Join us for an extraordinary evening of literary talent with the Pulitzer Prize-winning voices of the future! Young authors from each of our WITS schools and Seattle Children’s will be introduced by their WITS Writer-in-Residence before sharing original poems, stories, and comics in a heartwarming showcase of emerging talent.

Join us for an extraordinary evening of literary talent with the Pulitzer Prize-winning voices of the future! Young authors from each of our WITS schools and Seattle Children’s will be introduced by their WITS Writer-in-Residence before sharing original poems, stories, and comics in a heartwarming showcase of emerging talent.

Born in Istanbul, Turkey, to Iranian parents, Solmaz Sharif is the author of the poetry collection LOOK (Graywolf Press, 2016), a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN Open Book Award and the winner of the 2017 American Book Award for poetry.

A native of the seaside town of Limbe, Cameroon, Imbolo Mbue is the author of the bestselling debut Behold the Dreamers, the story of a young Cameroonian couple whose new lives in New York are upended by the Great Recession. The novel won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, was an Oprah’s Book Club selection, and was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Internationally beloved poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s latest collection, The Tiny Journalist, is a collection inspired by seven-year-old Janna Tamimi, the “Youngest Journalist in Palestine,” who captured videos of anti-occupation protests with her mother’s smartphone.

Malcolm Gladwell is a writer, public speaker, and podcast host whose work deals with the unexpected implications of research in the social sciences. Gladwell’s latest, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about People We Don’t Know (September 2019), is a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news.