In the decades since his untimely passing at the age of thirty-two, Bruce Lee's body of work has grown to an undeniably lasting legacy. He went on to become globally recognized after his death, his influence acting as a cultural bridge between the East and West – popularizing martial arts and providing inspiration and momentum for a new arena of Western martial arts films. While the impact of his work can be seen across genres and generations, cultural historian and journalist Jeff Chang is hoping to highlight the barrier-breaking importance of Bruce Lee's life to the development of Asian American identity over the last fifty years.

In his new biography, Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America, Chang highlights areas of Bruce Lee's story that have been overshadowed by acclaim. Chang unpacks the stark reality of Bruce Lee as a baby born in segregated San Francisco and a youth living in war-ravaged, fight-crazy Hong Kong. As he found his way back to America as a teenager, Bruce Lee embraced West Coast counterculture and meshed it with the Asian worldviews and philosophies that reared him. Water Mirror Echo – a title inspired by Bruce Lee's own way of moving, being, and responding to the world – explores how these transitions and unique vantage points created a figure whose very presence helped shape the idea of what being an Asian in America is, at a critical time in the early development of the culture.

Chang presents this new work in conversation with a panel of figures directly affected by Lee's life– activist and former student Sue Ann Kay, long-time friend Doug Palmer, and daughter Shannon Lee. Water Mirror Echo layers an expertly collected archive of Lee's life with a thoughtfully nuanced analysis of the way Lee defied stereotypes and expectations. The complex biography draws from in-depth interviews, thousands of newly available personal documents, and features dozens of photographs from the family's archive, brought together by Chang's pursuit of heartfelt authenticity. Water Mirror Echo explores the man behind the iconography and shows Lee's growing fame ushering in something even more enduring: the creation of Asian America.

Jeff Chang is an award-winning writer, host, and cultural organizer. His previous books include the critically acclaimed Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, Who We Be: A Cultural History of Race in Post Civil Rights America, and We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation. Chang has been a Lucas Artist Fellow and has received the American Book Award, the Asian American Literary Award, and the USA Ford Fellowship in Literature. He is the host of the podcasts Edge of Reason and Notes from the Edge. His bylines have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, The Guardian, and more.

Shannon Lee is an author, producer, speaker, and acts as the steward of her father's legacy. She is the founder and president of the Bruce Lee Foundation and the host of the Bruce Lee Podcast as well as the short-form podcast A Little Leeway. Her published books include the philosophical guide Be Water, My Friend, and the YA fantasy novel Breath of the Dragon.

Doug Palmer is a retired lawyer and the author of the memoir Bruce Lee: Sifu, Friend, and Big Brother published by Seattle-based Chin Music Press. He grew up in Seattle, where he met and learned gung fu from Bruce Lee. While attending Yale University, he spent a summer with Bruce and his family in Hong Kong. After graduating with a major in Chinese Studies and obtaining a law degree from Harvard Law School, he worked in Tokyo for 4-1/2 years.

Sue Ann Kay is a third-generation Chinese American with family roots to early Seattle Chinatown (late 1800s) and the current Chinatown International District (CID). She was Bruce Lee's first female student, relishing lessons that included Chinese philosophy and martial arts. Kay is currently involved with grassroots groups like the CID Coalition (aka "Humbows not Hotels") and Eggrolls. She is also a singer with the Seattle Raging Grannies.

Wing Luke Museum

Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Wing Luke Museum.

Elyse Myers is known to her 12 million followers as "The Internet's Best Friend," sharing relatable stories and comedic sketches while serving as an advocate for topics such as neurodiversity, impostor syndrome, body image, and more. Whether she's making people laugh with tales of disastrous dates or giving a voice to that awkward internal monologue many of us have, she has three simple goals behind everything she makes: To make people feel known, loved, and like they belong.

In That's a Great Question, I'd Love to Tell You, Elyse delivers a debut collection of deeply personal stories and hand-drawn illustrations, offering even more intimate reflections beyond what fans have seen on her social media, including:

• Spending 7 Minutes in Heaven and accidentally friend-zoning her crush
• How Lucy, the Magic 8 Ball keychain, changed her life by accident
• The "meat cute" when she met her smoke show of a husband at a butcher's counter in Australia

Plus, stories of bad dates and almost-dates; the irresistible but hopeless urge to reinvent yourself; panic attacks and the escape routes they inspire; favorite pens and the systems for using them—all while navigating the art of loving and being loved, ideally at the same time.

