Ignite Seattle #49 is coming up early this fall and tickets are already on sale (next show on Thursday October 9th at Town Hall Seattle). We’re thrilled to bring you another installment of the fastest and most fun storytelling event in Seattle.

To make this night work, though, we need your help. 

In fact, we need YOUR STORIES. Deadline is August 28th. All accepted talks get world-class speaker coaching and we treat our speakers like stars.

The four kinds of stories to know

To submit, all you need is a thoughtful, creative title and a brief description of your story. Many of the accepted submissions fall into one of four categories you should think about, with examples from past Ignite talks you should watch:

• Personal story. Share a life experience you had that was profound, interesting, exotic, powerful, or funny in some way that is relatable to other people. Keep in mind that there is a difference between something that was interesting for you (“I won the lottery”) and making it interesting for the audience (“Here are things that will surprise you about winning the lottery”). Good storytelling is about making your experience relatable or interesting to others. See I Fix Evything or A Transgender Band walks into a Rural Town.
• Teaching a lesson or sharing an idea. Perhaps you have expertise to share, or a way of looking at the world you’ve developed that other people can learn from. This can be professional knowledge or from a hobby that you have. See Design for Conflict, Robots are not coming for your job, Dating lessons from a Dominatrix or Forgive and Remember.
• Reporting on an interest project. Maybe you built something unusual, went on a special trip, or are part of a volunteer organization that does good work. Your talk can be reporting on those experiences and inviting the audience to learn from, or be entertained by, them. See Cats, Rats, AI, Oh My! or The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
• A combination of the above or something new. There are countless ways to combine these different talk forms so don’t feel limited to picking one. However most talks to tend to go more strongly down one of these paths than another. And we do love challenges and interesting concepts that don’t quite fit: live performances (we’ve had acrobats, jugglers and musicians), fictional narratives or something we’ve never even heard of before but sounds like our audience would appreciate.

You don’t need to have all of the details figured out. You definitely don’t have to worry about slides or the details of how to tell your story. You will work with our world class speaker coaches to craft your story after it is accepted.

Speaker submissions for Ignite #49 are due AUGUST 28, 2025

Not sure how to pitch a story? Or even what makes an Ignite-style story? No problem. We’ve got you covered. 

Check out our insider advice on getting a story selected.

Now… what’s YOUR talk going to be about? Click here to tell us about it.

PS. Help spread the word! If you know someone who has a great story or idea, or wants to feel more confident as a speaker, forward this post and invite them!