SHSU Common Reader 2025: I Never Thought of It That Way

Mónica Guzmán is a bridge builder, journalist, and author who lives for great conversations sparked by curious questions. Her best-selling book, I Never Thought of it That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times, has been featured in The New York Times, The Glenn Beck Podcast, and Reader's Digest, and was named one of the 10 best books to read before college by U.S. News.

Mónica is founder and CEO of Reclaim Curiosity, where she works to build a world that sees itself, and advisor for Braver Angels, the nation’s largest cross-partisan grassroots organization working to depolarize America. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Viewpoints Project, a nonprofit dedicated to improving capacity for curious approaches to disagreement in educational settings, and is host of “A Braver Way”, a podcast that in the run-up to the 2025 election equipped people with the tools they need to bridge the political divide in their everyday lives.

Mónica received an honorary doctorate degree from Wheaton College and completed study and research fellowships at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, where she researched how journalists can rethink their roles to better meet the needs of a participatory public, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, where she studied social and political division, and the University of Florida, where she joined forces with researchers testing techniques to boost understanding across differences.

A Mexican immigrant, Latina, and dual US/Mexico citizen, she lives in Seattle with her husband and two kids, plays a barbarian named Shadrack in her besties’ Dungeons & Dragons campaign, and is the proud liberal daughter of conservative parents. monicaguzman.com