Elyse Myers is a writer, comedian, and content creator who's known to her twelve million followers as "The Internet's Best Friend," sharing relatable stories and comedic sketches and serving as an advocate for topics such as neurodivergence, impostor syndrome, body image, and more. Whether she's making people laugh with stories of disastrous dates or giving a voice to that awkward internal monologue many of us have, she has three simple goals behind everything she makes: To make people feel known, loved, and like they belong. She hopes that by sharing her authentic and unfiltered self with the world, others will feel comfortable doing the same. Elyse lives in the Midwest with her husband, two sons, and her pillow pet named Wallace.

Elliott Bay Book Company

"Our cuisine, with its grits and black-eyed peas, crab cakes, red rice, and endless variations on the staple foods of the region, casts a spell that, if you're lucky, gets passed down with snapping string beans at the table and chewing cane on the back porch." – Michael W. Twitty

Cooking is more than just ingredients and instructions, and a big pot on the stove can act as a vessel for connection and culture just as much as it does for rice and beans. Exploring the contextual roots and legacies passed down through food culture has been a lifelong endeavor for culinary historian Michael W. Twitty, and his upcoming cookbook Recipes From the American South aims to unpack a bounty of knowledge and flavor for the home cook.

In the introduction to this thoughtfully rendered recipe collection, Twitty declares, "No one state or area can give you the breadth of the Southern story or fully set the Southern table." Recipes from the American South sets out on a journey to cover as much ground as possible through one of America's most foundational culinary landscapes — showcasing more than 260 beloved regional dishes rooted from the Louisiana Bayou to the Chesapeake Bay.

Layered with diverse origin stories and detailed annotations, Twitty brings readers an expansive collection of both iconic fare and lesser-known specialties. Chicken and Dumplings, She-crab Soup, Red Eye Gravy, Benne Seed Wafers, Hummingbird Cake, and Mint Juleps appear alongside Shrimp Pilau, Chorizo Dirty Rice, Sumac Lemonade, and Cajun Pig's Ears Pastry. Vibrant photography and Twitty's lyrical essays accompany the menu at every course, from biscuits and breads to mains and sides to sauces and sweets.

Through this cookbook, Twitty aims to showcase how the region's "multicultural gumbo" of influences have transformed staple ingredients into a lasting impact on American food culture as a whole. Expansive, authoritative, and beautifully designed — Recipes from the American South invites readers to take a seat at the kitchen table and learn how to cook, understand, and connect with every plate.

Michael W. Twitty is an acclaimed culinary historian, speaker, educator, and independent scholar with a focus on historic African American food and folk culture. He is the author of the two-time James Beard Award-winning book The Cooking Gene, as well as Rice and Koshersoul. His work has been featured in publications including the Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, PBS, and NPR's The Splendid Table, as well as Afroculinaria, his culinary history blog devoted to the preservation of historic African American foods and foodways.

Chef Kristi Brown has spent over three decades in the culinary industry, starting at a café in downtown Seattle. After graduating from Seattle Culinary Academy, she founded That Brown Girl Cooks Catering in the mid-1990s. Her mantra, "Everybody Gotta Eat," led her to co-found a community kitchen, earning widespread recognition. In the same era, Chef Kristi and her son Damon Bomar opened Communion R&B in Seattle's Central District. With praise from Conde Nast Traveler and The New York Times, the restaurant has become a beacon of unity and community.

Book Larder

Have you ever heard the phrase "healthy competition?" Competing is often viewed as a positive: we are told that it motivates us, drives innovation, and helps us excel. But what if this approach were mistaken, and competition actually causes more harm than good? In this panel discussion, author Ruchika T. Malhotra will be joined by Ijeoma Oluo, Ekin Yasin, and La'Kita Williams to explore the central ideas of her new book, Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success.

Author Ruchika Malhotra offers a different framework for success than what we are used to. Uncompete argues that competition leads to exhaustion, anxiety, burnout, and an isolating lack of community. It encourages a scarcity mindset and keeps us from reaching our true potential. Instead, Malhotra argues, we should be investigating this cultural norm and even rewriting it into ways that are likely unfamiliar, such as by tapping into benign envy or finding joy in other people's victories.

Drawing on interviews as well as Malhotra's own experiences working with corporations as an inclusion strategist, Uncompete promotes a culture of collaboration and mutuality. The book offers that this approach leads not only to a happier workplace, but one more likely to succeed. Likewise, it can also lead to happier and healthier lives even outside of work.

Malhotra subverts the dominant, dog-eat-dog paradigm and makes a radical argument: there is room for everyone at the table and everyone can succeed.

