SAL/ON

A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures

Category: Student Writing

A woman stands onstage at the microphone, looking at the audience with a smile.

WITS Voices: Praising the Particular

By Lisa Wells, WITS Writer-in-Residence I think of writing as a practice of awareness, a habit of heightened attention to detail—to light, gesture, sensation, intonation—and I try to approach the ...

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The shadowy foreground of the image shows the backlit heads of several audience members, listening to a short-haired woman who is reading and slightly out of focus in the background.

WITS Voices: A Tower of Dreams

By Arlene Naganawa, WITS Writer-in-Residence I love how poets use language in surprising, transformative ways, creating metaphors and images that we don’t often encounter in academic or journalistic...

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Paisley Rekdal, in a red satin suit, stands against a wall at Hugo House that is designed to look like the shadows cast by Emily Dickinson's bedroom window.

Paisley Rekdal on Writing the Wrong Thing

Writers, what is your deepest fear about your craft? On February 6, we hosted a reading with Seattle-born poet and current Utah Poet Laureate, Paisley Rekdal. During the Q&A with SAL’s Associat...

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A girl in her late teens, with braided hair, stands in front of a display of colored pencils, organized by color.

“A Poem For My Future Child,” by Zoë Mertz

Inspired by Sarah Kay’s “B” (or “If I Should Have A Daughter”) To my little chick, hidden away, not yet emergent, When you are born, your eyes will be planets reflecting the depths of the un...

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Paisley Rekdal, wearing a red satin suit, reads from her book at a lectern, one hand gesturing. Her gaze is cast upwards.

Introductions: Paisley Rekdal

By Rebecca Hoogs, SAL Associate Director Born and raised in Seattle, Paisley Rekdal went to school at the University of Washington before continuing her studies at the University of Michigan and Unive...

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In a portrait shot, Carmen Maria Machado stands at a reception with a young student.

“Valentine,” by Marina Chen

Valentine there is a red-quilted heart-shaped box of chocolates sitting on my bedside and a pink envelope with my name on it          written in a script that speaks          secrets...

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