SAL/ON

A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures

Introductions: Ilya Kaminsky

It was an immense honor to welcome the fabulous fabulist Ilya Kaminsky to Seattle Arts & Lectures as part of our Poetry Series on April 1, 2019. Kaminsky is the author of the bestseller, Dancing in Odessa, a co-editor of “The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry,” and, as of three months ago, Deaf Republic. By […]

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An Interview with Queen Anne Book Company

What book nerd hasn’t fantasized about life as a bookseller? In this behind-the-scenes interview with Janis Segress, co-owner of Queen Anne Book Company, we learn what makes their store different, how one gets into the bookselling business, and what sparks joy about the job. Since childhood, Janis Segress dreamed of owning her own bookstore. In […]

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“Ancestry Isn’t Just Some DNA Test,” by Hiroshi Sakauye

Ancestry Isn’t Just Some DNA Test A Letter to My Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandmother I wonder what your name was. Did it taste like bitter Mount Fuji snow, or sweet dirt from Aokigahara forest? When we were born, did war carve Its name into your fragment bones? When you were a […]

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Artefact on Tech Tarot, Kara Swisher, and Culpability in Silicon Valley

When we asked Sheryl Cababa, an Executive Creative Director at Artefact Group, why her design consultancy decided to sponsor our Journalism Series event with Kara Swisher, she answered, “Kara is like the tech industry’s gadfly—she’s one of the few journalists that doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to ethics and responsibility for big tech […]

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Something Silent in Us Strengthens

This essay is part of a series in which Poetry Northwest partners with Seattle Arts & Lectures to present reflections on visiting writers from our 2018/19  Poetry Series. Ilya Kaminsky reads at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, April 1, at Broadway Performance Hall. Tickets are still available here! By Kristen Millares Young I read Deaf Republic in one swoop, felled. […]

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WITS Voices: Poetry as Disruption

By Christina Lee Barnes, WITS Writer-in-Residence My first-ever WITS residency started off with a fire drill. I’d made it about halfway through my introduction when the loudspeaker cut me off with a garbled a reminder that students would file out to the field in the last ten minutes of class. Covert murmurs of excitement rippled […]

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WITS Voices: The Tale of the Eloquent Sixth Graders

By Laura Gamache, WITS Writer-in-Residence Good writing depends on the author or poet knowing far more about what they are writing than what they put down on paper, and the same probably goes for teaching. I have worked with Marianne Clarke and her 6th grade Language Arts students at TOPS K-8 for several years. She […]

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Zadie Smith on Sacredness, Vodka Martinis, Finding Joy, & Stealing Titles

“Across her career of five award-winning novels and two essay collections,” Executive Director Ruth Dickey began while introducing Zadie Smith, “The joy for us as readers is Smith’s enormous, beautiful, incisive intellect that roams widely around – from art to music, to considering the idea of joy, to reviewing books, to exploring families, to unpacking the […]

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“Homeland,” by Daniel Flores

Homeland My family is from Nicaragua. Where the lush grass is green, and the exotic trees are like something from a Dr. Seuss book. The most interesting person in my family to me is my grandma, her accent is firm, sturdy. She holds her accent like a battle-axe ready at any time to go off […]

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Introductions: Zadie Smith

By Ruth Dickey, SAL Executive Director About Zadie Smith’s fourth novel, NW, the Washington Post wrote, “The impression of Smith’s casual brilliance is what constantly surprises.” And, indeed, across her career of five award-winning novels and two essay collections, the joy for us all as readers is Smith’s enormous, beautiful, incisive intellect that roams widely […]

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