Ruchika T. Malhotra is the founder of Candour, a global inclusion strategy firm that has worked with some of the world's biggest organizations. She is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review and was a founding editor of The Establishment, a women-funded-and-led media website, has written for The New York Times, Forbes.com, TIME, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Quartz, The Seattle Times, and more. She was an adjunct faculty in Communications at University of Washington and Seattle University and is the author of INCLUSION ON PURPOSE: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work, MIT Press' top selling book of 2022.

Ijeoma Oluo is a Seattle-based writer, speaker, and internet yeller. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling first book, So You Want To Talk About Race, Mediocre, and Be a Revolution. Her work on race and gender has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and NBC News; and she has been featured on The Daily Show and NPR's All Things Considered. Named on the TIME 100 Next list and The Root 100, she's been awarded the Harvard Humanist of the Year Award, the American Humanist Association's Feminist Humanist Award, Gender Justice League's Media Justice Award, and the Equal Opportunity Institute's Aubrey Davis Visionary Leadership Award.

Dr. Ekin Yasin is a professor, researcher, and program leader with expertise in communication, emerging technologies, and leadership development. As Director of the Communication Leadership graduate program at the University of Washington, her work explores how technology transforms identity, storytelling, influence, and global communication. She collaborates with universities around the world on program development, AI-integrated curriculum design, and responsive education models that meet the needs of a shifting global landscape.

La'Kita Williams is the Founder and Principal Strategist of CoCreate Work, a future-focused coaching and consulting company specializing in executive coaching and organizational development. She holds a Master's in Social Work and is a Certified Professional Coach (CPC). La'Kita developed the 5 Components of Inclusive Culture, a step-by-step framework to help organizations, small businesses, and emerging companies build responsive workplaces that put humans first. La'Kita teaches graduate courses in the Department of Communication Leadership at the University of Washington, including Resilient and Inclusive Leadership for The Future of Work. She has been quoted in the New York Times, written for Harvard Business Review and MSNBC Know your Value, and has appeared on numerous podcasts to discuss leadership and the future of work.

In his debut book We Survived the Night, artist and writer Julian Brave NoiseCat takes readers on a complex journey of Indigenous experience stemming from a childhood rich with culture and contradictions. Reeling from his father — a Secwépemc and St'at'imc artist haunted by a troubled past — abandoning his family, NoiseCat and his non-Native mother found themselves embraced and invigorated by their community. Supported by the urban Native population in Oakland, California and family on the Canim Lake Indian Reserve in British Columbia, NoiseCat was able to immerse himself in Native history and culture. Doing so bridged the gaps in his knowledge of his father's past and their stories and sent him on a journey to further his understanding of his people and himself.

Told in the style of a "Coyote Story" — a legend about the trickster forefather of NoiseCat's people, revered for his wit and mocked for his tendency to self-destruct — We Survived the Night brings a traditional artform nearly annihilated by colonization back to life on the page. NoiseCat explores his personal origins amidst recounting on-the-ground efforts to correct the erasure of Indigenous peoples across the continent. Over years spent researching and developing his voice as a storyteller, NoiseCat grapples with the generational trauma of North America's First Peoples and learns of the cultural, environmental, and political movements reshaping the future.

We Survived the Night dives into examples of Native endurance and modern achievements that NoiseCat studied in his journalistic endeavors — the historic ascent of the first Native cabinet secretary in the United States and the first Indigenous sovereign of Canada; the colonial origins and limits of racial ideology and Indian identity of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina; hauling the golden eggs of an imperiled fish out of the sea alongside the Tlingit of Sitka, Alaska. Blending history and mythology, research and personal memoir, NoiseCat seeks to reclaim a culture stripped away by years of colonization and the family ties that were severed in his youth. His voiced honesty and years of efforts link the past to the present, the community to the individual in a powerfully intimate depiction of contemporary Indigenous life.

Julian Brave NoiseCat is a writer, Oscar-nominated filmmaker, champion powwow dancer, and student of Salish art and history. His writing has appeared in publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. NoiseCat has been recognized with numerous awards including the 2022 American Mosaic Journalism Prize and many National Native Media Awards. He was a finalist for the Livingston Award and multiple Canadian National Magazine Awards, and was named to the TIME100 Next list in 2021. His first documentary, Sugarcane, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. Directed alongside Emily Kassie, Sugarcane premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where NoiseCat and Kassie won the Directing Award in U.S. Documentary. NoiseCat is a proud member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq̓éscen̓ and descendant of the Líl̓wat Nation of Mount Currie.

Joshua L. Reid (citizen of the Snohomish Indian Nation) is an associate professor of American Indian Studies and the John Calhoun Smith Memorial Endowed Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington, where he directs the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of The Sea Is My Country: The Maritime World of the Makahs.

