Debbie Millman has logged a lot of hours talking with interesting people over the past 17 years. Her acclaimed podcast Design Matters has clocked more than 440 episodes featuring hundreds of different guests chatting about how they’ve designed their lives and careers. What started as a niche project specifically about people in design and visual industries has become a crossover hit with guests from all sorts of creative disciplines, anchored by Millman’s accessible and enthusiastic interviewing style. Her new book, Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People, collects some of the best of these, plus original photography and deeper-dive essays. A sampling of conversation partners includes author Carmen Maria Machado, painter Amy Sherald, and musician David Byrne. It’s not just the wide-ranging guest stars that have raised Millman’s profile: She vaulted further into mainstream consciousness when she married prolific writer Roxane Gay, who will serve as her conversation partner at Sixth and I. A certain segment of the twitterverse erupted when the pair announced their elopement—it’s hard to imagine a better partnership of sharp, compelling thinkers sharing the stage and their ideas. Feb. 23 at Sixth & I Historic
Synagogue, 600 I St. NW and virtual. $12–$67.
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