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# Laura Gibson
- URL: https://www.cascadepbs.org/ideas-festival/speakers/laura-gibson/
- Published: 2026-03-20T18:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-02T18:02:14.000Z
- Author: Laura Gibson
- Tags: #hide, #Ideas_Festival_2026_Speaker

Laura Gibson is an internationally acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, producer and writer NPR calls “a boundlessly wise and warm interrogator”. As philosophical as she is open-hearted, with a love of traditional folk music and a bent toward experimentation, she has performed on four continents and had the distinct honor of playing the very first (and 200th) NPR Tiny Desk Concert. “She has this uncanny way of drawing you into her ruminations, making you connect with her emotionally”, says Pitchfork. Between albums three and four, Gibson earned an MFA in fiction writing from Hunter College, completing her thesis in the back of a tour van. Her essays have appeared in Talkhouse, the Los Angeles Review and Oregon Humanities Magazine, and she was a 2020 recipient of the McElheny Award from MIT for her work the Timber Wars podcast. She is currently prepping a new album while very slowly working on a book.