Elliott Bay Book Company

If you're into comics and graphic novels, you probably know of Raina Telgemeier and Scott McCloud. Telgemeier rose to "first-name-only status" among middle-grade readers with her adaptations of The Babysitters Club and award-winning autobiographical graphic novels including Smile and Guts. Scott McCloud is a leading comics theorist, having spoken and written about the art form since the 1980s. In fact, Telgemeier credits McCloud's work for inspiring her when she was a teenager. Now these two leading artists come together to discuss the unique power of comics and their new graphic novel, The Cartoonists Club.

Their book centers around four characters: Makayla, who is bursting with ideas but doesn't know how to make them into a story; Howard, who loves to draw but struggles to come up with ideas and his dad thinks comics are a waste of time; Lynda, who constantly draws in her sketchbook but keeps focusing on what she feels are mistakes; and Art, who simply loves being creative.

Throughout the book, Telgemeier and McCloud infuse how-to advice on comics creation that, they hope, will inspire a new wave of cartoonists. They both have seen renewed enthusiasm for the genre, especially among younger readers and are teaming up to provide an entertaining and practical guide to the magic of comics storytelling.

Raina Telgemeier is the #1 New York Times bestselling, multiple Eisner Award–winning creator of Smile, Sisters, and Guts, which are all graphic memoirs based on her childhood. She is also the creator of Drama and Ghosts, and is the adapter and illustrator of the first four Baby-sitters Club graphic novels. Facing Feelings: The Art of Raina Telgemeier is a companion catalog for an exhibition held at Ohio State University's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. Raina lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. To learn more, visit her online at goraina.com.

Scott McCloud is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art; Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels; Zot!; and The Sculptor. He is a frequent lecturer on the power of visual communication, creator of the international 24-hour comic movement, and, in 2021, was inducted into the Will Eisner Awards Hall of Fame. His art and stories are available in more than 30 languages and on the web at scottmccloud.com

Brick and Mortar Books

Arthur Oakes spends his days in a picturesque tableau of scholastic life – reading in the exceptional Rackham College library, dreaming against scenic Maine backdrops, entertaining a burgeoning romance with bold and brainy Gwen Underfoot. What more could a studious kid want? Surely not to be roped into a criminal endeavor by a local drug dealer and her partner, bent on committing a truly atrocious crime against the law and academia itself – stealing rare books from the college library. In his attempts to escape the dangers stacked against him, Arthur turns down a dark and unforeseen path into extraordinary loopholes and treacherous trickery.

In his newest novel King Sorrow, author Joe Hill brings together an eclectic group of Arthur's closest friends to scheme their way out of the peril breathing down their necks. Irrepressible moneybags Colin Wren, brave and beautiful Alison Shiner, the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBride, and with dear Gwen in the mix, they should absolutely be able to get Arthur out of this bind. Should be simple really – grab an ominous tome bound in the skin of its author, warp the very reality of the world around them, summon a dragon to do their bidding.

But turns out there's nothing simple about dealing with dragons, and this crew soon learns that supernatural deals with immensely powerful beasts should perhaps not be made so lightly. King Sorrow follows this group on their winding paths through both human and fantastical villainy, biting off more than they bargained for and facing a terrifying pattern to uphold. A new sacrifice must be chosen every year, or risk becoming King Sorrow's next meal.

Joe Hill is a best-selling author of novels, novellas, short stories, and comics exploring genres of horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction. His previous published works include the award-winning novels Heart-Shaped Box, NOS4A2, and The Fireman as well as the shorts collections Strange Weather, 20th Century Ghosts, and Full Throttle. He is also the co-creator of the long-running comic series Locke & Key, which was later adapted into a Netflix TV series.

Elliott Bay Book Company

You're likely aware of the ongoing saga surrounding the ban on TikTok in the U.S., including the platform's brief offline period in January 2025. Have you ever wondered why restoring TikTok in the U.S. was one of the first actions President Trump took when he came to office? Why is this social media platform a top priority for some of the world's most powerful people? How did this tech giant become so wildly popular and a source of contention in international politics? Author of Every Screen on the Planet, Emily Baker-White, uncovers the answers.

After working within big tech companies' policy departments, Harvard-trained lawyer and investigative journalist Emily Baker-White has now focused on how platforms like TikTok influence the world around us. In her book, she charts TikTok's rise from the Chinese founders' ambitions to its emergence as the world's most valuable startup with 1.6 billion users worldwide. Its power––and potential surveillance and propaganda tool for strongmen––came to a dramatic crescendo with its ban and tenuous resurrection in January 2025.

