SAL/ON

A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures

WITS Voices: The Circle in the Room

By Daemond Arrindell, WITS Writer-in-Residence It was my first day returning to a high school on the south side of Seattle, where I have taught during residencies for the past three years. I hadn’t seen the kids for more than six months after working with them last winter, so I decided to teach a lesson […]

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Five Questions: Tim Griffith, SAL Board Vice-President

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, […]

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WITS Voices: Writing Towards the Shadowed Horizon

By Laura Gamache, WITS Writer-in-Residence Years ago, my friend Linda and I were sitting in a circle of new mothers. Her son, Peter, was nine or ten. He was by far the oldest child at our gathering. He amiably agreed to go into the backyard with a group of little boys. After a bit, a […]

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“Untitled Actress” and Other Timely Words from Amber Tamblyn

By Erin Langner, WITS Program Associate After the Golden Globes ushered us fully into film’s award season Sunday night, the usual questions of how far the industry has pushed beyond old boundaries in the past year have come back, too. When Kate Winslet declared 2015 “an incredible year for women in film,” during her acceptance speech, I wondered […]

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WITS Voices: Getting from Ordinary to Intimate

By Margot Kahn Case, WITS Writer-in-Residence One of the many vagaries of high school, as I remember it and as I see it played out in my WITS classes, is the question, “What makes me unique?” It’s so easy to go down the “I’m-not-very-interesting” path, in the same way that it’s easy to lose sight […]

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“I am,” by WITS Student Mohammed AlShubayli

Mohammed AlShubayli wrote “I am” while he was a patient at Seattle Children’s Hospital, with WITS Writer-in-Residence Sierra Nelson. His poem was made into a broadside designed and printed by artist Juliet Shen, in partnership with the School of Visual Concepts. We hope you will join us next Thursday, January 14 from 6-8 p.m., at Cupcake Royale on Capitol […]

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From the Archive: “Are You There, Judy Blume? It’s Me, Rachel”

This essay was commissioned by SAL on the occasion of our program featuring Judy Blume in the 2014/15 Literary Arts Series, on June 11, 2015, written by WITS Writer-in-Residence Rachel Kessler. By Rachel Kessler, WITS Writer-in-Residence Are You There, God? It’s Me, the Shy “Early-Bloomer” is the book I’d like Judy Blume to write next. By […]

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What SAL’s Reading: Best of 2015

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 […]

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What SAL’s Reading: Winter Break Edition

“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 […]

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