From the Farmhouse Table: August 2025
2025 Great Minds:
Writing When the World Is On Fire, The Secrets We Keep, And What Now?
For the past few years, we have gathered for an evening of celebration as we uplift and delight in the work of Hedgebrook, our illustrious alumnae & community partners.
In partnership with The Bushwick BookClub Seattle, Hugo House & Seattle Arts & Lectures, we experience songs inspired by and written about the books of our acclaimed alumnae. We stand in awe of the Seattle Youth Poet Laureate and all that they already contribute to our culture. We revel in the aha moments that arise in the conversation. We come together.
We were honored to have alumna Dionne Ford as a Writers Conference instructor and a Great Mind at last year's event. Below she recounts her own experience.
"I was expecting a nice little meet and greet to kick off the Hedgebrook Writers conference where I was stoked to be teaching, but Great Minds: On Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Nostalgia Machine was something else entirely. Sharing the stage and being in conversation with brilliant fellow alumnae T Kira Madden and Carmen Maria Machado moderated by Hedgebrook's Executive Director, Kimberly A.C. Wilson was a thrill as well as an education.
But all these months later what still has me in awe was the song, Go Back and Get It, inspired by my memoir and composed and performed by Briar Seamons.Briar sang "you gotta go back to get it" while playing a gourd ukulele, a perfect call back to our African ancestors. Equal parts celebration, inspiration, and spiritual convening, the Great Minds event fostered the kind of space I try to create for my memoir students, one that's safe, trusting, and ripe for creating."
-Dionne Ford, 2016 Alumna and author of Go Back and Get It
Please join us this year (either in person or virtually!) to experience
a special evening featuring delicious bites prepared by our chefs, inspirational performances, and a conversation with our acclaimed alumnae Kirstin Chen, Mira Jacob, and Julia Phillips.