What is all of this?
Curiosity Guild produces a series of live, cocktail-hour lectures about the weird and wonderful stories from history, science, art, and adventure. We welcome the full range of speakers to our stage: from professional to completely new. Events are held at Public Works in the Mission District of San Francisco, California.
Talks are selected by the evening’s curator about a month before a salon, but you can submit a story idea at any time through our talk pitch form. If you have any special areas of interest, pitch them under “no specific talk”! You never know when a curator will need a wildcard.
Are there any restrictions on who can be a speaker?
Our events are generally ages 21+, so all speakers must be over 21. Otherwise, we welcome anyone who is excited about getting up and telling a well-researched, engaging story.
What’s the selection process like?
First, you pitch talks on the subject(s) you’re passionate about, or even just curious about and willing to research. (We can’t do this part for you! Please pitch!)
About a month before the event, the curator goes through the pitches and contacts speakers who’ve pitched topics that look like a good fit for the topic. Sometimes this is a direct invitation to speak, and sometimes it’s to clarify the pitch topic. Building the show roster can take a few rounds of back and forth!
We receive more submissions than we have spots for, and we try to spread the speaking opportunities around. If your story isn’t selected for a specific upcoming salon, we may not get in touch, but we still encourage you to submit new ideas for future shows. We also frequently revisit our pitch backlog to find speakers for later events.
What kinds of stories do you look for?
We love history, science, art, and adventure, and we try to balance the evening’s talks to include a variety across different subjects. Also do note - we’re looking for the interesting angles and untold stories, not just the cut and dry facts, or a five minute TikTok summary. Humans are gonna human in fascinating ways, and we’re all here for it.
As someone much more eloquent than I once wrote:
We love great ideas from overlooked corners of history, tales of underdogs and also-rans, disasters and bad ideas, animals behaving badly, historic jerks, epic badasses, and objects of mystery and intrigue. We love the back stories behind famous works of art, literature, and architecture, tales of serendipitous good luck and tragically bad luck. We love rivals and pirates and mad scientists, tinkerers, eccentrics, and masterful thieves.
We encourage speakers to find stories outside their specific field of expertise, to challenge themselves and cultivate the arts of research and storytelling.
We tend to anchor our stories outside of living memory, but this is not necessarily a hard and fast rule. Our main criteria are that it won’t get us sued, brigaded, or sent cease and desist orders by distraught family members. (This is not an exhaustive list; talk selection is ultimately at the discretion of the curator.)
What’s not appropriate for the Curiosity Guild stage?
Curiosity Guild is not the stage for promoting personal projects or contemporary issues. We also steer clear of overt soap-boxing, so talks espousing any specific ideology or personal philosophy are generally not selected.
What should I expect as a first-time speaker?
If you are selected, you will be introduced to a community of support, including being paired with a mentor. Your mentor, an experienced speaker, will help you research your talk and refine your story, answer questions, and generally serve as a guide. With their help, you’ll develop a 10-12 minute talk and accompanying slide deck, using some of our favorite public domain resources (and no AI-generated images).
Original art, including bad stick-figure theater, is highly encouraged. Do you sing, dance, play, do card tricks, or have a way to demonstrate something from your talk? We love multimedia and participation! Talk to your curator about how to incorporate bonus content.
As a thanks, you get admission to the event, a plus one, and discount codes for friends and family, plus drink tickets and a commemorative speakers book.
How does the Guild Membership work?
The Guild is the heart of our community, composed of our speakers, organizers, and volunteers. Membership is by invitation and discretion of the Curators.
To qualify for Guild Membership, individuals must actively participate and contribute to events, either by speaking, mentoring new speakers, or volunteering at events and behind the scenes.