Bridey Thelen-Heidel with Morgan Richter — ‘Bright Eyes’ – Seattle, WA

Third Place Books welcomes Bridey Thelen-Heidel to our Ravenna store for a discussion of her debut memoir, Bright Eyes: Surviving Our Monsters and Learning to Live Without Them, about the indomitable spirit of a young girl forced to be brave, required to be resilient, and conditioned to be optimistic, and how she ultimately uses the same traits that helped her to survive her mother’s chaos to create her own happily-ever-after. She will be joined in conversation by Morgan Richter. This event is free and open to the public.

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This event is free to attend. Registration is required in advance.

About Bright Eyes. . .

Bridey is tethered to her mom’s addiction to dangerous men who park their Harley-Davidsons in the house and kick holes in all their doors. Raised to be her mother’s keeper, rescuer, and punching bag, Bridey gets used to stuffing her life into black trash bags, hauling them between Alaska and California, and changing schools every time her mom moves in a new monster—or runs away from one. Desperately seeking the normal life she’s observed in sitcoms and her friends’ families, Bridey earns her way into a fancy, private college, where she tries to forget who she is—until her mom calls with a threat that drops Bridey to her knees. Watching doctors and police interrogate her mother at the hospital, Bridey realizes her mom has become a monster herself . . . and she doesn’t want to be saved. But Bridey does.

Bridey Thelen-Heidel’s chaotic upbringing meant changing schools between Alaska and California more than twenty times. A Lewis and Clark College graduate, she lives in South Lake Tahoe with her husband and daughter where she teaches English Literature. She’s delivered a TEDx, performed in Listen to Your Mother NYC, and been voted “Best of Tahoe Teacher” by her community several times. Her advocacy work with LGBTQ+ students has been celebrated by the California Teachers’ Association.

Morgan Richter is a graduate of the Filmic Writing program at the University of Southern California’s film school and has worked in production on several television shows, including ABC’s America’s Funniest Home Videos and E! Entertainment Television’s Emmy-winning comedy series Talk Soup. An avid popular culture critic, she is the author of Duranalysis: Essays on the Duran Duran Experience and has amassed a cult following on her analyses of classic Duran Duran videos. While she has self-published five novels, her traditional publishing debut is The Divide, a neo-noir thriller from Knopf. Her thriller The Understudy will be released by Knopf in 2025. Richter currently lives in Seattle.

About Third Place Books

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle’s Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.