Lisa Swallow is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Crossing Party Lines, a national nonprofit that creates open dialogue between Americans with dissimilar ideologies in order to increase tolerance, build communities, and encourage civic engagement. She is an Advisor for America Talks, and a member of the Alliance for Peacebuilding. She has developed a series of workshops teaching the concepts, skills, and techniques for having civil, respectful conversations with people who view the world differently and currently offers coaching and training for difficult conversations.
Lisa is the author of dozens of articles, posts, and papers in the field of communication. Her books about political discourse present a refreshing, accessible approach to communicating across differences and her short stories have appeared in multiple anthologies.. She holds a patent in microlithography and her artwork is in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution
INTERVIEWS
Why We Need to Cross Party Lines
Hear why Crossing Party Lines is so important, explained by the people who are actually doing it.
The Conversation
Listen to the Crossing Party Lines Origin story, as Lisa and Co-Founder Kareem Abdelsadek talk about why they do this work.
You Must be Some Kind of Therapist
Want to know why this approach works? Learn how exciting insights from fields as disparate as couples counseling and neuroscience inform Lisa’s work.
Hear Lisa talk about why she believes understanding (and celebrating) our differences to be the key to building connection between individuals and across party lines.
What does celebrating our differences look like? How can we learn to do this, and why is it so difficult?
How to Heal Our Divides
In this author interview, hear why Lisa is drawn to this work, what she’s learned, and why she wrote her books. She also gives a sneak peek at the book she’s working on right now.
Wired for Conflict, Training for Peace: What We Can Do About Hard-Wired Conflict
In this webinar hosted by the Alliance for Peacebuilding, hear three experts in the field discuss the causes of conflict and suggest solutions.