298. Keeonna Harris with Jodi-Ann Burey: Mainline Mama: Raising a Family Through Incarceration and Resistance
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Release Date: 03/06/2025
348. V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke with Moira Macdonald: The Ending Writes Itself: A Novel
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Layering classic tropes of the mystery genre with a clever modern satire of the publishing industry, The Ending Writes Itself is the debut novel of “Evelyn Clarke,” a new writing collaboration between best-selling authors V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke. Joined in conversation by local author and journalist Moira Macdonald, Schwab and Clarke explore their co-authoring venture and the twists and turns that await readers in their new take on a locked-room mystery thriller. How will the pages unfold for the six authors isolated with nothing but their own minds, a diabolical...
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347. David Pogue: The Most Iconic Brand in the World: The History of Apple
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Although the present ubiquity of Apple is well-known, how much do you know about its past? Just in time for Apple’s 50th anniversary, author and CBS correspondent David Pogue tells the history of the iconic company: how it was born, nearly died, and was revived under the legendary Steve Jobs, and how it later became the most iconic brand in the world. On April 1, 1976, two men in their 20s, both named Steve, founded a modest startup. Their goal was to bring the power of computers to everyone. Over the next five decades, Apple revolutionized the tech landscape, introducing the public to...
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346. Burl Dirkman: Power Thru It! With Special Guests J. Kenji López-Alt and Tomo Nakayama
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
From the mind of Brett Hamil, the cartoonist behind Doom Loop and co-producer of Joketellers Union, comes an utterly unique talk show. Starring Hamil’s wistful handyman alter ego Burl Dirkman, Power Thru It! with Burl Dirkman will take the audience on a comedic journey of self-discovery, featuring interviews with local luminaries J. Kenji López-Alt and Tomo Nakayama, and cathartic activities designed to help you access your long-neglected emotional core. Prepare to cry real tears of joy! Brett Hamil is a cartoonist and comedian living in Seattle. He publishes a weekly political...
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345. Lauren Groff with Amber Flame: Brawler: Short Stories
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Whether you know her from her short stories in The New Yorker or The Atlantic or from one of her bestselling novels, Lauren Groff is arguably one of the leading literary voices in the U.S. Groff will share from her new collection of short stories, Brawler, which reflects upon humanity’s ceaseless battle between our dark and light angels. Ranging from the 1950s to the present day and moving across age, class, and region––from New England to Florida to California––the nine stories in Groff’s newest collection dive into the animal and the divine within us...
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344. Andrew Yang with Jonathan Sposato: Hey Yang, Where’s My Thousand Bucks?
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Remember that one time in 2019 when presidential candidate Andrew Yang promised a thousand dollars a month for a whole year to ten U.S. families if they donated to his campaign? Yang would like to address this. Pulling from his latest book titled Hey Yang, Where’s My Thousand Bucks?, Yang shares stories from his remarkable life so far, including this viral moment during a live presidential debate. Beyond championing universal basic income, Yang would like to bring a little humor into the world. In his candid and playful accounts, Yang examines where the U.S. sits today through the lens...
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343. Judith Enck with Bellamy Pailthorp: The Problem with Plastic
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
In less than 100 years, plastic has gone from a novel invention to a ubiquitous feature across the globe. Plastic is now found in everything from household objects to industrial mechanisms to inside human bodies themselves. Once a marvel of modern science, plastic has become so inextricably woven into our lives that imagining a world without it can seem impossible. Backed by years of research and reflections taking place in real time with changing technology and environmental awareness, The Problem with Plastic critically examines the paradox of this material and how swiftly its...
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342. John Patrick Green with Ben Clanton: InvestiGators: Agents of S.U.I.T.: Sew Much Trouble
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
When something wacky is going on in the Gatorverse, the Special Undercover Investigation Teams know that it’s time to S.U.I.T. up! Join the team at S.U.I.T. headquarters with the newest book in John Patrick Green’s InvestiGators spinoff series– Agents of S.U.I.T.: Sew Much Trouble. Someone has stolen the Notorious P.I.G. food truck, and with it, Piggy Smalls’ special BBQ sauce! But before super-spy Badgers Bongo and Marsha can solve the case, they need to solve the problems they’re having with each other. To help them realize what a great team they truly are, General Inspector...
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341. Kate Quinn with Elise Hooper: Astral Library: A Novel
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Have you ever wished you could go inside of a book? You could travel to a new place, see new sights, potentially live a different life altogether — all from the page. From New York Times bestselling author Kate Quinn comes Astral Library, a fantastical novel where books are not merely objects, but doors to different worlds, different adventures, and different futures. After growing up in the foster care system, protagonist Alix Watson came to believe one thing: unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and letting her dreams...
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340. Thomas Mallon with Katie Campbell: Opera Talk: Fellow Travelers
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Hear from acclaimed author, essayist, and critic Thomas Mallon, whose novel Fellow Travelers (2007) inspired an opera and a SHOWTIME® miniseries. With exacting attention to historical detail, Mallon’s novel brings to life the shameful era in the early 1950s known as the Lavender Scare, during which gay and lesbian federal employees were systematically expelled from government service. More recently, Mallon also published The Very Heart of It (2025), a collection of journal entries during his literary coming-of-age during the AIDS crisis in New York City. Reporter Katie...
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339. Chuck Klosterman:The Football Phenomenon
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
For many Americans, football is more than just a sport — it is a way of life. Year after year, it remains the most watched sport in the country, captivating millions every season. A recent study showed that 93 of the 100 most-watched programs on U.S. television were NFL football games. Football, whether we like it or not, is inescapable. Chuck Klosterman, New York Times bestselling author, journalist, and critic, visits Town Hall just after Super Bowl Weekend to discuss his newest book, Football. Here, Klosterman dissects the question of natural greatness, looks at football through...
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Writer and prison abolitionist Keeonna Harris shares her intimate memoir, Mainline Mama, about the formidable challenge of raising a family separated by prison walls and how we can fight back against a broken Byzantine system.
Keeonna and Jason met as young teens. Only fourteen, Keeonna had never had a boyfriend before, dreamed of attending Spelman to become an obstetrician, and thought she was “grown.” Within a year she was pregnant, and Jason was in prison, convicted of a carjacking and sentenced to twenty-two years. Overnight Keeonna had become a “mainline mama,” a parent facing the impossible task of raising a child — while still growing up herself — with an incarcerated partner.
Keeonna recalls her harrowing journey in Mainline Mama, from learning to overcome the exhausting difficulties of navigating the carceral system in the United States, to transforming herself into an advocate for other women like her — the predominantly Black and brown women left behind to pick up the pieces of their families and fractured lives. She offers inspiration and solace, showing how to create moments of beauty, humanity, and love in a place designed to break spirits.
Mainline Mama is about creating self-love and community — crucial acts of radical resistance against a prison industrial complex that is designed to dehumanize and to separate and shut away incarcerated individuals and their loved ones from the world.
Keeonna Harris is a writer, storyteller, mother of five, and prison abolitionist. She is a Ph.D. Candidate at Arizona State University finishing her dissertation Everybody Survived but Nobody Survived: Black Feminism, Motherhood, and Mass Incarceration. Her memoir, Mainline Mama draws from her experiences as a Black woman, teen mother, and twenty years of raising children with an incarcerated partner and building community in the borderlands of the prison.
Jodi-Ann Burey (she/her) is a writer and critic who works at the intersections of race, culture, and health equity. Her debut book, Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work disrupts traditional narratives about racism at work and is forthcoming in 2025 with Flatiron Books.
