SAL/on air

SAL/on air is a literary podcast featuring the best author talks from over thirty-five years of Seattle Arts & Lectures’ programming.

Season Four

Barbara Kingsolver

Recorded Monday, October 16, 2023

The works of Barbara Kingsolver have shaped a generation of readers. From her first novel The Bean Trees and beyond, Kingsolver’s characters speak to us, cradle our faces in their hands and exchange their hearts for ours. We were thrilled to welcome Kingsolver back to SAL in October 2023 for a discussion of her Pulitzer […]

Dean Young

Recorded Tuesday, October 2, 2012

When Dean Young took the stage in October of 2012 to read from his Copper Canyon Press collection, Bender, we were incredibly fortunate to bear witness to his humorous, irreverent, and fearless poetry. We were deeply saddened to hear of his passing in August 2022, and we continue to treasure his voice as it lives […]

Sandra Cisneros

Recorded Monday, October 27, 2003

In October of 2003, Sandra Cisneros joined us for an evening 20 years after the publication of her luminous work The House on Mango Street. Now, we have the chance to listen again with reverence, 40 years after that seminal book first came into our lives, and we are reminded more than ever of the […]

Malcolm Gladwell

Recorded Monday, September 23, 2019

In September 2019, Malcolm Gladwell stepped on stage at Benaroya Hall as part of SAL’s Literary Arts Series to discuss his book Talking to Strangers. That night, his talk brought us into the complicated layers that underlie our most fraught and violent interactions. The Los Angeles Times called Talking to Strangers “a compelling, conversation-starting read.” It’s a […]

Amor Towles

Recorded Tuesday, November 12, 2019

In A Gentleman in Moscow, the subject of Amor Towles’ 2019 SAL lecture, the ever-charming Count Rostov says, “By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every […]

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