Something Larger Than Ourselves: Seeking, Surrender, and Survival

Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum welcomes Meg Richman and Blair Glaser for an evening of conversation about devotion, the self we lose in its pursuit, and what it takes to find our way back.

Richman's debut novel Freya the Deer and Glaser's memoir This Incredible Longing arrive at the same raw, searching territory: the hunger for belonging, the dangers of idealization, and the difficulty of staying true to yourself when the pull of devotion runs deep. Richman's Freya, a neurodivergent young woman obsessed with the nature of the soul, watches as the man she loves is radicalized by a world on fire, forcing her to choose between loyalty and conscience. Glaser chronicles her own immersion in a spiritual community, tracing how a longing for peace and purpose can quietly shade into surrender and what it takes to reclaim yourself without bitterness. Together, these two books ask what we owe to our deepest commitments…