A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
By Aaron Counts, WITS Writer-in-Residence This essay was first published on October 26, 2015 on LitHub, on the occasion of SAL’s program featuring Ta-Nehisi Coates in the 2015/16 Literary Arts Series. It was written by WITS Writer-in-Residence Aaron Counts. From the opening sentence of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s acclaimed memoir, Between the World and Me, we know his chief […]
By, Erin Langner, WITS Program Associate My favorite playlists tell stories. As someone who spent hours of my middle school days in the mid-1990s waiting for the songs I requested to hit the radio airwaves so I could capture them on a mixtape, I appreciate the ease of the digital playlist. Some miss that moment […]
Daniella Edwards wrote this comic while a student at McClure Middle School in 2014-15, with WITS Writer-in-Residence Greg Stump. She read it to open for Alison Bechdel, the first presenter in SAL’s Women You Need to Know series.
On October 22 at Town Hall Seattle, SAL Executive Director Ruth Dickey introduced Alison Bechdel, the first author in SAL’s new Women You Need to Know series. When I came out to my family, in 1994, my brother (who was in a PhD program at UMass Amherst and living in Northampton, MA, also known as Lesbianville, […]
Light My mind is like a light bulb getting switched on and off. When I get turned on my mind explodes with ideas, all filling my brain with different things to do, write, play. It is a magical thing, a feeling that can’t be compared with any other, my thoughts lighting up as if there […]
By Corinne Manning, WITS Writer-in-Residence This essay was first published on October 19, 2015 on LitHub, on the occasion of SAL’s program featuring Alison Bechdel in the 2015/16 Literary Arts Series, written by WITS Writer-in-Residence Corinne Manning. This is my memory, though it’s technically unconfirmed: my mom had seen this flag that she liked, non denominational, […]
On October 5 at Benaroya Hall, SAL Executive Director Ruth Dickey introduced and interviewed Elizabeth Gilbert, the first author in SAL’s 2015/16 Literary Arts Series. In Elizabeth Gilbert’s first novel, Stern Men, she writes of lobstermen off the coast of Maine, and about how what we pursue affects us. She writes, “Dairy farming makes men […]
Silent The buzz of cyan, teal, turquoise against my eyelids so different, yet so alike Whoosh, I’m gone A shadow of a man needing redevelopment The A-frame taking a spot in my shell of a self then falling away as a spirit the walls close, inward but I am not claustrophobic I am one with […]
On September 29 at McCaw Hall, SAL Associate Director Rebecca Hoogs introduced and moderated a conversation between Mary Syzbist and Robert Wrigley to open SAL’s 2015/16 Poetry Series. It is an honor to shine tonight’s spotlight on two of the best poets writing today: Mary Szybist and Robert Wrigley. Portland poet Mary Szybist is the […]
On September 24, Seattle poet, performer, teaching artist and WITS Writer-in-Residence Daemond Arrindell introduced and interviewed Saul Williams, the first presenter of SAL’s 2015/16 Season and in this year’s Hinge Series. Saul Williams has been called many things – Renaissance man, film maker, rapper, actor, hip hop’s poet laureate. “Most of the labels that are projected […]