Something Silent in Us Strengthens
March 18, 2019
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 a...
SAL/ON
A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
Category: 2018/19 Season
WITS Voices: Poetry as Disruption
March 13, 2019
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...
WITS Voices: The Tale of the Eloquent Sixth Graders
March 8, 2019
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 teac...
Zadie Smith on Sacredness, Vodka Martinis, Finding Joy, & Stealing Titles
March 7, 2019
“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&#...
“Homeland,” by Daniel Flores
March 5, 2019
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 ac...
Introductions: Zadie Smith
March 1, 2019
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,...
The 2018/2019 Elaine Wetterauer Writing Contest Winners & Chapbook
February 27, 2019
Every year, Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Writers in the Schools (WITS) program holds the Elaine Wetterauer Writing Contest to celebrate the wisdom, creativity, and heart captured in student and teac...
Announcing the 2019 Prowda Award Winners!
February 26, 2019
We’re thrilled to present our sixth annual Sherry Prowda Literary Champion Award to Claudia Castro Luna, Washington State Poet Laureate, and the literary arts organization Hugo House. Together,...
WITS Voices: Poems from The Red Pencil
February 19, 2019
By Kathleen Flenniken, WITS Writer-in-Residence Andrea Davis Pinkney has written a moving and imaginative story-in-poems for middle grade readers called The Red Pencil (Little Brown, 2014). The Red Pe...
Introductions: Katherine Boo
February 2, 2019
By Ruth Dickey, SAL Executive Director When Bryan Stevenson was at SAL two years ago, he shared that one of the most important things that any of us can do to address inequality in our world is to get...