A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
We’re excited to announce the launch of our Required Reading series, where we’ll be sharing a list of three essential works for each of SAL’s visiting writers. First up: Jacqueline Woodson, children’s author extraordinaire. Ursula K. Le Guin said of stories: “The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.” If you agree […]
Twelve fun links from around the web. For your Friday listening pleasure, Teju Cole has created a Spotify playlist of Nigerian music called Liquid Grooves of Lagos. While we’re at it, how beautifully eerie is his Flickr account? Jacqueline Woodson has her April reading picks up as Poetry Foundation’s Young People’s Poet Laureate. What Station Eleven looks like to Eastern […]
By Katy E. Ellis, WITS Writer-in-Residence My first year as a WITS instructor, I handwrote each day’s plan in a small red notebook that I toted to the kindergarten classes at Broadview-Thomson K-8. This year, I referred back to those lessons and added new lessons to the notebook, which I carried like a security blanket to […]
“Ever since Daemond started coming to my third period class, I have found a healthy way to express my emotions and thoughts. I look forward to being taught by him every Friday and learning why writing poetry really matters.” These words come from a ninth-grade WITS student at Franklin High; they’re only a minute sampling of […]
By Justine Chan A few months after the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, my family and I took our usual summer family trip there. For some bizarre reason, the travel package even threw in a free month-long stay at the gaudy Metropole Hotel, the “epicenter” of the SARS outbreak. And so, my parents stayed there […]
By Vicky Edmonds, WITS Writer-in-Residence Hearing the poetry of children has been one of the most meaningful experiences in my life. I am awestruck at getting to hear that kind of sincerity nearly every day. It’s why I remain a teaching artist after 26 years, even though it’s the most challenging work I’ve ever done. […]
On March 23, novelist Emily St. John Mandel delivered a thought-provoking lecture about civilization, art, and apocalypse at Town Hall Seattle for SAL’s 2015/16 Literary Arts Series. SAL Executive Director Ruth Dickey introduced her talk and moderated their conversation that evening. An incredible fever overtook the Seattle Arts & Lectures staff last summer – it […]
Although she makes it look effortless, being an office dog at a literary arts organization isn’t all naps and kibbles. We sat down with Lannan, Executive Director Ruth Dickey’s new pup, to ask the real questions about life as SAL’s mascot. Here are her tips for success, along with a surprising personal motto (hint: it […]
Burning When you tease me, I feel like I’m burning, and you lock the oven with words like, “I hate you.” As I burn, I try to put out the flames with tears, but you just laugh. Sometimes I put the flames out on others. I think the flames will go out, but they just […]
Rebecca Hoogs calls the extraordinary husband and wife duo, Colleen Rain and Neil Tennyson, “the wonder vols behind it all.” Dedicated SAL volunteers for the past several years, they’ve mastered the details, small and large, that help make our events memorable. Here, they share their behind-the-scenes involvement (from wine to auctioneering to book arches), what books are currently […]