Thanks for a great Coffee Talk today! About 35 people attended and $135 for SpokaneFāVS.
Panelists were:
- Blaine Stum, who wrote, “Mass Shootings: An American Ritual“
- Jan Shannon, who wrote, “Chris Harper Mercer: Not a Zero“
- Elizabeth Backstrom, who wrote, “Covering the news in a culture of violence“
- Guest panelist Rev. Bill Ellis, who wrote, “Violence and a Country of Denial“
Coffee Talks occur the first Saturday of the month at 10 a.m. at Indaba Coffee, 1425 W. Broadway Ave. All are welcome. For those who are unable to attend, the discussion will be live streamed on Twitter.
The conversation will continue further on Thursday with Pub Talk, at 6:30 p.m. at The Steam Plant.[wp_paypal_payment]

Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of SpokaneFāVS.com, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.
[…] you missed Saturday’s Coffee Talk, or want to continue the discussion on “Responding to Violence in Modern Culture” that […]