• September 28
• |
• Auburn

IN PERSON: Drag Culture: Beyond Entertainment

Typically held at bars and nightclubs, drag is a form of entertainment in which a performer uses clothing and makeup to impersonate a particular gender identity, usually of the opposite sex. Yet drag is so much more than nightclub entertainment—it provides community, instills self-confidence, and can even save lives. Join drag king performer Ceasar Hart […]

• September 28
• |
• Lakewood

IN PERSON: Life After Prison: The Prison-to-School Pipeline

You may have heard stories about tragic outcomes related to the “school-to-prison pipeline.” In this discussion, Omari Amili introduces new possibilities and challenges fear-based narratives through his exploration of a potential new pipeline that runs from prison to college. While sharing his story and exploring the history of mass incarceration, especially in Washington State, Omari […]

• September 24
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• Moses Lake

IN PERSON: Telling Your Story: A Personal Essay Workshop

Our life stories are a means for connection—a tender offering in a troubled era. Part reportage and part reflection, personal essays can reveal hidden truths about ourselves, our families, and our societies. In this interactive and generative writing workshop, Kristen Millares Young will help participants tell their own stories. Available in English and Spanish, each […]

• September 24
• |
• Moses Lake

IN PERSON: Telling Your Story: A Personal Essay Workshop

Our life stories are a means for connection—a tender offering in a troubled era. Part reportage and part reflection, personal essays can reveal hidden truths about ourselves, our families, and our societies. In this interactive and generative writing workshop, Kristen Millares Young will help participants tell their own stories. Available in English and Spanish, each […]

• September 24
• |
• Stanwood

IN PERSON: Will the 2020s Roar like the 1920s?

A pandemic, protests, and economic jolts ushered in the so-called “Roaring Twenties.” Americans adjusted in ways both innovative and counterproductive. What lessons from the 1920s can we apply to our own looming 20s? Historian William Woodward charts the eerily familiar developments of a century ago: shattered idealism, social clashes, domestic terrorism, culture wars, disorienting technologies, […]

• September 24
• |
• Bellevue

IN PERSON: The Samurai Code: How Bushido Changes Lives

Bushido—the way of the warrior—is the code of ethics practiced by the samurai warriors of ancient Japan, a code which includes courage, integrity, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor, and loyalty. Through her own story of using Bushido to overcome a traumatic brain injury, Lori Tsugawa Whaley shows how the code can help people find hope, resilience, […]

• September 22
• |
• Langley

IN PERSON: An Appetite for Film: Food in the Movies

A film can build tension through editing, just like a simmering stew builds flavor through a slow dance between ingredients. Putting food and film together, however, opens movie lovers up to a slew of wonderful experiences and shared memories. Food can help us to identify with characters who bond over meals, explore ideas about identity […]

• September 22

ONLINE: The Samurai Code: How Bushido Changes Lives

Bushido—the way of the warrior—is the code of ethics practiced by the samurai warriors of ancient Japan, a code which includes courage, integrity, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor, and loyalty. Through her own story of using Bushido to overcome a traumatic brain injury, Lori Tsugawa Whaley shows how the code can help people find hope, resilience, […]

• September 21

ONLINE: Redefining Protest through Music

Acts of protest tap into layers of our heritage and identity that strengthen the foundations of what we are fighting for. So how can we root ourselves more deeply in our heritage and identity, thereby strengthening our fight against injustice? Using roots music as a lens, Ben Hunter and Joe Seamons draw on stories, songs, […]

• September 20

ONLINE: Humanity in Print: Literature and Human Rights

We don’t extend human rights to people we don’t see as fully human. So how do we develop empathy for those we view as alien or inhuman? One way is through literature, which takes us inside the lives and actions of others. By instilling empathy, and by giving voice to cries for justice, literature forms […]