399. Sabina Nawaz with Frank X. Shaw: Are You a Good Boss? Navigating Leadership, Power, and Performance
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Release Date: 03/13/2025
401. Torrey Peters: In Conversation with Aster Olsen, Ebo Barton, Corinne Manning, and Amber Flame
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Trans stories are not confined to political rhetoric and headlines. The world of creative writing is replete with narratives that explore complex worlds of gender and how identity intersects with people’s lives and relationships. In a new collection of one novel and three stories, bestselling author Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing. In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will attend as women. When the most unlikely of...
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400. Arigon Starr: Sacred Breath: An Indigenous Writing and Storytelling Series
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Why do people feel compelled to share stories? Why do we yearn to reach others with our words, beyond necessary communication? Storytelling is a vital facet of human culture and is constantly expanding as we create new ways to communicate through words, art, and tangible experience. The Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington hosts an annual literary and storytelling series, Sacred Breath, featuring Indigenous writers and storytellers sharing their craft in the Seattle area. Storytelling offers a spiritual connection, a sharing of sacred breath. Literature,...
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399. Sabina Nawaz with Frank X. Shaw: Are You a Good Boss? Navigating Leadership, Power, and Performance
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
How do you know if you are a good boss? Whether you’re in the C-Suite or middle management, you’re probably not reaching your full potential, according to Sabina Nawaz, Fortune 500 coach and author of You’re the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need). Unfortunately, it’s often hard to recognize pitfalls as a boss or know how to address them. Luckily, Nawaz has some ideas. Pulling from over one thousand interviews at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Motorola, Nordstrom, and the United Nations, Nawaz offers managers advice on how to succeed. Her proprietary data...
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398. Keeonna Harris with Jodi-Ann Burey: Mainline Mama: Raising a Family Through Incarceration and Resistance
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
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...
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397. Shiza Shahid: Dinner at Our Place
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Celebrate culture and connection with Dinner at Our Place, the latest cookbook from the team behind Our Place, the makers of the beloved Always Pan®. Shiza Shahid, co-founder and CEO of the acclaimed cookware shares the brand’s mission to bring people together through the joy of cooking and dining. With contributions from 11 renowned chefs, tastemakers, and restaurateurs, the book presents over 100 recipes alongside curated menus designed to inspire memorable gatherings. Each chapter of Dinner at Our Place is a fully crafted dining experience, complete with playlists,...
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396. Kay Smith-Blum in Conversation with Joshua Frank, Moderated by Gerry Pollet: Nuclear Secrets, Past and Present
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Environmental advocate and HOANW founder, Gerry Pollet moderates a conversation with debut author Kay Smith-Blum and investigative journalist and author, Joshua Frank. They will explore the real-life inspirations behind Smith-Blum’s novel, Tangles, and its themes of environmental justice and human resilience against the stark backdrop of the state of the cleanup today, highlighted in Frank’s non-fiction volume, Atomic Days. Don’t miss this chance to dive into an emotionally charged story that daylights the fallout—both literal and figurative—of America’s nuclear ambitions and...
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395. Cynthia Brothers with Tom Eykemans: Signs of Vanishing Seattle
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Cities in postcards and sweeping film shots are all dramatic skylines and big recognizable features, but to really love a city is to know it on the ground level. The spaces that build community, shape culture, and support neighborhoods may not always be the flashiest silhouettes, but they’re often the most iconic to the people who live amongst them. This is something Vanishing Seattle knows all too well, as they’ve built an expansive media movement around shining lights on displaced small businesses and disappearing local institutions across the city. In their most recent collaborative...
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394. Unlearning with Lindsey T.H. Jackson: Misogynoir — The Intersection of Misogyny and Anti-Blackness
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Explore the uncomfortable conversations you’ve been eager for in a space that encourages open and safe expression. Weaving together storytelling, poetry, music, and panel interviews with powerful voices, Unlearning offers the opportunity to address issues like discrimination, social justice, violence, and many other pressing (and often taboo) topics while healing and learning together. Join Lindsey T.H. Jackson, a visionary social activist, podcaster, author, and CEO at LTHJ Global, for this first edition of Unlearning focusing on Misogynoir. Misogynoir is the...
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393. Rob Sheffield: An Era Like No Other — How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Throughout her storied career, Taylor Swift has kept her name in the news with chart-topping hits, aesthetic reinvention, and nonstop global influence. Over the years and across the genres, die-hard fans and scholars alike have chronicled the cultural phenomenon that is Taylor Swift. And long story short, pop music expert and self-described Taylor Swift aficionado Rob Sheffield has been along for the whole ride. In his newest book, Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music, Sheffield dives fearlessly into the labyrinth of Taylor Swift’s extensive...
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392. Opening Doors to the Outdoors: Inclusivity in Climbing
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Access to the outdoors is a basic human need—from the granite under our feet during adventures or simply a breath of fresh air. Yet, that access isn’t equal. In the U.S., more than one in three people lack access to a park within a 10-minute walk of home, disproportionately affecting Black and Brown communities. The outdoor and climbing industries face similar challenges. Lack of diversity in leadership, limited funding, and gate-kept information make the climb steeper for many. However, climbers of color have risen to become some of the sport’s most accomplished athletes, demonstrating...
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How do you know if you are a good boss? Whether you’re in the C-Suite or middle management, you’re probably not reaching your full potential, according to Sabina Nawaz, Fortune 500 coach and author of You’re the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need). Unfortunately, it’s often hard to recognize pitfalls as a boss or know how to address them. Luckily, Nawaz has some ideas.
Pulling from over one thousand interviews at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Motorola, Nordstrom, and the United Nations, Nawaz offers managers advice on how to succeed. Her proprietary data includes over two decades of coaching and in-depth research into the psychology of behavior and relationships. One key finding, she says, is that as our job expands, the added pressure to perform corrupts our actions, and our increased power blinds us to the impact of those actions. No one is immune to this. Even the most well-intentioned manager can quickly become the boss nobody wants to work for. Nawaz offers an in-depth framework for managing pressure and power with grace and intelligence.
Knowing if you’re a good boss doesn’t need to be a mystery. To be a good one, Nawaz says, is to manage yourself and others, navigate working relationships, and communicate effectively. You’ll know you’re a good boss when you’re doing these things, while also experiencing less stress and greater impact, becoming the boss everyone wants to work for.
Sabina Nawaz is an elite executive coach who advises C-level executives and teams at Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, nonprofits, and academic institutions around the world. Sabina gives dozens of keynotes, seminars, and conferences each year and teaches faculty at Northeastern and Drexel University. During her fourteen-year tenure at Microsoft, she went from managing software development teams to leading the company’s executive development and succession planning efforts for over 11,000 managers and nearly a thousand executives, advising Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer directly. She has written for and been featured in Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, NBC, Nasdaq, and MarketWatch.
Frank X. Shaw is the Chief Communications Officer at Microsoft, leading global communications strategy, storytelling, media relations, executive and employee communications, and more. With over 25 years of experience, he served as president of the Microsoft account at Waggener Edstrom Worldwide and has worked across government, entertainment, food, and retail sectors. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, he holds a journalism degree from the University of Oregon and serves on the boards of the Seattle YMCA and The LAGRANT Foundation.
