SAL/ON

A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures

GiveBIG 2018 was a success!

Thank you to everyone that helped make GiveBIG 2018 a success. With the help of 27 generous donors, SAL raised $4,242.90! Thank you for believing in the power of words and making it possible to bring some of the most important writers and thinkers of our time to Seattle stages and classrooms. Your support ensures […]

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Required Reading: Ariel Levy

By Stephany Kim, SAL Intern As part of our Required Reading series, we share a list of three essential works from SAL’s featured writers. Up this time: The New Yorker journalist and nonfiction author, Ariel Levy. Levy’s original talk will be closing out our 2017/18 Women You Need to Know (WYNK) Series TOMORROW, Tuesday, May 15, at Benaroya’s Recital Hall at […]

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The Hearts We Carry: Poetry at Seattle Children’s Hospital

By Ann Teplick, WITS Writer-in-Residence For seven years, through SAL’s Writers in the Schools, I have been writing poetry with children and teens at Seattle Children’s Hospital. For seven years, I’ve witnessed celebrations, indecisions, contemplations, and anguish of students and their families. For seven years, I have learned how to be mindful, how to attend […]

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Join us for SAL’s 2018/19 Season!

We’re thrilled to announce select speakers for our 2018/19 Literary Arts Series and our brand new three-part Journalism Series. The Literary Arts Series presents original talks with the leading fiction and non-fiction writers of our time. To respond to the moment, this year’s Literary Arts Series will feature a line-up of all female writers. World-renowned presidential […]

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Required Reading: Viet Thanh Nguyen

As part of our Required Reading series, we share a list of three essential works from SAL’s featured writers. Up this time: Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar & author of The Sympathizer, Nothing Ever Dies, & The Refugees, Viet Thanh Nguyen. In his recent New York Times opinion piece, Viet Thanh Nguyen—the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, […]

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WITS Voices: Coming Out Trans While Teaching

By Cody Pherigo, WITS Writer-in-Residence   I had the opportunity to come out as transgender in my classrooms this year, an action that was never on the table when I was in high school and still isn’t for students and teachers in most areas of the country. Seattle is special, sometimes. But, it is still […]

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“To Whisk the Moon,” by Audrey Papineau

To Whisk the Moon To whisk, to whisk, to whisk the moon To fly, to soar, to light up the moon, whoosh! Tap! Rattle tap tap! The tree, the tree, the tree under the moon. Try everything! To soar, to soar, to soar in the light! To fly, to whisk, to make light, whoosh! Tap! […]

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WITS Voices: Speaking rights in the writing classroom

By Alex Madison, WITS Writer-in-Residence   On one of the final days of my fall WITS residency, I stood before a full class of seventh graders, hurrying to push through my fiction lesson so students could experiment with the new skill on their own. So little time remained, and I wanted them to apply some […]

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“Palimpsest,” by Suh Young Choi

Palimpsest   2016 A large church sanctuary. In the past few weeks, it’s seen too much. New pastor since the last one left for Fayetteville. New youth minister, since he’s leaving for Cabot. New music minister, since this one left for Orlando. New organist, since she left for Alabama. The choir still sings. The orchestra […]

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WITS Voices: Writing Letters We May Never Send

By: Minh Nguyen, WITS Writer-in-Residence I teach high school juniors and seniors, and for one writing lesson, we focus on the epistolary format. I ask them to think of a person for whom they have very strong, likely mixed feelings, and to write a letter to them that is so honest they may not be […]

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