Hear about the explosive reporting that actually caused TikTok to track Baker-White and led to an ongoing criminal investigation. Baker-White makes the case for how hawks in Congress have pushed the company to the brink while the U.S. government seeks backdoor access to observe and influence TikTok's data stream. Touching on politics, finance, business, and technology, she lays bare the stakes: The war for TikTok will either create a blueprint for autocrats to warp our information landscape or close the open internet as we know it.

Emily Baker-White is a technology reporter at Forbes, where her TikTok coverage has won awards. A Harvard Law School graduate and former criminal defender, she previously led the Plain View Project, an investigation into police misconduct on Facebook, and covered TikTok for BuzzFeed News.

Steve Scher is a writer, broadcaster, and interviewer. His children's book, The Moon Bear, came out in 2022. Over his 28 years on local public radio, he won awards for his incisive coverage of public affairs, breaking news and his beyond-the-headlines approach to issues. His in-depth interviews with award-winning authors, political leaders, scientists, artists and active citizens are noted for their intelligence and sensitivity. Most summers since 2009, he has taught a Communications Department class on interviewing at the University of Washington.

Elliott Bay Book Company

The Seattle Athenaeum and Town Hall Seattle welcomes Dr. Audrey Whitty, Director of the National Library of Ireland and Hibsen as they launch the inaugural Irish Arts & Literature Showcase. Dr. Whitty is in conversation with UW Teaching Professor and poet Frances McCue.

Dr. Audrey Whitty is an Irish archaeologist, librarian and curator. As Director of the National Library of Ireland, she oversees the work of the library in collecting, protecting and making accessible the recorded memory of Ireland. Whitty previously worked for the National Museum of Ireland (NMI) where she was curator of the ceramics, glass and Asian collections, in the Art and Industrial Division of the museum. While working with the museum, she was awarded a doctorate in the History of Art by Trinity College Dublin.

Frances McCue is an arts instigator who has spent her career connecting literature to community life. Known for her literary start-ups, she is the co-founder of Pulley Press, a new publishing imprint that celebrates poets and poetry from rural places, and she was the Founding Director of Richard Hugo House for its first decade. She also instigated the Poetry Brigade at the University of Washington. Currently, she is a Teaching Professor at the University of Washington where she has been the winner of the UW Distinguished Teaching Award. A poet and prose writer she has published six books—four of poetry and two of prose, including a book of essays about Richard Hugo. Her forthcoming book is Spark and Whistle: Thinking Like a Poet in Leadership and Life from Columbia University Press.

The National Library of Ireland collects, protects and makes accessible the recorded memory of Ireland. We collect, protect and provide access to over 12 million items and will continue to do so for decades to come. We provide access to the collections free of charge, at four sites and online to exhibitions and events and to our reference and research reading rooms.

Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum connects a dynamic literary community through a curated book collection, diverse programming, and opportunities for engaging conversations and transformative ideas.

The Irish Arts & Literature Showcase, organized and curated by Caroline Cumming and Paula Stokes, welcomes visiting Irish writers, publishers and artists in presenting a curated selection of lectures, conversations and workshops.

More at https://www.folioseattle.org/irisharts

Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum.

You know that phrase, "We compare our insides to other people's outsides"? We're bombarded with others' achievements but see less of the steps – internal and external – it took to get there. These days, we feel an increased pressure to achieve, to pursue greatness. We reach for this mythical, impossible standard. Drawing from his book, Meditations for Mortals, Burkeman believes that if you accept the fact that you will never "get there," you can actually start making good choices that lead to a meaningful life.

Through this guiding philosophy, Burkeman calls "imperfectionism," we can tackle challenges in our daily lives: our finite time, the lure of distraction, the impossibility of doing anything perfectly, the feeling that the world is spinning out of control. How can we embrace our limitations? Or make good decisions when there's always too much to do? How do we shed the illusion that life will really begin as soon as we can "get on top of everything"? Pulling from the fields of philosophy, religion, literature, psychology, and self-help, Burkeman explores a combination of practical tools and daily shifts in perspective.

Burkeman offers a way to embrace our mortality, to in fact find solace and inspiration in it. In anxiety-inducing times, Burkeman believes that holding back in life is a guarantee for anguish, while living in just one moment at a time is the solution for getting to the things that matter most to you.

Oliver Burkeman worked for many years at The Guardian, where he wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, "This Column Will Change Your Life." His books include the New York Times bestseller Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking.

Elliott Bay Book Company