Seattle Arts & Lectures Announces Normal Gossip’s Kelsey McKinney Added to 2024/25 Season
October 30, 2024
Seattle, WA—October 29, 2024:
Seattle Arts & Lectures (SAL) announces the addition of an event with Kelsey McKinney—writer, reporter, and host of the Normal Gossip podcast—to celebrate the publication of her new book, You Didn’t Hear This From Me. This event will be held on Sunday, February 16, 2025 at 7:30 pm (PT) at Town Hall Seattle. In-person and online-only tickets are available at lectures.org.
In You Didn’t Hear This From Me, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling. Why is gossip considered a sin and how can we better recognize when gossip is being weaponized against the oppressed? Why do we think we’re entitled to every detail of a celebrity’s personal life because they are a public figure? And how do we even define “gossip,” anyway? She dishes on the art of eavesdropping and dives deep into how pop culture has changed the way that we look at hearsay.
But, as much as the book aims to treat gossip as a subject worthy of rigor, it also hopes to capture the heart of gossiping: how enchanting and fun it can be to lean over and whisper something a little salacious into your friend’s ear. With wit and honesty, McKinney unmasks what we’re actually searching for when we demand to know the truth—and how much the truth really matters in the first place.
Kelsey McKinney is a reporter and writer who lives in Philadelphia. She is the host of the hit podcast Normal Gossip, as well as a co-owner and features writer at Defector.com. She has worked as a staff writer at Deadspin, Fusion, and Vox, and her reporting and essays have appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, GQ, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair and many others. Her first novel, God Spare the Girls, was published in the summer of 2021 by William Morrow.
This event is part of the SAL Presents Series highlighting authors, artists, and prominent thinkers discussing their latest work.
Speaker photos and book cover available upon request.
Ticket Information for an evening with Kelsey McKinney:
All tickets, with the exception of a limited number of Pay What You Can tickets, include a copy of You Didn’t Hear This From Me. The book will be mailed by our bookstore partner, Queen Anne Book Company, to the ticket holder’s address.
In-Person Ticket Pricing
Grand Patron & Book: $123
Patron & Book: $103
General & Book: $76
Pay A Bit More & Book: $58
Pay What You Can & Book: $40
Pay What You Can: $7+
Streaming Pass Pricing
Pay It Forward Price & Book: $148
Household Price & Book: $103
Suggested Price & Book: $64
Pay What You Can & Book: $40
Pay What You Can: $7+
Tickets are available at lectures.org or by calling the SAL Box Office at 206.621.2230, ext. 10.
About Seattle Arts & Lectures: Founded in 1987, Seattle Arts & Lectures cultivates transformative experiences through story and language with readers and writers of all generations. SAL’s programs include the Literary Arts Series, Community Curated Series, Encore Series, Poetry Series, Meet Cute Series, SAL Presents, Murmurations, Summer Book Bingo, the Youth Poetry Fellowship (YPF) program, and Writers in the Schools (WITS). For more information about SAL, visit lectures.org.