Finding My Way focuses on Malala’s college years at Oxford University and the ways in which the young celebrity activist tried to live a normal life, despite having her own personal security detail and a pseudonym at school. She explores new friendships, develops crushes, finds a community that helps her feel connected to her cultural identity, and tries out new hobbies. Like any young person, she also struggles to stay on top of her studies. But it’s the public speaking tours that financially supported her family and community that caused her schoolwork to suffer. Under tremendous social and academic pressures, Malala’s life unraveled as the PTSD of her shooting was reawakened in her.

In advance of her national book tour and her upcoming visit to Seattle, Malala chatted with Seattle magazine about her college years, finding renewed purpose, and what motivates her now.

Yousafzai spending time with friends during her college years.

Photo courtesy of Malala Yousafzai

In college, you embraced doing things that were new to you and tried everything from joining the rowing club to eating McDonald’s for the first time. What were some of the things that you discovered that you love?

Dancing to Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow”, the TV show “Sex Education,” hashbrowns, the list goes on. I felt this freedom to try everything. I’d always been in all-girls schools, so I’d never even been around boys my age before. But what I loved the most was having friends. It had been really hard for me in high school, I was so lonely after we moved to the U.K. In college, I made a ton of friends, people who are still in my inner circle today. I went to college specifically with the intention of making friends and feeling less alone in the world. 

What do you appreciate or value most about your years at Oxford? What did you learn about yourself through the experiences of being a normal 20-year-old hanging out around other young adults?

It wasn’t so much learning something new about myself as being able to return to the person I always was—funny, mischievous, a bit of a troublemaker. When the world first heard my story, I was still in a coma in a hospital. I couldn’t speak for myself, so people portrayed me as a serious, shy girl, this sort of virtuous heroine. But that was not true! By the time I went to college, I had been through so much and saddled with so much responsibility as a child. I wanted to be around people my own age at Oxford. I’m really grateful I had that opportunity because it helped me feel like myself again.

At Oxford University, Yousafzai found friends who made her feel at home and the freedom to be herself.

Photo courtesy of Malala Yousafzai

When you were invited to your first Pakistani gathering at Oxford, you questioned whether it would feel safe. What makes your relationship to the Pakistani diaspora, and Pakistanis back home, so complicated?

I often hear from family and friends back home about things I’ve done or said that were misconstrued in Pakistani media, or conspiracy theories that people make up about me. This has been happening since I was a child, so I’m used to it. But I was fearful that the Pakistani students at Oxford had heard these rumors and lies, and that would affect their perception of me. Thankfully that feeling evaporated the first time I went to one of their house parties. They were so welcoming, and I felt immediately at home. It helped me reconnect with so many things I had lost—the language, food, music, sports that I grew up with. 

You write about your adjustment to life in the UK, as well as what your parents had to go through to adapt to a new country. Throughout your book, you also invoke the connection that you shared with your grandmother, who remained in Pakistan. Can you talk about cultural bereavement and what home means to you?

For the first few years, it was really difficult, especially for my mom. She cried all the time and desperately missed her friends. Out of the five of us, she was the only one who couldn’t speak English, so that contributed a lot to her isolation. Kids, of course, adjust more quickly. My youngest brother was only 6 or 7 when we came to the U.K. and he’s fully a British boy now. I’m somewhere in between. I will always love Pakistan, and miss my family and friends, the mountain landscapes where I grew up. But I feel at home in many places in the world now. It’s really a gift to be able to feel that all these places where I’ve lived and travelled, from Mingora to London, are a part of me.

Smoking marijuana one time with friends triggered your PTSD. Why was it important to you to write about your PTSD and to share these experiences so publicly with your audiences?

When I was experiencing my first panic attack, it was a friend who convinced me to seek help and see a therapist. Through my new book, I want to be that friend for other people, especially if they are struggling alone like I was. In the community where I grew up, there’s a lot of stigma around mental illness. I think this is true especially for South Asian girls and women. I want everyone to know that I’m not perfect, that we all experience low and frightening moments in life and it’s okay to seek help.

