Across the Kitchen Table

Carla Seaquist (1944-2024) was an author and playwright who focused her commentary after the 9⁄11 attacks on politics, culture, and ethical-moral issues. Venues for her commentary have been (in order) The Christian Science Monitor, HuffPost, and Medium. Two volumes of her collected commentary—*Can America Save Itself from Decline?—*have been published, with Volume III due out Spring 2025. Her first book is titled, Manufacturing Hope: Post-9⁄11 Notes on Politics, Culture, Torture, and the American Character. Renowned investigative reporter Seymour Hersh calls Seaquist “an essayist in the great American tradition.”

Her play Who Cares?: The Washington-Sarajevo Talks, based on her calls with a man under siege in Sarajevo, received its premiere at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater, with subsequent productions at Washington’s Studio Theatre and the Festival of Emerging American Theater. This play, along with Kate and Kafka, was published as Two Plays of Life and Death.

Seaquist’s early career was in civil rights. She organized the women’s caucus at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, and served as Equal Opportunity Officer for the City of San Diego, for which she received NOW’s Susan B. Anthony award. She served on the California Governor’s Task Force on Civil Rights and the board of Humanities Washington. Majoring in international relations, Seaquist earned a BA, cum laude, from American University’s School of International Service and pursued an MA at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, with one year in Bologna, Italy. She was married to Larry Seaquist, a retired US Navy captain and former Washington state legislator, now an educator and writer. After long-time residence in Washington, DC, she and Larry returned to live and work in Gig Harbor in “the other Washington.”