A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
By Ruth Dickey, SAL Executive Director We are here tonight to celebrate the paperback release of Margaret Atwood’s riveting, Booker Prize-winning book, The Testaments. As the book begins, we hear from Aunt Lydia, who is writing of the corruption and excesses of Gilead. Lydia writes to a hopeful future reader, “I’ll stash this screed in […]
By Christina Gould, SAL Patron Services Manager A year ago, almost to the day, I traveled to Montgomery, Alabama for the Equal Justice Initiative’s unveiling of the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. It was there on a panel discussion, Reforming Criminal Justice in America, that […]
By Ruth Dickey, SAL Executive Director About Zadie Smith’s fourth novel, NW, the Washington Post wrote, “The impression of Smith’s casual brilliance is what constantly surprises.” And, indeed, across her career of five award-winning novels and two essay collections, the joy for us all as readers is Smith’s enormous, beautiful, incisive intellect that roams widely […]
On February 15 at Benaroya Hall, Colson Whitehead—the Pulitzer Prize-winner with a taste for the fantastical—delivered a talk on his latest, The Underground Railroad. SAL Executive Director Ruth Dickey introduced Colson for this 2017/18 Literary Arts Series event, which included a Q&A with Seattle writer Stephanie Stokes Oliver. By Ruth Dickey, SAL Executive Director In Sag Harbor, […]
On February 7 at McCaw Hall, Gregory Orr—master of the personal lyric poem, and one of our greatest advocates for how the reading and writing of poetry can help us heal and live more fully—read from his three collections: Concerning the Book that Is the Body of the Beloved, How Beautiful the Beloved, and River Inside the River. SAL […]
On Tuesday, November 28, we welcomed the fiery, warm, and witty literary legend Isabel Allende to our 2017/18 Literary Arts Series, returning to the SAL stage thirty years after her first appearance in our premier season. Isabel was introduced by Sherry Prowda, the founder of Seattle Arts & Lectures and its first Executive Director. As […]
On Monday, October 9, at McCaw Hall, the electrifying Stephanie Burt read us poems from her latest, Advice from the Lights, schooled us on indie rock, and gave us some stellar new reading recommendations to stack our shelves with. SAL Associate Director Rebecca Hoogs introduced and interviewed Stephanie for this event, which opened SAL’s 2017/18 […]
On May 23 at Town Hall Seattle, Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor Jeffrey Tambor spoke about his new memoir, Are You Anybody?, to close our 2016/17 SAL Presents Series. SAL Associate Director introduced the evening, and the night’s conversation was moderated by Seattle entertainment writer Melanie McFarland, who wrote about the experience on Salon.com. By […]
On Tuesday, May 2nd at McCaw Hall, cerebral poet of the flesh, Carl Phillips, read us a stunning array of poems old and new. SAL Associate Director Rebecca Hoogs introduced and interviewed Carl for this event, which brought SAL’s 2016/17 Poetry Series to a beautiful, breathless close. By Rebecca Hoogs, SAL Associate Director It is […]
On March 1 at Benaroya Hall, Ben Fountain—National Book Critics Circle Award-winner and author of the novel Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (now a film by Ang Lee)—floored us with his well-crafted lecture on what compels us to participate in the (somewhat crazy) act of writing, despite all the economic, social, and political odds stacked against […]