Join SAL and Marguerite Casey Foundation for a free event celebrating the publication of Ross Gay’s Inciting Joy, an intimate and electrifying collection of essays from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Delights. In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life’s inevitable hardships. Throughout Inciting Joy, Gay explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also, crucially, how we expand it. This event is free and open to the public; however, registration is required to attend. Please RSVP in advance. Q&A with Dr. Carmen Rojas.

After incarceration, how do you reenter a society that doesn’t offer open arms? Reginald Dwayne Betts is an award-winning author, poet, lawyer, and outspoken advocate for criminal justice reform, whose work interrogates and challenges our notions of justice. Betts has adapted his celebrated poetry collection, Felon, into a one-man performance piece, which he will perform for this SAL Presents event. Q&A with Stacy D. Flood.

Peabody Award-winning host Krista Tippett presents a live, in-person recording of the wildly popular On Being podcast, featuring guest speaker Isabel Wilkerson. Wilkerson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, has become a leading figure in narrative nonfiction with The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste. Join these two friends and interpreters of the human condition for a night of incredible conversation.

Kate Baer is an author and poet who garnered acclaim following the publication of her first collection of poetry, What Kind Of Woman. The collection examines the many roles women play in the modern era, as Baer seeks to place the experiences of motherhood, female companionship, and marriage at the heart of what it means to be poetic. Baer’s newest work, And Yet, dives even deeper into themes of friendship, love, loss, and motherhood, displaying Baer’s ever-increasing capacity to explore these topics in rare poetic form.

Jason Reynolds, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books for young readers. His book, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, a collaboration with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, and his bestselling stories, such as Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, All American Boys (with Brendan Kiely), Long Way Down, and Miles Morales-Spiderman make him “one of the most exciting, constantly surprising voices in children’s literature.” Q&A with young adult author Martha Brockenbrough.

Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest, who has garnered acclaim for her ability to integrate issues of science, technology, religion, environmental politics, and global pop culture into unique, hybrid forms. Her latest novel, The Book of Form and Emptiness, tells the story of a young boy who, after the death of his father, starts to hear voices and finds solace in the companionship of his very own book. Q&A with Shawn Wong.

Please join us for an evening of revelry and literary flourishing at Seattle Arts & Lectures’ annual gala, Words Bloom, and help us raise $375,000 to continue fulfilling our mission! Together, we’ll celebrate 35 years of cultivating transformative experiences through story and language with our community.

This four-part reading series features acclaimed poets, writers, and comics artists who teach in SAL’s Writers in the Schools program. These resident writers come together to read from their own works-in-progress, inspiring the same craft and performance skills they teach in the classroom. Join us in this free event at Hugo House to celebrate the brilliance of the WITS writer cohort on March 28, 2023!

From Michelle Zauner, the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, Crying in H Mart is an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American. Join us for a special SAL Presents conversation with Michelle Zauner, celebrating the memoir’s paperback publication. Create Your Own Series subscriptions, as well as Patron and Grand Patron single tickets, come with a copy of Crying in H Mart, shipped to the ticket holder’s door.

Chris Abani is an acclaimed novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and playwright. Born to an Igbo father and English mother, Abani grew up in Afikpo, Nigeria. His experiences in his home country inspire much of Abani’s work, equally informed by his research into African poetics, twentieth century Anglophone literature, Yoruba and Igbo philosophy and religion, and many other areas of study. Abani’s latest work is a book of poetry entitled Smoking the Bible, in which he illustrates the connective geography between harm, regret, and release, as his poems move through landscapes of Nigeria, the Midwestern United States, adulthood, and childhood. Q&A with Pádraig Ó Tuama.

A trenchant observer of democracy, Masha Gessen is the author of twelve books, including the National Book Award-winning The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia and Surviving Autocracy. Their coverage of current political unfoldings in Russia, LGBTQ+ rights, and the rise of autocratic leaders appears regularly in the pages of The New Yorker and the New York Times. Q&A with Margaret O’Mara, Professor of History at the University of Washington.

A graphic novelist, tattoo artist, illustrator, and filmmaker, James Spooner directed the seminal documentary AFRO-PUNK. His graphic novel, The High Desert, weaves in the Black roots of punk rock and a vivid interlude in the thriving eighties DIY and punk scene in NYC’s East Village. He co-founded the Afropunk Festival, which currently boasts audiences in the hundreds of thousands globally.

“One of the most soulful and perceptive writers of our time,” Pico Iyer is a renowned travel writer beloved for his gift of perspective. In a new culminating work, The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise, Iyer brings together the outer world and the inner to offer us a surprising, original, often beautiful exploration of how we might come upon paradise in the midst of our very real lives. Q&A with Ruchika Tulshyan.

“There is a crisis of violence in our communities,” says Connie Walker, an award-winning Cree journalist from Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan. In her podcasts Stolen and Missing & Murdered, Walker investigates cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. In Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s (Season 2), Walker unearths how her family’s story fits into one of Canada’s darkest chapters: the residential school system. Q&A with journalist Wudan Yan.

One of the most acclaimed writers of our time, Louise Penny is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the beloved Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. With a CWA Dagger and seven Agatha Awards to her name, as well as her reputation as a master plotter, Penny is sure to thrill and delight with her latest release.

This four-part reading series features acclaimed poets, writers, and comics artists who teach in SAL’s Writers in the Schools program. These resident writers come together to read from their own works-in-progress, inspiring the same craft and performance skills they teach in the classroom. Join us in this free event at Hugo House to celebrate the brilliance of the WITS writer cohort on May 24, 2023!

One of our most popular events of the year, each Moth Mainstage features simple, old-fashioned storytelling, by five wildly divergent raconteurs who develop and shape their stories with The Moth’s directors. Theme and storytellers to be announced in Spring 2023!