Posts by Live Talks LA
Alexandra Billings with Joey Soloway
An emotional, funny, and fabulous memoir by trailblazing and award-winning Trans actor and activist Alexandra Billings.
.
Alexandra Billings is an actor, singer, author, teacher, and activist who has appeared on numerous television shows, including Amazon’s Emmy and Golden Globe Award–winning Transparent. Billings, who has been acting since 1968, has also performed across the United States in hundreds of plays and musicals. She made her Broadway debut in The Nap in 2018 and joined the cast of Wicked as Madame Morrible the following year. Every role played by Billings is thought to be a first for an out Transgender human. She is the recipient of countless awards and holds an MFA in acting. Billings has lived with AIDS since 1995, and her LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS activism stretches across the continent and culminated in her moderation of a panel on Transgender rights in America at the White House during the Obama administration. She twice married Chrisanne Blankenship, whom she met in 1976 in high school, where they costarred in Twelfth Night. Billings has not touched Shakespeare since then―and vice versa. Visit her website.
.
Joey Soloway is a writer, filmmaker, and TV creator whose credits include the Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning Transparent and I Love Dick. Joey is also a prominent activist for LGBTQ representation in the arts as well as one of the founding members of the #TimesUp and #5050by2020 campaigns to eradicate sexual misconduct and gender inequity in the workplace. “We live in a complicated, messy world where every day we have to proactively re-center our own experiences by challenging privilege,” says Joey. “We’re looking for those undeniably compelling essential voices so often not heard.”
“Alexandra Billings’s extraordinary memoir moves from nightmarish, traumatic horror to a magical journey toward self-worth and artistic flowering. Alexandra has given us a treasure of a book full of wit, insight, and love.” —Charles Busch, actor, playwright, cabaret entertainer, novelist, and screenwriter
Born in 1962, Alexandra Billings grew up in a decade in which being herself was illegal. When she started transitioning in 1980, the word “Transgender” was not commonly used. With no Trans role models and no path to follow, Alexandra did what her family, teachers, and even friends said was impossible: Alexandra forged ahead.
.
Spanning five decades, from profound lows to exhilarating highs, This Time for Me captures the events of a pioneering life. An award-winning actor and history-making LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS activist, Alexandra shares not only her own ever-evolving story but also the parallel ways in which queer identity has dramatically changed since the Stonewall riots of 1969. She weaves a true coming-of-age story of richly imaginative lies, of friends being swept away by a plague that decimated the community, of her determination to establish a career that would break boundaries, and of the recognition of her own power.
.
A celebration of endless possibilities, Alexandra’s bracing memoir is a fight-to-the-death revolution against all expectations.
Emmanuel Acho with Justin Baldoni
This event premieres on April 21, 2022 at 6pm PDT/9pm EDT
— $40 Virtual Admission ticket + a signed copy of the book
(* we only ship to US addresses). Books ship week of May 2
..
Emmanuel Acho picked up a football and made it to the NFL. He picked up a pen and became a New York Times bestselling author for Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, followed by the #1 bestseller Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy. He picked up a microphone and won a Primetime Emmy for his groundbreaking online series, Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, amassing more than 90 million views to date. All this by the age of thirty, because of his ability to think and act illogically.
.
Justin Baldoni is a director, producer, actor, author and the co-founder of Wayfarer Studios and the Wayfarer Foundation. Baldoni is known for creating purpose-driven media that impacts social change. His credits include: directing and producing Clouds (2020) the first narrative acquisition for Disney+; his feature film directorial debut with Five Feet Apart (2019); creating and directing CW’s documentary series, My Last Days, and played “Rafael” on the network’s award-winning show Jane the Virgin. Inspired by his personal journey, Baldoni created Man Enough, a conversation series that explores the messages of masculinity while reimagining what it means to be a man in the world today. This series led Baldoni to give a TED Talk that went viral. This led to his first book, Man Enough: Undefining My Masculinity, boldly and transparently uncovering his own journey. In October 2022, he will be releasing his second book on masculinity, Boys Will Be Human, for middle school and high school boys. As a compliment to his books, Baldoni, along with his longtime collaborator Jamey Heath and prominent masculinity expert Liz Plank, launched The Man Enough Podcast investigating how traditional structures and attitudes toward success and failure, body image, privilege, relationships, intimacy, and other issues hold back and often oppress and negatively affect men, women, and humanity as a whole. Baldoni is next set to produce It Ends With Us for Wayfarer Studios in 2022.
llogical: Saying Yes to a Life Without Limits
.
What you probably don’t know is that Emmanuel defines his own life with just one word: Illogical.
.
Behind every triumph, every expression of his gifts, Acho has had to ignore what everyone around him called “logic”: the astronomical odds against making it, the risks of continuing to dream bigger or differently. Instead of playing it safe, at every turn Acho has thrown conventional wisdom―logic―out the window. Now, in this revelatory book, he’s empowering us all to do the same.
.
