Puget Sound Institute Presents: Seabirds Live! An evening with Eric Wagner, author of "Seabirds as Sentinels"
What can tens of thousands of rhinoceros auklets tell us about the health of the Salish Sea? Get the inside scoop on the remote and often enigmatic seabirds of Protection and Destruction Islands. Author Eric Wagner will be on stage with seabird biologist Peter Hodum for a conversation on May 13 at the University of Washington Tacoma. The free event will feature original photos and audio, along with a discussion of Eric’s new book Seabirds as Sentinels.
Every year, tens of thousands of rhinoceros auklets return to the steep hillsides of Protection and Destruction Islands. When they arrive, scientists say, these football-shaped birds carry with them a story as big as the North Pacific.
Learn what seabirds are telling us about changing ocean conditions and the health of the Salish Sea. Find out the best technique for dodging a flying rhinoceros auklet. Take a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at seabird research in Washington state.
This event combines gorgeous photographs and audio recordings with an…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Carwein Auditorium (Keystone 102). Accessibility Contact: mwoolbri@uw.edu. Event Types: Special Events.
Wednesday, May 13, 2026, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM.
University of Washington Tacoma.
For more info visit www.pugetsoundinstitute.org. Barnes & Noble University District Presents: David B. Williams and Jennifer Ott discussing "Seattle's Locks and Ship Canal"
Join us for a fascinating presentation on Seattle history by two authors who bring the past alive. In their new book Seattle's Locks and Ship Canal: A History and Guide, David B. Williams and Jennifer Ott chart the vision that drove the canal’s creation and the dramatic changes it brought to the city’s economy, neighborhoods, and natural environment. Along the way, they highlight the political struggles, industrial ambitions, and ecological consequences that shaped one of Seattle’s defining projects.
Clear, informative, and visually rich, Seattle’s Locks and Ship Canal is both a primer on the city’s past and a companion for exploring part of its present-day waterfront.
David B. Williams is an author whose many books include Seattle Walks: Discovering History and Nature in the City and Homewaters: A Human and Natural History of Puget Sound.
Jennifer Ott is executive director at HistoryLink.org and an environmental historian. Her works include Where the City Meets the Sound: The Story of Seattle’s…
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: CRM3563@bn.com. Event Types: Special Events.
Thursday, May 14, 2026, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM.
Barnes & Noble University District.
For more info visit www.eventbrite.com. Powell's City of Books presents: Tamiko Nimura in Conversation with Hanako Wakatsuki-Chong
Tamiko Nimura’s A Place for What We Lose (University of Washington Press) is a deeply affecting memoir of reckoning with a father’s death and the Japanese American incarceration.
In a moving conversation with the past, Nimura explores her late father’s life and her family’s wartime history at Tule Lake. The typewritten pages of her father’s unpublished memoir — written decades earlier about his childhood behind barbed wire — spark a reckoning with the long shadow of parental loss and the unresolved legacy of incarceration.
Following an innovative structure, Nimura interlaces her father’s vivid recollections with her own: scenes of camp life, family separation, and resistance alongside her present-day journey as a mother, writer, and descendant. Joining a community pilgrimage to Tule Lake transforms inherited pain into collective remembrance.
With honesty and lyrical precision, Nimura shows how intergenerational trauma and silence are transmitted, and how confronting them can foster healing. Part memoir,…
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: help@powells.com. Event Types: Special Events.
Tuesday, May 19, 2026, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM.
1005 W Burnside St. Portland, OR 97209.
For more info visit www.powells.com. Arboretum Foundation Presents: Lynda V. Mapes discussing "The Trees Are Speaking"
The Arboretum Foundation welcomes Seattle journalist and author Lynda V. Mapes to the Arboretum's Graham Visitors Center for a discussion and slide show about her new book The Trees Are Speaking: Dispatches from the Salmon Forests. The event will conclude with a book signing.
Presented by the Arboretum Foundation and the Elisabeth C. Miller Library.
Lynda V. Mapes specializes in coverage of the environment and Indigenous cultures and governments. Over the course of her 27-year career as a reporter at The Seattle Times, she earned numerous awards, including the Kavli Gold Science Journalism Award in 2012 and 2019 from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2025, she and a team of journalists at The Seattle Times were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. Lynda is the author of seven books, including most recently The Trees Are Speaking: Dispatches from the Salmon Forests (University of Washington Press, 2025). She is the winner of the 2021 National Outdoor Book Award and…
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: info@arboretumfoundation.org. Event Types: Special Events.
Tuesday, June 2, 2026, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM.
Washington Park Arboretum.
For more info visit arboretumfoundation.org. Blaine Memorial UMC Presents: Tamiko Nimura discussing "A Place for What We Lose"
Join author Tamiko Nimura for a reading from her new book, A Place for What We Lose: A Daughter's Return to Tule Lake, followed by a conversation with Vince Schleitwiler.
"In this gut-wrenching work of intergenerational dialogue, Nimura braids passages from her late father's unpublished memoir of growing up in California's Tule Lake Japanese American concentration camp during WWII with her own reflections on the text" (Publishers Weekly).
This event is free and open to the public. Books will be for sale and signing from Madison Books. Cosponsored by Tsuru for Solidarity.
Tamiko Nimura is a creative nonfiction writer, VONA fellow, and public speaker. She is coauthor of We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration, which was a finalist for a 2022 Washington State Book Award.
Vince Schleitwiler, a fourth-generation Japanese American from Chicago, currently teaches ethnic studies at the University of Washington. He is the author of Strange Fruit of the Black Pacific: Imperialism’s…
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: mwoolbri@uw.edu. Event Types: Special Events.
Saturday, June 6, 2026, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
Blaine Memorial UMC.
Washington State History Museum Presents: David F. Martin discussing "Shadows of a Fleeting World"
Join the Washington State History Museum on Third Thursday for an event featuring author David F. Martin. He will present his book Shadows of a Fleeting World: Pictorial Photography of the Seattle Camera Club.
The Seattle Camera Club, composed largely of Japanese immigrants, blended the pictorialist photography style with traditional Japanese aesthetics to create distinctive artistic images. At its peak, the club was among the most active and successful photography organizations in the United States.
Thanks to the extensive preservation of its work, we are able to explore and appreciate the depth, beauty, and cultural significance of this local artistic legacy.
David F. Martin is curator at the Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds.
Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: aletheia.wittman@wshs.wa.gov. Event Types: Special Events.
Thursday, July 16, 2026, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
Washington State History Museum.
For more info visit www.washingtonhistory.org.