A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
“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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
When we asked the different folks at SAL about the best writing on love, it was hard to know what to expect. The topic is so widely written about and so subject to cliché. And, yet, it is so satisfying to experience words on the page that somehow manage to capture the feeling and kind […]
Knowing your resolutions for a new year is generally the easiest part of these annual aspirations. The real work invariably comes in executing them, though when we asked SAL staff and WITS Writers to share their literary resolutions for 2016, it became clear that publicly announcing them is also part of the battle. Now that […]
By Alison Stagner, Words Matter Event Coordinator “The thing I keep circling back to over and over is why didn’t I get involved sooner?” Tim Griffith tells me on a drizzly afternoon. Tim has been on the SAL board for the past four years, and is this year’s Vice-President. Born in Olympia, raised in Auburn, […]
Just before 2016 begins to reveal all of the new places literature will take us, we asked SAL staff, WITS Writers and board members to share the best books they read in 2015, to continue our What SAL’s Reading series. While preferences varied widely, the most oft-cited titles included one of SAL’s most memorable speakers this […]
“So, what was going on the week before Thanksgiving?” This is the question I anticipate coming from my husband, when we wait to board our plane to Santa Fe for the holidays tomorrow. It will be provoked when I pull The New Yorker out of my bag, which will be from the week of November […]
By Simon Tran, Development Intern As Development Intern at Seattle Arts & Lectures, much of my time is spent writing grant renewals and working on mailings (lots of mailings…). Having major holidays fall during the duration of this internship, I’ve had practice folding letters and working a magical machine that meters the postage. But I […]