Whether it’s creating the next groundbreaking startup, fighting for change as an activist, or committing to a personal passion, Illogical is the go-to book for all readers ready to become change-makers. With a step-by-step guide to finding our callings and shifting our mindsets, enlivened by stories from Acho’s life and other illogical pioneers, and the Bible, Acho asks us to replace the limits set for us, and which we set for ourselves, with a world of possibility. Our horizons, he shows us, are endless.
Carl Bernstein with Josh Singer
at Wilshire Boulevard Temple
The Pulitzer Prize-winning coauthor of All the President’s Men and pioneer of investigative journalism, recalls his beginnings as an audacious teenage newspaper reporter in the nation’s capital―a winning tale of scrapes, gumshoeing, and American bedlam.
.
Josh Singer is an Academy Award-winning film and television writer. Most recently, Singer wrote the script for Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic, First Man, starring Ryan Gosling as the pioneering astronaut. Upcoming, Singer is teaming up with Bradley Cooper in scripting the Leonard Bernstein biopic, Maestro, directed by and starring Cooper and Carey Mulligan. He is also adapting the New York Times
bestseller, The Last Thing He Told Me, as a limited series for Apple with his wife, author Laura Dave. Singer co-wrote Steven Spielberg’s celebrated historical drama The Post, starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. Previously, Singer co-wrote the acclaimed drama Spotlight for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The film won Best Picture at the 88th Academy Awards. His television credits include Fringe, the long-running hit Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and The West Wing.
.
“I loved getting to know the teenage Carl Bernstein, a smart and spirited kid who happened upon the best seat in the country at an extraordinary moment in our national life. The reader marvels as Bernstein, equipped with infinite curiosity and grit, goes from copyboy to newsman, from chasing history to making it.”―Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times #1 bestselling author
In 1960, Bernstein was just a sixteen-year-old at considerable risk of failing to graduate high school. Inquisitive, self-taught―and, yes, truant―Bernstein landed a job as a copyboy at the Evening Star, the afternoon paper in Washington. By nineteen, he was a reporter there.
In Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom, Bernstein recalls the origins of his storied journalistic career as he chronicles the Kennedy era, the swelling civil rights movement, and a slew of grisly crimes. He spins a buoyant, frenetic account of educating himself in what Bob Woodward describes as “the genius of perpetual engagement.”
Funny and exhilarating, poignant and frank, Chasing History is an extraordinary memoir of life on the cusp of adulthood for a determined young man with a dogged commitment to the truth.
Susan Cain with Angela Duckworth
This event premieres on April 12, 2022 at 6pm PDT/9pm EDT
— $40 Virtual Admission ticket + a signed copy of the book
(* we only ship to US addresses). Books ship week of April 18
.
The author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet reveals the power of a bittersweet outlook on life, and why we’ve been so blind to its value.
.
Susan Cain, named one of the top ten influencers in the world by LinkedIn, is a renowned speaker and author of the award-winning books Quiet Power, Quiet Journal, and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Translated into more than forty languages, Quiet has appeared on many best-of lists, spent more than seven years on the New York Times bestseller list, and was named the #1 best book of the year by Fast Company, which also named Cain one of its Most Creative People in Business. Her TED Talk on the power of introverts has been viewed over forty million times...
.
Angela Duckworth is the best selling author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. She is the founder and CEO of Character Lab, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance scientific insights that help children thrive. She is also a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and in 2013 was named a MacArthur Fellow. Prior to her career in research, she was a math and science teacher at public schools in New York City, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Angela shares research-backed advice for parents and teachers in her Tip of the Week.
“Susan Cain’s Bittersweet grabs you by the heart and doesn’t let go. I’ve thought about the depth and beauty in Cain’s research and storytelling every day since I finished the book. I will always be grateful for how much Quiet and Bittersweet have helped me understand myself and how I engage with the world.”—Brené Brown, Ph.D., author of the New York Times bestseller Atlas of the Heart
Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death —bitter and sweet—are forever paired.
.
If you’ve ever wondered why you like sad music . . .
If you find comfort or inspiration in a rainy day . . .
If you react intensely to music, art, nature, and beauty . . .
.
Then you probably identify with the bittersweet state of mind.
.
With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an untapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she employs the same mix of research, storytelling, and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, connection, and transcendence.
.
Cain shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain. If we don’t acknowledge our own heartache, she says, we can end up inflicting it on others via abuse, domination, or neglect. But if we realize that all humans know—or will know—loss and suffering, we can turn toward one another.
.
At a time of profound discord and personal anxiety, Bittersweet brings us together in deep and unexpected ways.
Arthur Brooks with Simon Sinek
The roadmap for finding purpose, meaning, and success as we age, from bestselling author, Harvard professor, and the Atlantic’s happiness columnist Arthur Brooks.
.
Arthur C. Brooks is a social scientist who studies human happiness. He is the William Henry Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School, the bestselling author of 12 books, an acclaimed public speaker, and creator of the popular “How to Build a Life” column for The Atlantic. Previously, he served for ten years as president of the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC, during which time he was named one of Fortune magazine’s “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.” He began his career as a professional classical French hornist, performing for 12 years with ensembles in the United States and Spain. A Seattle native, he currently lives in Needham, Massachusetts with his wife, Ester Munt-Brooks. They have three adult children.
