A Conversation with Celeste Ng: In-Person & Online

Kieran Kesner

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SAL Presents

A Conversation with Celeste Ng: In-Person & Online

Past Event: Monday, October 17, 2022

At Town Hall Seattle—The Great Hall

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In Person & Online

Although this event has passed, you can still buy a digital pass to watch the recording through Monday, October 24 at 7:30 p.m. (PT).

Celeste Ng is the bestselling author of three novels: Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and her latest work, Our Missing Hearts. In 2020, Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere was adapted into a popular limited series on Hulu, starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. Following its nationwide success, Ng’s latest work, Our Missing Hearts, explores the ways that supposedly civilized communities can pretend to ignore the most searing injustice.

Q&A with Danya Kukafka, author of Notes on an Execution and Girl in Snow.

Most tickets, with the exception of a limited number of Pay What You Can and complimentary tickets, include a copy of Our Missing Hearts, mailed to the ticket holder’s door.

For this event, facial masks are required for entry. Proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test is no longer required.

In Our Missing Hearts, twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence.

To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.  Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new. It’s a tale about power and limitations, of art to create change, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact.

Celeste Ng is the author of three novels: Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts. Ng’s first novel, Everything I Never Told You (2014), was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book of 2014, Amazon’s #1 Best Book of 2014, and named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications. Everything I Never Told You was also the winner of the Massachusetts Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and the ALA’s Alex Award. It has been translated into over thirty languages and is being adapted for the screen.

Her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere (2017) was a #1 New York Times bestseller, a #1 Indie Next bestseller, and Amazon’s Best Fiction Book of 2017. It was named a best book of the year by over 25 publications, the winner of the Ohioana Award and the Goodreads Readers Choice Award 2017 in Fiction, and has spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list.

Celeste Ng grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. She graduated from Harvard University and earned an MFA from the University of Michigan (now the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan). Ng’s fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, and many other publications, and she is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors.

Danya Kukafka, our Q&A moderator for the evening, is the author of the nationally bestselling novels Notes on an Execution and Girl in Snow. Her books have been reviewed favorably in outlets like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, and have been translated into over a dozen languages worldwide. Notes on an Execution is currently in development as a television series. Kukafka works as a literary agent with Trellis Literary Management. Learn more.

Event Details

Town Hall Seattle—The Great Hall

1119 8th Ave
Seattle, WA 98101

View directions.

Know Before You Go

COVID-19 Policies

The safety of our patrons, artists, community partners, staff, and volunteers continues to be important to us. For this event, facial masks are required for entry. Proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test is no longer required. However, health and safety protocols are subject to change. Before attending events, please check your pre-event email for the most up-to-date information.

Can't find your ticket?

All tickets have been emailed for this event, so be sure to check your inbox for an email from [email protected]. Call us at 206-621-2230 x10 if you can’t find them.

For in-person attendance: Your e-tickets come attached in a PDF with your ticket order confirmation email. Present on your mobile device or bring your printed ticket to the venue the night of the event. Check your pre-event email for details on COVID safety precautions.

For online attendance: If you purchased a digital pass for an event, SAL will send you a pre-event reminder email with instructions to  log in and access the online stream two days before your event. The night of your event, return to lectures.org/event/celeste-ng and enter the password where prompted. The program begins at 7:30 p.m. (PT) and will be available for viewing for a week after the event.

SAL will also send an email the day of the event, containing the same information. If you have opted out of receiving SAL emails, you will miss this important information—please email us at [email protected] and we will assist you.

Have a question for the speaker?

Want to ask the author something? Send your question to SAL at [email protected]—it might be asked onstage!

Books

Most tickets, with the exception of a limited number of Pay What You Can and complimentary tickets, include a copy of Our Missing Hearts, mailed to the ticket holder’s door.

Our partner bookstore, Elliott Bay Book Company, will have additional books available for purchase at their table in the lobby and on their website.

Patrons & Grand Patrons, Have a Drink on SAL!

Patron & Grand Patron seating includes a pre-event drink ticket! Check your pre-event email for details.

Transportation & Parking

Town Hall Seattle is centrally located at 1119 8th Ave, on the corner of 8th and Seneca. Their venue is served by frequent bus routes, is near access to light rail stations, and close to a number of parking options nearby. Please see their website for more details.

Accessibility

Open Captioning is an option for people who have hearing losses, where a captioning screen displaying the words that are spoken or sung is placed on stage. To make a request for open captioning, please contact us at [email protected] or 206.621.2230×10. Please note: for in-person events at Town Hall Seattle, we appreciate a two-week advance notice to allow us time to secure captioning services. 

Closed Captioning is an option for people who have hearing loss, where captioning displays the words that are spoken or sung at the bottom of the video for online events. Captioning is available for all online events; click the “CC” button to view captions during the event.

Assistive Listening Devices (ALDs) are devices that people with hearing loss use in conjunction with their hearing device (hearing aids or cochlear implants). Town Hall Seattle has a hearing loop system, so you can switch your T-coil hearing aid to telecoil to have the stage’s microphones transmitted directly to your hearing aids. To pick up a headset, check in with any Town Hall usher when you arrive.

Sign Language Interpretation is available upon request for Deaf, DeafBlind, and hard of hearing individuals. To make a request for interpretation, please contact us at [email protected] or 206.621.2230×10, or select “Sign Language Interpretation” from the Accessibility section during your ticket checkout process and we will contact you to confirm details. Please note: we appreciate a two-week advance notice to allow us time to secure interpretation.

Wheelchair Accessible Seating and Accessible Restrooms are available in all sections at Town Hall Seattle, which is fully accessible to ticket holders with physical mobility concerns. Town Hall Seattle recommends that visitors use the 8th Avenue Entrance for events in the Great Hall, and elevators with Braille signage go to all levels within the Hall. The venue has all-gender, ADA-accessible restrooms on the lobby and Forum level. To reserve seating for a specific mobility concern, please contact us at [email protected] or 206.621.2230×10, or select “Wheelchair Accessible or Alternative Seating Options” during ticket checkout, and we will contact you to confirm details. For more details on accessibility features at Town Hall, click here.

Guide and service dogs are welcome.

All-gender restrooms are available.

We are pleased to offer these accessibility services at our venues, and they are provided at no additional cost to ticket holders. Please contact us with any questions and feedback about how we can be more accessible and inclusive. Our Patron Services Manager is available at [email protected], or Monday-Friday from 10:00am – 5:00pm at 206.621.2230×10.

For more accessibility information, please head to lectures.org/accessibility. If you would like to make accessibility arrangements you do not see listed here, please contact our box office or select “Other Accommodations” from the Accessibility section during your ticket checkout process, and we will contact you to confirm details.

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