UPDATE: The address I originally had for the Walnut Creek event was incorrect. The correct address is Ygnacio Valley Library, 2661 Oak Grove Road, Walnut Creek, CA.

Hi, all! I have some speaking gigs coming up that I wanted to let you know about: in Walnut Creek, Minneapolis, Akron, and Tacoma. Here are the details. Hope to see you there!

CITY: Walnut Creek, CA
DATE: Sunday, July 7
TIME: 4:00 – 5:30 pm
LOCATION: 755 Oak Grove Road, Ygnacio Valley Library, 2661 Oak Grove Road, Walnut Creek, CA (the library itself will be closed — meeting is in the community room around back)
EVENT/HOSTS: Contra Costa Atheists and Freethinkers
TOPIC: Resistance Is Not Futile: Is Arguing About Religion Worth It?
SUMMARY: Many atheists think that trying to persuade people out of religion never works, and simply alienates people. But debating believers about their beliefs can be effective — in changing people’s minds about religion, as well as in achieving other goals of the atheist community. When does it makes sense to debate about religion? How should we go about it? And what should our expectations be for what these debates can accomplish?
COST: Free and open to the public

CITY: Minneapolis, MN (Minnesota Atheists/American Atheists Regional Conference)
DATE: Saturday, August 10
TIME: All-day conference
LOCATION: Ramada Plaza, 1330 Industrial Blvd NE, Minneapolis, MN
EVENT/HOSTS: Minnesota Atheists/American Atheists Regional Conference
TOPIC: Coming Out: How To Do It, How to Help Each Other Do It, And Why?
SUMMARY: Coming out is the most powerful political act atheists can take. But coming out can be difficult and risky. What are some specific, practical, nuts-and-bolts strategies we can use: to come out of the closet, to support each other in coming out, and to make the atheist community a safer place to come out into? What can atheists learn about coming out from the LGBT community and their decades of coming-out experience — and what can we learn from the important differences between coming out atheist and coming out queer?
OTHER SPEAKERS: PZ Myers, Hector Avalos, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Amanda Knief, Greg Laden, Stephanie Zvan, Rohit Ravindran, Kim Socha, Jill Carlson, James Zimmerman, Eric Jayne, Cliff Buhl, and Susan Campion.
COST: $10.00 – $60.00
EXTRA EVENT: The evening before the conference, the minor league baseball team The St. Paul Saints will change their name for the day to the Mr. Paul Aints, in honor of the atheist conference. Seriously. A special group rate is available for the game for conference attendees.
EVENT URL: http://mnatheists.org/

CITY: Akron, OH (The Sexy Secular Conference)
DATE: Saturday, Oct. 19
TIME: All-day conference
LOCATION: The University of Akron, Student Union Theater Rm. 210, Akron, OH
EVENT/HOSTS: The Secular Student Alliance at The University of Akron
TOPIC: Atheism and Sexuality
SUMMARY: The sexual morality of traditional religion tends to be based, not on solid ethical principles, but on a set of taboos about what kinds of sex God does and doesn’t want people to have. And while the sex-positive community offers a more thoughtful view of sexual morality, it still often frames sexuality as positive by seeing it as a spiritual experience. What are some atheist alternatives to these views? How can atheists view sexual ethics without a belief in God? And how can atheists view sexual transcendence without a belief in the supernatural?
OTHER SPEAKERS: Annie Laurie Gaylor, Aron Ra, Heina Dadabhoy, Nate Phelps, Jamila Bey, Dr. Darrel Ray, David Fitzgerald, Katherine Stewart, and Mandisa Thomas
COST: Free and open to the public
EVENT URL: http://sexysecularconference.com/

CITY: Tacoma, WA (CFI Summit)
DATES: October 24-27 (don’t know which day I’m speaking)
LOCATION: Hotel Murano, 1320 Broadway, Tacoma, WA
EVENT/HOSTS: A joint conference of the Center for Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
TOPIC: TBA
OTHER SPEAKERS: Susan Jacoby, Bill Nye, Eugenie Scott, Cara Santa Maria, Phil Zuckerman, Katherine Stewart, Leonard Mlodinow, Todd Stiefel, and more
COST: $50.00 – $199.00
EVENT URL: http://www.cfisummit.org/