.
Simon Sinek is an optimist and the bestselling author of Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together Is Better, and Find Your Why. He is working to build a world in which the vast majority of us will wake up inspired, feel safe at work, and return home fulfilled at the end of the day. Simon may be best known for popularizing the concept of WHY, which he described in his first TED Talk in 2009. That talk went on to become the second most watched TED Talk of all time, and is still in the top five with over 50 million views. He also hosts a podcast, A Bit of Optimism, where he has conversations with the people who help spread light on a topics of curiosity. In partnership with Penguin Random House, Simon also started his own publishing outlet, Optimism Press, which is devoted to sharing the people and ideas that Simon believes contribute to advancing his Cause. Arthur Brooks’ book was release from Optimism Press. Learn more about his work on his website.
.
“Arthur Brooks is one of my very favorite thinkers. Witty, wise, and insatiably curious, he is one of the few intellectuals who can reliably weave scientific research and everyday observations into what we all really need: succinct advice for a good life.” —Angela Duckworth, founder and CEO of Character Lab and author of Grit
.
Many of us assume that the more successful we are, the less susceptible we become to the sense of professional and social irrelevance that often accompanies aging. But the truth is, the greater our achievements and our attachment to them, the more we notice our decline, and the more painful it is when it occurs.
.
What can we do, starting now, to make our older years a time of happiness, purpose, and yes, success?
.
At the height of his career at the age of 50, Arthur Brooks embarked on a seven-year journey to discover how to transform his future from one of disappointment over waning abilities into an opportunity for progress. From Strength to Strength is the result, a practical roadmap for the rest of your life.
.
Drawing on social science, philosophy, biography, theology, and eastern wisdom, as well as dozens of interviews with everyday men and women, Brooks shows us that true life success is well within our reach. By refocusing on certain priorities and habits that anyone can learn, such as deep wisdom, detachment from empty rewards, connection and service to others, and spiritual progress, we can set ourselves up for increased happiness.
Jane McGonigal with Felicia Day
at Wilshire Boulevard Temple
Los Angeles, CA 90010
A world-renowned future forecaster and game designer teaches us to envision the future before it arrives—and gives us the tools to help shape the world we want to live in.
.
Jane McGonigal is a future forecaster and designer of reality games created to improve real lives and solve real problems. She is also the author of two New York Times bestselling books, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (2011) and SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully (2016), and her TED talks on how gaming can improve our lives have more than 15 million views. She is the Director of Games Research & Development at the Institute for the Future, a non-profit research group in Palo Alto, California, currently teaches the course “How to Think Like a Futurist” at Stanford University, and is the lead instructor for the Institute for the Future’s series on the Coursera platform.
.
Felicia Day is an actor, producer, writer and streamer. She has written two New York Times bestselling books. She streams on Twitch weekly, has three podcasts, and writes a bi-weekly newsletter “Felicitations!” (on Substack.) She recently recurred on the CW show Supernatural, and the SyFy series The Magicians. She is best known for her work in the web video world. She co-starred in Joss Whedon’s Internet musical Dr. Horrible’s SingAlong Blog, which was ranked in the “Top 10 Best TV of 2008” by Time Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and People Magazine and won an Emmy in 2009. She also created and starred in the seminal web series The Guild, which ran for six seasons. The Guild won numerous awards for web video excellence, garnering a PGA nomination for best web series. She expanded the brand into numerous merchandizing opportunities, including a hit comic book series with Dark Horse Comics. Recently, costume and props from the show were admitted to the Smithsonian American History collection as examples of early web media pioneering.
.
“Jane McGonigal is unusually adept at anticipating events that most of us can’t even fathom. In this eye-opening, actionable book, she teaches you how to widen your peripheral vision, extend your imagination farther into the future, and conceive of the inconceivable.” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
.
The COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most disruptive events in human history, has made it more challenging than ever to feel prepared, hopeful, and equipped to face the future with optimism. How do we map out our lives when it feels impossible to predict what the world will be like next week, let alone next year or next decade? What we need now are strategies to help us recover our confidence and creativity in facing uncertain futures.
In Imaginable, Jane McGonigal draws on the latest scientific research in psychology and neuroscience to show us how to train our minds to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable. She invites us to play with the provocative thought experiments and future simulations she’s designed exclusively for this book, with the goal to:
- Build our collective imagination so that we can dive into the future and envision, in surprising detail, what our lives will look like ten years from now
- Develop the courage and vision to solve problems creatively
- Take actions and make decisions that will help shape the future we desire
- Access “urgent optimism,” an unstoppable force within each of us that activates our sense of agency
Imaginable teaches us to be fearless, resilient, and bold in realizing a world with possibilities we cannot yet imagine—until reading this transformative, inspiring, and necessary book.