Brooke Williams
Brooke went to law school and has spent most of her career in politics, but always says she should have been a librarian! She previously served as Board Chair at Progress Alliance and BrightSpark Early Learning Services and a member of the board at Legal Counsel for Youth and Children (LCYC). Brooke has also volunteered with organizations including Gender Liberation Movement, Seattle Clemency Project, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, United Way of King County and many more over the years.
When not busy with SAL board things, Brooke can be found organizing people and money to support progressive policy, candidates and year-round organizing at Women Donors Network (c4 board member), Progress Alliance of Washington and First Mile Circle. She loves to cheer for the Seattle Storm and spends the summer months being Summer Book Bingo’s #1 fan (the best season of the year!) Brooke can also be found making friends with dogs and learning very slowly to be a slightly better gardener than she was the previous year.
Although she is hard pressed to choose a favorite SAL event, one of Brooke’s all time faves was Danez Smith’s visit in 2018. They drew a dinosaur in her copy of “Don’t Call Us Dead” and it’s one of the only books she refuses to loan out!
And while she has many favorite books, but two of the books Brooke recommends to people most often right now are Alex Zamalin’s “Against Civility: The Hidden Racism in Our Obsession with Civility” and Katie Barnes’ “Fair Play: How Sports Shape the Gender Debates.” On the fiction front, she is reading through Percival Everett’s back catalog and recommends everyone to do the same!
One of the best ideas Brooke ever had was moving to Seattle in 2005 to take a job with then-Congressman Jay Inslee and live in the same city as her (eventual) spouse, Josh. 20 years later, they are parents to a teenager and a sweet dog, and can’t imagine living anywhere else!