Keynotes & Workshops

The listening that makes
everything else possible.

Keynotes and workshops on the methodology behind Seasons of Strength, The Winter's Journey Project, and a decade of holding space for stories that needed to become something.

100+ Community voices held
17.2M+ Media reach through story
$500M+ In impact from a single heard story
Fox 5 · NPR · KQED Press coverage
Offerings
Breakout, Keynote & Workshop
Listening for Art
What you find when you learn to truly hear another person — and how to make something from it.
Breakout 20–30 min
Keynote 60–90 min
Workshop Half-day or full-day
Virtual Available

The Talk

Most of us listen to respond. This talk teaches you to listen to receive — to be present with another person's experience at the level where the real story lives, and to recognize the moment when something true surfaces.

Drawn from Gwendolyn's practice holding space for communities in crisis — from mothers experiencing housing instability who shaped The Winter's Journey Project, to the 100+ voices of Newnan, Georgia who became Seasons of Strength — this is a talk about the specific discipline of listening that makes art possible. And not just art.

Because the same listening that makes a story worth telling is the same listening that makes a team trust each other, a funder believe in a mission, and a community feel that it is truly seen.

Participants Leave With

  • A framework for distinguishing surface narrative from essential truth
  • Practice in identifying moments of emotional coherence — where body and voice align
  • Tools for creating conditions where people feel safe enough to be honest
  • An understanding of how to hold what you hear without imposing a narrative on it
  • In the workshop format: a live practice session working with each other's real stories

Breakout version

A tight 20–30 minute version suitable for conference breakouts, opening remarks, or a focused session within a larger agenda.

Keynote version

A 60–90 minute talk suitable for conference opening or closing sessions, staff convenings, and leadership gatherings. Q&A included.

Ideal for Arts organizations, nonprofit conferences and staff retreats, social work and community organizing convenings, university programs in communications or arts administration, healthcare and social services organizations, and any leadership gathering where presence and listening are core to the work.
Who Books These
Corporations & Agencies

Internal team workshops, leadership retreats, culture and communications training. Organizations that understand listening is a skill — and that building it changes how teams work together and what they're able to produce.

Nonprofits & Foundations

Staff convenings, annual conferences, development team training. Organizations doing community-facing work that needs the people doing it to be genuinely present — and the people communicating it to be genuinely clear.

Universities & Arts Organizations

Graduate programs in communications, arts administration, social work, and nonprofit management. Arts organizations whose staff and artists need a shared language for the work of being in the room with other people's stories.

Let's talk about
your event.

Every engagement is shaped to the specific audience, context, and goals. The conversation starts with a call — bring your event date, your audience, and your biggest question about whether this is the right fit.

Send a Speaking Inquiry hello@soundslikecool.com

Looking for Gwendolyn's book, Birthing Ideas: The Idea Journal? Find it here →