You built a school for girls in Pakistan with the award money you received from your Nobel Prize. That school continued to operate during the pandemic and has continued to grow. How has that project continued to inspire you?

There wasn’t a high school for girls in Shangla, the village where my parents grew up. My mom and her sisters never learned to read and write. It was really important to me that my little cousins had the opportunity to graduate high school and maybe even go to college. This year, I had the opportunity to see the school for the first time, and meet the first class of girls ever to graduate high school in this village. I work for girls’ education all over the world, but, if I did nothing else in life, I could die proud of this school and these girls in Pakistan.

Fame has provided you with a platform to amplify your activism and advocacy, but it’s also complicated and impacted your life and your family’s life. Your detractors and critics expect a lot from you. What would you like to say to them?

If someone is attacking me because they’re misinformed, I hope they read my book and discover my true thoughts and feelings. I put my whole heart into “Finding My Way,” so it is really a reflection of me. But there are other people who will attack me no matter what I do or say. I try to tune it out and focus on my work. The Taliban tried and failed to stop me from advocating for girls’ education; I’m certainly not going to let mean comments on the internet stop me now.

What do you hope readers will take away from your new book Finding My Way?

This book is my reintroduction—not a symbol or someone to be idolized, but as myself—a young woman still figuring things out. It’s my coming of age story, covering my journey from lonely teenager to reckless college student to a young woman in love. It’s honest, messy, funny—and I really hope it helps other people feel less alone.

Malala Yousafzai will be at The Moore Theatre on Monday, Nov. 17, at 8 p.m. for an author talk and Q&A. 

The post Malala Yousafzai Returns to Herself appeared first on Seattle magazine.

For her exhibition, Dobler Dzul produced an entirely new body of work spanning glass, ceramics, video, weaving, and embroidery. Working with Tacoma’s Museum of Glass, the artist partnered with expert hot shop technicians to create blown-glass vessels from her drawings of animal-like beings connected to Maya cosmology. An armadillo and piglet are represented in pitcher-like vessels bearing local waters from Chambers Bay and Flett Creek, while possum and jaguar adorn the transparent glass lids of containers that hold blue pigment, cochineal, and precatorius and ojo de venado seeds. Elsewhere, thorny vessels display hand-dyed henequen threads used for weaving. 

Her reverence for materials echoes German artist Wolfgang Laib’s displays of jarred flower pollen and natural pigment in his shows. But in her exhibition, Dobler Dzul points the viewer’s attention toward ancient technologies from the more-than-human world, to go beyond an aesthetic display of the artist’s materials to remind us of where cultural memory and lineage reside.

The land was divided and the river provided.

Photo by Yeshe Lhamo

The exhibition continually interrogates cultural memory as a major theme. Visitors entering the gallery are confronted with two massive, double-sided wall-sized textiles mounted on individual standing looms, inspired by looms Dobler Dzul’s grandmother and mother used to weave hammocks. Each machine-embroidered textile, represents the history of places that are key to the artist’s identity, whether her home in Tacoma or Yucatán. The Yucatán loom reimagines creation stories in the artist’s own visual language, while the Tacoma loom documents the Puyallup creation story and speaks to present-day realities of environmental violence. As visitors circumambulate the textiles, past and present converge into uneasy stories of destruction and extraction.

Priscilla Dobler Dzul. Hardshell piglet, burrows the rains that fall from the skies, from When the three armadillos arrived with the water. The lords of the underworld brought the offerings. And vessels removed their thorns to weave the threads together, 2025. Blown glass, water from Puget Sound. 20 x 8 3/8 x 15 in.

Photo by Jueqian Fang

Just past her textiles, the focal point of the show is The four winds gathered around Tree and her threads—a series of red clay sculptural vessels that evoke the female form and have been shaped by a memory of the artist’s body and impression through touch. The vessels are tethered by henequen straps to woven hammocks anchored by a Western red cedar tree, in a shape that evokes the practice of backstrap weaving with a portable loom. Dobler Dzul made the twill, tartan patterns in two of the weavings to honor her Scottish grandmother. The red and black hammocks were made in collaboration with master weaver and environmental educator Doña Brigida Lopez and cultural advocate and community organizer Daniela Mussali Meza.

