How Curious Conversations Can Build Bridges with Monica Guzman

We live in divided times. While there is much to learn from our differences, lately, our differences seem to divide and limit how we communicate and connect with family, friends, or co-workers. If you can’t be curious across divides in a polarized world,” Monica Guzman says, “you can’t see the world at all.” Monica is a Seattle-based author, a bridge builder, and a Washington State Book Award Finalist who believes that curiosity is the most powerful tool we have to navigate our world, especially when our world is dangerously divided. Join us for this 90-minute virtual program on November 9th to learn about the power of curiosity-driven conversations. Mónica will demonstrate how having critical conversations with people—instead of about them—changes everything and how taking the first steps toward understanding the views that most confound us isn’t just possible, it’s easier than you think. Mónica Guzmán is a bridge builder, journalist, and author who lives for great conversations sparked by curious questions. She’s Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, the nation’s largest cross-partisan grassroots organization working to depolarize America; founder and CEO of Reclaim Curiosity, an organization working to build a more curious world; cofounder of the award-winning Seattle newsletter The Evergrey; and advisor for Starts With Us and the Generations Over Dinner project. She was a 2019 fellow at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, where she studied social and political division, and a 2016 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where she researched how journalists can rethink their roles to better meet the needs of a participatory public. This program is brought to you by NCW Libraries and in partnership with Wenatchee Valley Dispute Resolution Center and NCW Equity Alliance