A Conversation with Elizabeth Gilbert

Monday, October 20, 2025 7:30 pm PST

All the Way to the River is a landmark memoir that will resonate with anyone who has ever been captive to love—or to any other passion, substance, or craving—and who yearns, at long last, for liberation.

Deborah Lopez

Li-Young Lee

Monday, November 3, 2025 7:30 pm PST

Acclaimed poet Li-Young Lee—“the poet of rapture and tenderness” (Major Jackson)—offers revelatory volumes of ecstatic poems that search out divine voices in the silences of life, love, and death, most recently with his collection The Invention of the Darling.

A Conversation with Padma Lakshmi

Tuesday, November 18, 2025 7:30 pm PST

Join food expert, television producer, and bestselling author Padma Lakshmi in a trip across the United States in Padma’s All American. Five years in the makingthis kaleidoscopic work compiles dozens of recipes from immigrant and Indigenous communities, as well as many from Lakshmi’s own family, and shows us what really comprises American cuisine.

Inez & Vinoodh

Upcoming SAL Events

WITS Professional Development for Educators Workshop with Laura Da’ Image

WITS Professional Development for Educators Workshop with Laura Da’

Wednesday, October 8, 2025

The Balanced Ecosystem: Creating and Sustaining a Classroom Community that Celebrates Literacy and Offers Relational and Affirming Teaching Strategies This professional development is designed to combine Indigenous literature and literacies with land-based pedagogy. The intention for this training is to offer practical content and strategies that are suitable for all students and to encourage open discussion about how to meaningfully incorporate Indigenous literacy and tenants of land-based pedagogy in diverse learning settings. Upholding a warm and welcoming space for multi-lingual learning and Indigenous languages is a foundational aspect of this offering. Participants can expect to leave the workshop with a selection of new strategies and prompts, a recursive strategy for classroom use, and suggestions for bringing literature informed by Indigenous languages into the learning space. This two-hour workshop will fulfill OSPI’s Continuing Education clock hours (2) for all state educators and meets the requirements for ongoing Social Emotional Learning(SEL) for teacher certification. This course will offer free resources and is suitable for teachers and learners of all ages including adult learners. Writers may also find the content useful.

WITS Back-to-School Luncheon Image

WITS Back-to-School Luncheon

Friday, October 17, 2025

Fundraisers

Come hear firsthand from and be inspired by students, educators, and WITS writers-in-residence as they speak to the importance of youth arts education. Funds raised from the luncheon supports SAL’s Writers in the Schools (WITS) program as well as SAL’s mission of cultivating spaces of creative expression for the next generation of writers and readers. WITS is a youth program of Seattle Arts & Lectures that connects professional, Seattle-based writers with K-12 public school classrooms to elevate and amplify the voices of over 6,000 students throughout the region. *

A Conversation with Elizabeth Gilbert Image

A Conversation with Elizabeth Gilbert

Monday, October 20, 2025

Community Curated Series: Colleen Echohawk Presents

In her first nonfiction book in a decade, #1 bestselling writer Elizabeth Gilbert who taught millions of readers to live authentically (Eat Pray Love) and creatively (Big Magic) shows how to break free, joining Community Curated Series director Colleen Echohawk in conversation.

Timothy Snyder Image

Timothy Snyder

Sunday, October 26, 2025

Literary Arts

From On Tyranny to On Freedom, Timothy Snyder has delved into how to resist fascism and where we go from here. Literary Arts Series subscriptions, Create Your Own Series subscriptions and SAL Memberships include a paperback copy of On Freedom, shipped to your door by our bookstore partner Queen Anne Book Company.

Li-Young Lee Image

Li-Young Lee

Monday, November 3, 2025

Poetry

Acclaimed poet Li-Young Lee—“the poet of rapture and tenderness” (Major Jackson)—offers revelatory volumes of ecstatic poems that search out divine voices in the silences of life, love, and death, most recently with his collection The Invention of the Darling. Q&A with Jane Wong

An Evening with Patti Smith Image

An Evening with Patti Smith

Sunday, November 9, 2025

SAL Presents

A radiant new memoir from beloved artist and writer Patti Smith, author of the National Book Award winner Just Kids. Tickets with “& Book” include a copy of Bread of Angels, shipped to your door by our bookstore partner Elliott Bay Book Company.

Seattle Arts & Lectures cultivates transformative experiences through story and language with readers and writers of all generations.

Community

Summer Book Bingo

Summer Book Bingo 2025 has launched! Every summer, we partner with The Seattle Public Library and King County Library System to create a Summer Book Bingo card as part of our free summer reading program. Adults, teens, and kids play along from May – September to be entered in a chance to win fabulous prizes.

Gift Cards

Give the gift of SAL! If you’re looking for a literary-themed gift for loved ones near and far, SAL’s digital gift cards are on sale now for in-person and streaming events.