The guardians remind us of what we have forgotten features a wall of four red clay figures inspired by ritual Maya censers. The fierce visages watch over the space. While working with the University of Washington as an artist in residence, Dobler Dzul created these larger-scale pieces using the art school’s ceramic studio and kiln. Inspired by the intricate decorative styles of the Classic Maya period, the backgrounds of each sculpture feature patterns from different architectural sites. The figures represent spirit dwellers and protectors.

The show also features a video viewing station with two films that bring together her reflections on ecological decline in both the Yucatán and Tacoma. The artist worked with Iva Radivojevic to create a film that reflects on the impacts of the construction of the Tren Maya railway on the Yucatán Peninsula. Henequen thread production is depicted, showing the colonial history that continues to exist and contribute to the destruction of the connection and history that Maya people had with this plant through displacement, development, and land privatization. Dobler Dzul moves through the landscape trailing literal threads of her ancestral lineage behind her.

Priscilla Dobler Dzul. The guardians remind us of what we have forgotten, 2025. Oregon red clay with grog. Dimensions variable.

Photo by Jueqian Fang

An additional film, made with A.J. Lenzi and Jonathan Jacobson, mourns the loss of water to industrial expansion in Tacoma. Dobler Dzul appears in the film carrying 70-pound ceramic vessels filled with water and lugging a rake she uses to return seeds to the earth. During filming in Tacoma, Dobler Dzul tore a ligament. Filming took place over three days across five seasons in both early morning and nighttime conditions. Throughout both films, Dobler Dzul grieves environmental injustice while invoking ancestral memory rooted in water to explore liberatory possibilities for reimagined relationships to the elemental. 

Priscilla Dobler Dzul. Lo único que existía era el movimiento de las aguas y los cielos / The only thing that existed, was the movement of the waters and the skies (still), 2025 . Digital video (color, sound); 18:00 min. each.

Courtesy of the artist

The Frye Art Museum will host “Interwoven: Panel & Weaving Demonstration” on Sunday, Oct. 26, from 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Priscilla Dobler Dzul will be in conversation with her collaborators Doña Brigida Lopez and Daniela Mussali Meza. The event is moderated by curator Tamar Benzikry. Following the panel, there will be a live demonstration of backstrap weaving—an ancient technique highlighted in the exhibition.

Water Carries the Stories of our Stars will be on display through April 19, 2026.

The post Tracing Lineage appeared first on Seattle magazine.

Right after sunset, we shuttled from downtown Friday Harbor to Jackson Beach, a long sandy shoreline covered in driftwood. Though our guide, Brandon, was a newcomer to guiding on San Juan, he’d spent many seasons working in adventure travel throughout the Pacific Northwest, leading whitewater rafting trips and working ski patrol. 

On the beach, we snapped photos with our traveling companions before putting our camera phones away, knowing the night-time conditions would foil any good picture-taking. We suited up in thick, heavy layers of protective gear and formed a small circle facing one another. With our paddles standing at rest next to us, Brandon provided us with instruction in basic paddling techniques while reminding us to be mindful of the explorer directly next to us to avoid bashing one another and causing “some’r teeth”—some teeth on the ground, some teeth broken in the mouth.

After a short orientation, we climbed into two-person kayaks and launched into the silent dark waters, our guide made visible only by a red blinking light attached to his safety vest. We paddled for what felt like twenty or thirty minutes, towards the shores of Dinner Island, a small private island inside Griffin Bay. Still new to paddling, there were moments when I felt like my kayak would never catch up to our guide. His red light receded into the distance and disappeared entirely at times, only to re-emerge again. We lagged behind the other boats, with Jethro, our second guide, following closely behind. By the time we arrived at our destination, I felt ready to shed my knitted hat and a few layers of clothing.

