March 8, 2018
On February 15 at Benaroya Hall, Colson Whitehead—the Pulitzer Prize-winner with a taste for the fantastical—delivered a talk on his latest, The Underground Railroad. SAL Executive Director Ruth Dickey introduced Colson for this 2017/18 Literary Arts Series event, which included a Q&A with Seattle writer Stephanie Stokes Oliver. By Ruth Dickey, SAL Executive Director In Sag Harbor, […]
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March 7, 2018
Many of us awoke to the sad news this morning that beloved poet Lucie Brock-Broido has passed away. Brock-Broido, the Director of Poetry and a professor in the School of the Arts at Columbia, once said during her 2014/15 SAL Poetry Series reading: “A poem goes driving, then hunting. I’m willing to go anywhere to […]
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February 22, 2018
Seattle poet and educator Quenton Baker, whose work focuses on anti-blackness and the afterlife of slavery, writes below on Tyehimba Jess’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Olio. Jess’s work weaves sonnet, song, and narrative to examine the lives of African American musicians from the Civil War era on, in an effort to understand how these performers met, resisted, and […]
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February 14, 2018
On February 7 at McCaw Hall, Gregory Orr—master of the personal lyric poem, and one of our greatest advocates for how the reading and writing of poetry can help us heal and live more fully—read from his three collections: Concerning the Book that Is the Body of the Beloved, How Beautiful the Beloved, and River Inside the River. SAL […]
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February 6, 2018
We can think of many reasons to see the master of the short, personal lyric, Gregory Orr, at his Poetry Series event on Wednesday at McCaw’s Nesholm Family Lecture Hall—here are just five! Tickets will be available at the door; the box office opens at 6:00 PM. For their Sunday After SAL program, Open Books: A […]
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February 1, 2018
By Rachel Edelman American legislators can’t seem to resist using impoverished children to slander and taunt the opposing political party. Forty-eight hours after Jesmyn Ward spoke for Seattle Arts & Lectures at Benaroya Hall, the U.S. Senate used a standoff over bare-bones protections for undocumented and uninsured kids—DACA and CHIP—to halt all “nonessential” work of […]
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This season, SAL’s friends at Poetry Northwest are partnering with us to present reflections on visiting writers from our Poetry Series. Below, Washington State Poet Laureate Claudio Castro Luna gives us her insights on Gregory Orr’s poetry, exploring how the lyric form can bring catharsis in times of chaos and trauma. Gregory Orr will read as part of SAL’s […]
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January 16, 2018
Today, the words and wisdom of legendary poet, Nikki Giovanni, will wow us at the first event in our 2017/18 Sherman Alexie Loves Series. Although the event is sold out, there will be a limited number of tickets available at the door. In this essay, WITS Writer-in-Residence Laura Gamache welcomes us into Nikki’s beautiful descriptions […]
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November 30, 2017
On Tuesday, November 28, we welcomed the fiery, warm, and witty literary legend Isabel Allende to our 2017/18 Literary Arts Series, returning to the SAL stage thirty years after her first appearance in our premier season. Isabel was introduced by Sherry Prowda, the founder of Seattle Arts & Lectures and its first Executive Director. As […]
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November 29, 2017
Tomorrow, Thursday, November 30th, poet and nonfiction author Kevin Young will be presenting on his latest work, Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News, and in conversation with Seattle writer Melanie McFarland at Benaroya Hall. Tickets are just $10 as part of our 2017/18 Hinge Series, and they’re still available here or […]
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