Author Nomi Prins used to be a Wall Street banker. Now she writes with a critical eye about how banks and economies work. One example: how in 2017, U.S. banks used 99 percent of their earnings to buy their own stocks and pay out dividends to their shareholders.

It sometimes seems as if author Barbara Ehrenreich has seen it all and done it all. From “Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers” to “Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything,” the scope of her writing has been vast.

The Civic Cocktail series brings political, business and community leaders to Seattle for a drink and a line of questioning from reporters and attendees. The most recent session featured Senator Patty Murray and former Washington Governor and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

The work of diplomacy is subtle, but the actions of world leaders are sometimes the opposite. Famed American diplomat Madeleine Albright confronts the dangers of undiplomatic and undemocratic political trends in her new book “Fascism: A Warning.”

Last year, a hashtag became an event in Seattle: #EducationSoWhite 2017 gave voice to and started a conversation about the lack of diversity among teachers in our schools. Ninety percent of Washington state teachers are white, while nearly half of the students are people of color.

There’s a thing at talks around Seattle. Often enough, you can feel it when the crowd gets restless if the event goes to a certain length. You can see the people looking for a chance to exit. One bolts, and others rush to follow. There was no restlessness at author Alexander Chee’s reading on Monday night. Even though the room was a tad warm, no one left. They hardly stirred. Here, Chee discusses his life and work with Seattle-based writer Matillda Bernstein Sycamore. And he reads two...

If Diane Ravitch were running for office, her opponent might attack her for being "for Common Core before she was against it." Ravitch served as an assistant secretary of education in the George W. Bush administration, and was originally a proponent of standardized testing, school choice, common core standards and the No Child Left Behind Act.

Last year thousands of people hit the streets of Seattle and the nation to march for all things scientific: respect for the scientific method, evidence-based government policies, public funding for research and increased support for STEM education.

You hear of situations where a book comes to a writer in a torrent. In this talk, writer André Aciman tells such a story about his well-loved novel “Call Me By Your Name,” published in 2007. Aciman’s book came to renewed acclaim, and some controversy, when the film adaptation became a phenomenon last year. The acclaim: The movie was nominated for multiple awards and won an Academy Award for screenwriter James Ivory. The controversy: Some raised age-of-consent issues about the relationship...

Over the last few years Speakers Forum has featured broadcasts of the Seattle theatre troupe Sandbox Radio . In that time we came to love the work of actor and comedian Peggy Platt. She wrote and performed skits full of sharp humor and the ironies of life.

Steve Coll is a staff writer for The New Yorker. His new book, a sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winner “Ghost Wars,” is “Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016.”

As crazy as the world seems sometimes, author Steven Pinker argues our ancestors would most certainly envy us. From life expectancy and standards of health to general prosperity, peace and happiness, he argues we’re better off than they were — and don’t get him started on anesthesia.

This past weekend, students in hundreds of cities and towns around the country joined in March For Our Lives ‘sibling marches.’ Before the March For Our Lives Seattle event, students and supporters gathered to hear speeches.

Ignite Seattle needs to be on your Seattle bucket list. But until you can make it out to one of their events, listen in to your fellow citizens’ brave and inspiring efforts to share their ideas with hundreds of friendly strangers.

Many words come to mind at the mention of Dr. Temple Grandin : creative, intelligent, daring, persistent, curious, no-nonsense, dedicated, inspirational. If you have heard her speak or seen the movie about her life, you know she is unique. If you haven’t heard about her, this talk will be a gift. She is a force. Grandin was diagnosed as brain-damaged at age two. Her mother Anna steadfastly pursued ways to understand her daughter’s condition and ultimately educate her. Anna came to suspect...

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich is famously small in stature—and has a penchant for short jokes about himself — but he has big ideas about democracy, patriotism, work, leadership, and the American experiment.

If you’re familiar with the Dear Sugar advice column, you know who Steve Almond is. For the uninitiated, he was the first “Sugar” — a purportedly female advice columnist on The Rumpus. After a while, Almond says, that got weird.

You don’t have to score tickets to Hamilton to know that debate played a crucial role in U.S. history. When it comes to charting the course of a nation, there is no substitute. The same is true in planning for the future of cities like Seattle. So, here’s a query for a modern debate: Is Amazon, the behemoth internet retailer, good for Seattle?

We hear all the time about the social-political divide in the United States, mostly from the comfort of our respective bubbles. When UC Berkeley-based sociology professor Arlie Russel Hochschild realized the extent to which she didn’t understand the experience of right-leaning Americans, she decided to do something about it. She choose to embed herself in Lake Charles, Louisiana, for an ethnographic experiment.

For twenty-six years, Seattle’s African-American Writers’ Alliance has held a reading at The Elliott Bay Book Company on the last Saturday in February. The group’s mission is to provide support for new and published writers, provide peer review, and create opportunities for public readings.