At Dinner Island, the group floated at rest in the cove. We had undertaken a long journey by sea, and my senses felt opened up by the accidental splash of saltwater on my face and the dull ache in my arms. It felt like the perfect moment for an educational talk. Brandon lectured the group on the natural history of the single-celled dinoflagellates that produce light when the waters around them are disturbed. As if on cue, Jethro plunged one end of his paddle into the water and dragged it away from him, the sea coming alive with tiny lights. 

I skimmed my fingertips along the surface to activate the tiny sparkling organisms, their liveliness evoking a scene out of Walt Disney’s Fantasia. The sea sparkles resembled both starlight and blinking fireflies, moving pinpricks of light with their own life and organic movement. But my private meditation was interrupted by a glowing jellyfish. Jethro had grabbed the creature with a bare hand and tossed it several feet into the air so that we could see the strange, glowing arc of its shapeless body moving through air and space.

As a first-time paddler, I’d felt anxious about making the journey and gone as far as renting a kayak on Lake Washington the weekend before to get the feel of paddling in my body. By the light of day, it had felt overwhelming—the pier I could crash into, the space between water and dry land. But here at night, it was too dark to see other paddlers and felt impossible to judge the distance between boat and beach. Resting in the magical beauty of all that I had set out to see, I sank into the repetition of breath and body that powered the way back to shore.

Bioluminescence kayak tours on San Juan Island can be booked through Outdoor Odysseys, Discovery Sea Kayaks, and Sea Quest. 

The post Kayaking the Bioluminescent Waters of San Juan Island appeared first on Seattle magazine.

“The Rabbit Box has struggled from day one, for many reasons beyond our control,” says co-founder Tia Matthies. Launching during the pandemic meant the company couldn’t qualify for Covid-era grant relief programs which could offset the high costs of starting a new business. The club has explored several options for continuing as a business, including establishing a nonprofit and creating a membership program.

The Rabbit Box was conceived of by co-founder Robynne Hawthorne as a creative living room—an intimate venue for music that could also serve as a literary-forward “house of stories.”

Located in the former Can Can club, the space was reimagined with new sightlines, added archways, and antique touches, like decorative wallpaper, chandeliers, ornate vintage couches, and reclaimed wood flooring from an old horse stable in Tennessee—a nod to the space’s history as a one-time horse stable in the early 1900s. Combining with these vintage elements is a professional-level sound system that was designed by Seattle music producer and sound engineer Gary Mula, who played a significant role in building out the space and became a partner in the business. 

Hawthorne books live music at The Rabbit Box most nights of the week, alongside family-friendly programs like magic shows and film screenings for all-ages audiences. Before owning The Rabbit Box, Hawthorne produced shows at The Pearl Coffeehouse, Horses Cut Shop, Underwood Stables, and Hotel Albatross. Matthies is widely known for co-founding legendary venues like OK Hotel, The Rendezvous, and The Royal Room. After 38 years of running nightclubs, Matthies wants to step down from the business to join her husband Steve Freeborn in retirement and focus more of her time on making visual art. In December 2024, Freeborn and Matthies, along with co-owner Wayne Horvitz, transitioned their shares of The Royal Room to buyer Reese Tanimura.

“It’s hard to find stages for new artists—we’re a small intimate place,” says Hawthorne. “We can host young unknowns unlike a lot of other spaces.” Matthies adds that creative minds need creative spaces to experiment, hone their craft, and perform for friends and family. “Every artist, no matter how successful, always needs to try out new things in front of a small audience. The Rabbit Box was intentionally designed to be such a place that could attract well-known artists as well as fledgling performers.” 

Since 2022, the club has featured artists ranging from No Wave spoken-word artist Lydia Lunch and Seattle songwriter Damien Jurado to Grammy-nominated artist Tracy Bonham. In its early days, The Rabbit Box hosted resident musical artists like Leeni, Caitlin Sherman, Brittany Davis, and Lo-Liner. The club has also presented shows in collaboration with The Triple Door. 

“I’m hoping that someone, in the spirit of old school Seattle music—the same spirit that helped nurture Nirvana—might be interested in keeping this little gem alive,” says Matthies. “Seattle has some serious cultural roots that are disappearing. People don’t always know the history of how the music scene started here, and the clubs and spaces that are needed to make that scene flourish. I hope whoever buys it is interested in keeping that going.” 

