A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
By Ruth Dickey, SAL Executive Director We are here tonight to celebrate the publication of Claudia Rankine’s brilliant new book, Just Us: An American Conversation. Claudia Rankine is an author, poet, playwright, and multi-media artist. Her book Citizen: An American Lyric, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, the NAACP Image Award, and […]
By Gabriela Denise Frank Poet Aaron Counts, co-founder of Seattle’s Youth Poet Laureate (YPL) program, described the power of poetry to me this way: “A great poem helps you understand yourself and how you fit into the world. It’s like having the recipe for oxygen—it’s a survival skill.” Poetry isn’t frivolous or a luxury, it’s […]
While everyone who spends their summer reading is a winner in our books, SAL is thrilled to team up with SPL today, on Monday, September 28, 2020, for a drawing of our bingo and black-out prize winners for 2020 Summer Book Bingo. Watch the video below to see the drawing, and, if you haven’t already, […]
It seems like we could all use a pick-me-up lately, and when we started receiving our usual September flood of completed Summer Book Bingo boards via postbox, email, and social media, we couldn’t help but be uplifted by your responses in the space where we encouraged you to reflect on your reading adventures. Before we […]
If you’ve been following us for a while, you may know of Tessa Hulls, the “SAL Official Doodler” and author of the forthcoming graphic novel Feeding Ghosts (MCD Books, 2022). We were so lucky that Tessa watched Margaret Atwood’s online-only SAL Presents conversation with Cheryl Strayed on September 9, and made this ultra-cool illustration! Take […]
Jenn St. Claire recently completed her third term on the SAL Board of Directors. We are so grateful to Jenn for her 9 years of generous and enthusiastic service! Lucky for us she has taken on a new role—she will be interviewing past SAL Board members in this space in the months to come. But, […]
By Gabriela Denise Frank Has there been a year when hunger rumbled more prominently in our minds than our bellies? Months ago, I gave up searching for flour and yeast, items perpetually out of stock, but this week, after hearing my husband long for homemade bagels, I searched for and found a 3-pack of Red […]
The ability to express oneself clearly, with strength and beauty, is essential to creating change. With each classroom visit, our WITS Writers-in-Residence—working with students across public schools in Seattle and the greater Puget Sound region—provide new tools, perspectives, and attention to students to help them develop and express these lifelong literacy skills. WITS Writers also […]
By Ruth Dickey, SAL Executive Director We are here tonight to celebrate the paperback release of Margaret Atwood’s riveting, Booker Prize-winning book, The Testaments. As the book begins, we hear from Aunt Lydia, who is writing of the corruption and excesses of Gilead. Lydia writes to a hopeful future reader, “I’ll stash this screed in […]
the ones left behind i am the rocks you gathered and stuffed in your pocket the bubbles that escaped your mouth as you sunk to the bottom i am the faces they made when your body was dredged up from the lake the newspapers that told of your death bubbles escaped your mouth when you […]