Local Voices presents a unique opportunity to eavesdrop on the works of SAL’s Writers in the Schools resident writers.

Min Jin Lee is the author of Pachinko, a sweeping, four-generation epic celebrated as the first novel written for an adult audience in English that focuses on Japanese-Korean culture. A finalist for the 2017 National Book Award in fiction, Pachinko is “a beautifully crafted story of love, loss, determination, luck, and perseverance” (Library Journal).

Rick Barot is the award-winning author of Chord, Want, and The Darker Fall. His latest book of poems, The Galleons (2020), is in part about the centuries-long colonial structure that sustained Spanish control over Latin and South America, the Caribbean, and the Philippines.

Join us for a night of joyful celebration! As SAL’s most important fundraising event of the year, Words Matter raises more than $350,000 to inspire readers and writers of all generations and backgrounds.

Carol Anderson is one of the premier scholars of black American history. Anderson’s viral op-ed for the Washington Post explored the concept of “white rage” after Ferguson, Missouri erupted in 2014. Her subsequent book, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, won the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. Her latest book, One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy (2018), is a history of voter suppression in America.

Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Sixth Extinction, has traveled from Alaska to Greenland, visiting top scientists to get to the heart of the debate over global warming. Join us on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day for Kolbert’s exploration of environmental journalism.