The business is listed for $500,000 with Vantage Seattle. For more information, contact Carrie Topacio at carrie@vantageseattle.com.

The post Pike Place Music Venue Seeks Buyer  appeared first on Seattle magazine.

From the diRosa Center for Contemporary Art and The Donum Estate in Northern California to Estancia Colomé in Argentina, which houses the world’s only museum of artwork by light and space artist James Turrell, the natural open spaces offered by vineyards and their settings provide for an ideal multi-sensory art experience. Through walking the land, seeing and breathing in parts of the production process, and tasting the wine cultivated by vintners across time and generations, the art tourist’s mind and body open to a heightened awareness of the senses.

On a recent trip to Italy, I visited the Castello di Ama winery in the Tuscany region. Lured by images of artwork by Jenny Holzer and Hiroshi Sugimoto, my travel companion and I signed up for a wine tour and tasting with the promise of seeing some of the winery’s art collections. 

Castello di Ama

Photo courtesy of Castello di Ama

While we knew that seeing installations and sculpture wouldn’t be the focus of the guided experience, it could provide access and proximity to the artworks on site. And we encountered them at various turns while touring the vineyard’s production areas, from handwritten haiku decorating the wall-mounted lids of barrels placed around the facility to a piece encountered in the near total darkness of the wine cellar.

Suspended from the ceiling of the wine vault are blown glass decanters in six different forms. The artist Chen Zhen designed the sculptural vessels to suggest the internal organs of the human body.

Chen Zhen’s glass wine decanters in the shapes of six vital organs.

Photo courtesy of Castello di Ama

The experience of encountering art in a non-traditional art space like Castello di Ama requires both curiosity and an adventurous streak. Some artworks like Cristina Iglesias’ Towards the Ground or Daniel Buren’s Sulle Vigne: Punti di Visti  are installed in plain sight within a courtyard and sweeping viewpoint, while interacting with the environments where they have been placed. 

Iglesias’ ‘Towards the Ground.’

Photo by Yeshe Lhamo

But Hiroshi Sugimoto’s sculpture Confession of Zero and Anish Kapoor’s αἷμα are both sited inside ancient chapels. A visitor must cross beyond the devotional threshold to peek beyond what’s obvious, to look behind a door, or go past an altar. And when you do, the aesthetic reward of finding the prize in your own curated art scavenger hunt feels immeasurable. Sugimoto’s delicately balanced koan evokes cave formations, while Kapoor’s luminous red void resembles nothing less than a fiery portal to the underworld.

‘αἷμα‘ by Anish Kapoor.

Photo courtesy of Castello di Ama

The crown jewel of the Castello di Ama collections should only be accessed with a guide. My travel companion and I were determined enough to go renegade and hike into the vineyards in search of the Jenny Holzer installation. But by this time, we’d established a deep respect for the land and an appreciation for our Italian hosts who stewarded it.

After wrapping up a large sale of wine to some tourists from Fresno, our guide and her co-worker offered to walk us down to the site. Giddy from the wine, I couldn’t quite believe what we smelled and saw. Holzer’s work is widely known for her use of technology—electronic signage and text, and video projections executed at a massive public scale that grabs a person’s attention. 

Per Ama is a manmade pond surrounded by helichrysum, a fragrant aromatic shrub that’s a close relative to the sunflower family. The scent is used in perfumes and aromatic candles sold at the vineyard’s gift shop. But out in the open air, the plant transforms the environment before you even arrive at Holzer’s piece. The artist’s signature use of text appears in this art offering to the land through poems engraved onto stones. One is placed near the shore of the pond. The other is carefully hidden in the environment, within view of the water and near where wild mint flourishes.  

Helichrysum surrounds the manmade pond at Castello di Ama, part of New York artist Jenny Holzer’s installation.

Photo courtesy of Castello di Ama

A poem engraved in stone near the water’s edge.

Photo by Yeshe Lhamo

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