What would happen to the divisions in our country if we set aside our phones, and our assumptions, and truly tried to understand people who are different from us?

Mónica Guzmán did this in her own family, and she's convinced that the country could do it, too. The Seattle-based journalist, entrepreneur and self-described liberal starts her new book with the personal story of coming to terms with her own parents, Mexican immigrants who voted twice for Donald Trump for president.

The rest of the book is a guide for the rest of us: I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.

Longtime readers will remember Guzmán as a technology columnist who wrote regularly for GeekWire in the early years of the site. We also worked together previously at the Seattle P-I newspaper, where she started the Big Blog for SeattlePI.com.

She wrote for the Seattle Times and went on to co-found The Evergrey newsletter in Seattle. She's currently digital director of the non-profit Braver Angels, whose mission of bringing together people of different political beliefs matches the premise of her recent work. She's also the host of Crosscut's Northwest Newsmakers.

We talk about her new book, and the role of technology in all of this, on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast. Hosted by GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.