com.
You can purchase Mónica Guzmán’s book online at the Edmonds Bookshop.
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About the Cascadia Writers-in-Conversation Series
On the second Thursday of each month, host Michael N. McGregor will bring one Northwest writer in front of an enthusiastic audience for a brief reading, a discussion of the author’s work, and a question-and-answer session with engaged literature lovers.
The series is intended to showcase the wealth of writing talent in the Pacific Northwest. To that end, it will feature writers from different genres at different stages of their careers who may have been overlooked rather than those readers already know.
Writers who appear in the series will be featured on WritingtheNorthwest.com.
This is a unique chance to hear talented writers speak in-depth about what it means to be an author in the Northwest and why and how they create their works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The conversations will all take place in one of Cascadia’s beautiful galleries, with Northwest art lining the walls.
Cascadia Art Museum is the only museum dedicated to artists and their works from the Pacific Northwest. Focused on visual art and design from 1860 to 1970, it is committed to the belief that recognizing previously neglected artists who made significant contributions to the region’s cultural identity gives us a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of Northwest art history. The Writers-in-Conversation series signals the museum’s desire to highlight underappreciated Northwest artists in literature as well. The series is sponsored by the Edmonds Bookshop and Holman.
Michael N. McGregor is Seattle-based author whose book Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award. After living his early life in Seattle, he spent 17 years as an award-winning professor of creative writing at Portland State University, where he helped found the MFA in Creative Writing program. A former member of the Advisory Committee for the Oregon Book Awards and Fellowships, he holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Oregon and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in New York. His first novel, The Last Grand Tour, was published earlier this year by Portland publisher Korza Books. His next book is: An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life, coming May 13 from Monkfish Publishing.
Note: I’m an affiliate of Bookshop.org, where your purchases support local bookstores. If you buy a book through a click on this website, I’ll earn a small commission that helps defray the costs of maintaining WritingtheNorthwest.com.