Ask the Curator: How Do You Choose?
May 27, 2016
Have you ever wondered how or why a particular writer is chosen to speak at a SAL event? Rebecca Hoogs is answering curation questions on Sonder! Send questions to Alison Stagner at astagner@lectur...
SAL/ON
A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
“Butterflies,” by Tyleah Armstrong
May 25, 2016
Butterflies Yesterday my name was dazzling diamond. Today my name is bright shiny star, soaring through the sky. Sometimes I am an empty house, a book with no pages. Strangers think my name is amusing...
Visible and Touchable: Pablo Neruda on Interpretation, Practicality, and the Will to Write
May 23, 2016
By Elijah Brooks, SAL Intern The virtual world has become an inescapable part of modern life, and because of this, the wisdom of Pablo Neruda is ripe with new applicability. In a 1971 interview with R...
On Claudia Rankine and Citizen
May 20, 2016
By Gabrielle Bates “The route is often associative.” —Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric [Yes, and] When I was a little girl in Birmingham, Alabama, wracked with shame over some transgr...
“Henri Rousseau,” by Nadia Luke
May 17, 2016
Henri Rousseau On the forest floor, the trees growing with bananas and peaches. A flower in the distance is as pink as a sunset flying away and the light blue and gray sky is like a fan trying to blow...
WITS Voices: All the Warm Night, Sleep in Moonlight
May 12, 2016
By Ann Teplick, WITS Writer-in-Residence Sleep in a field of salmon peonies. A rooftop with saxophone jazz. A sand dune with peacocks. All the warm night, sleep by the creek with its burble, th...
Required Reading: Claudia Rankine
May 11, 2016
As part of our Required Reading series, we share a list of three essential works for each of SAL’s featured writers. Up this time: groundbreaking poet, essayist, and playwright Claudia Rankine...
From the Archives: Twelve Amazing Moth Tales
May 6, 2016
One of America’s most beloved radio shows, The Moth features stories by luminaries in the arts and sciences, newsmakers and news breakers, and every day heroes (and even a few reformed villains...
“Bathing in India,” by Jemma Jacks
May 5, 2016
Bathing in India Before I was a citizen of this country, I was a citizen of the bucket. Staring at the water right under my nose. I don’t believe I can fit. Lifting me up, my mom tells me it is the ...
Introductions: Teju Cole
May 3, 2016
On April 21st, writer, photographer, and art historian Teju Cole delivered a sweeping lecture on heritage, craft, and political responsibility at Town Hall Seattle for SAL’s 2015/16 Literary A...