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There\\u2019s no way around it \\u2014 it\\u2019s a challenging time in America. Societies have lived through pandemics and political strife before, but never with powerful tools like social media and the Internet. It makes for a special brand of division that most of us have experienced in some way, from dinner table arguments with relatives to heated interactions at the grocery store. Have we forgotten how to interact and connect, despite our differences?

Journalist M\\xf3nica Guzm\\xe1n knows the struggle all too well. She\\u2019s the liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted \\u2014 twice \\u2014 for Donald Trump. She\\u2019s also the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization\\xa0Braver Angels, which works to bring Americans together and strengthen our democratic republic. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Guzm\\xe1n set out to cut through the fog and discovered the most eye-opening tool we\\u2019re not using: our own curiosity. In her new book,\\xa0I Never Thought of It That Way, Guzm\\xe1n drew from conversations she\\u2019s had, organized, or witnessed everywhere, from the echo chambers on social media to the raw, unfiltered fights with her family on election night. Guzm\\xe1n shared how to put a natural sense of wonder to work by talking with\\xa0people \\u2014 rather than about them \\u2014 and asking tough, meaningful questions across divides while maintaining openness and curiosity.

Together with political cartoonist David Horsey, Guzm\\xe1n discussed how to overcome fear, labels, and assumptions and have human conversations with people whose identities and values are different from, or even opposed to, our own.

M\\xf3nica Guzm\\xe1n\\xa0is a journalist and entrepreneur who lives for good conversation sparked by challenging questions. She\\u2019s the cofounder of\\xa0The Evergrey, an award-winning newsletter and community in Seattle, and serves as an adviser to Braver Angels, a national organization out to depolarize America, and Together Washington, an organization building collaborative local relationships among leaders in Washington state. M\\xf3nica is a former columnist at\\xa0The Seattle Times, GeekWire,\\xa0and the\\xa0Columbia Journalism Review.\\xa0She studied social and political division as a 2019 Henry M. Jackson leadership fellow, and spent the 2015-2016 academic year studying how journalists can evolve to better meet the needs of a participatory public as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. She is an immigrant, a Latina, a dual U.S.-Mexico citizen, and the mom of two bilingual kids.

David Horsey\\xa0is a two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for political cartooning. Syndicated by Tribune Content Agency, David\\u2019s work has appeared in hundreds of media outlets, including\\xa0The New York Times,\\xa0The Washington Post, USA Today, Politico,\\xa0and MSNBC.com. After a long career at\\xa0Seattle Post-Intelligencer\\xa0and six years as a political commentator for\\xa0The Los Angeles Times, Horsey is now based at\\xa0The\\xa0Seattle Times.

Buy the Book: I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times (Hardcover)\\xa0from Elliott Bay Books

Presented by Town Hall Seattle, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, and the Western Washington Braver Angels Alliance.