Podcast
SAL/on air
Hosted by Seattle Arts & Lectures · EN
SAL/on air is a literary podcast featuring engaging author talks and readings from neary 40 years of Seattle Arts & Lectures programming.
Seattle Arts & Lectures (SAL) is a literary nonprofit. Seattle Arts & Lectures cultivates transformative experiences through story and language with readers and writers of all generations.
Get in-person or online tickets to SAL events at lectures.org.
14episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Robin Wall Kimmerer
2w ago01:13:11Tap to summarizeIn our hectically paced media landscape, the tale of Robin Wall Kimmerer and her beloved book Braiding Sweetgrass is a story of human miracle. First published in 2013, Braiding Sweetgrass joined the best seller list in 2020, having risen into its readers hands person by person, gift by gift, whisper by yell. The book’s subtitle “Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants” struck a chord in our society in 2020 as we re-examined how we want to relate and began to seek guiding knowledge the way roots break through concrete.
Transcribe →M. Gessen
Mar 1001:20:47Tap to summarizeSound bites obfuscate intent. Click bait headlines twist the truth. Deep fake videos destroy shared reality. And that makes critical thinkers and clear-eyed observers like M. Gessen all the more needed. Gessen does not talk down to people who are scared, does not suggest you should not believe your eyes as the famous George Orwell quote goes, does not downplay fear. As a journalist living in Moscow during Vladimir Putin’s ascendancy, Gessen brings a perspective on democracy that slices knife-like through the stories America tells and shows how a few short years have changed us from a people who thought of ourselves a nation of immigrants to a country zipping up its borders, unsure of what truth means. Through their writing, Gessen sits with you on the page and discuss what happens when you no longer recognize the country you live in as your own.
Transcribe →Li-Young Lee
Dec 1601:03:14Tap to summarizeIt is easy to dismiss poetry as being disconnected from the human, the everyday, the useful; to deride it for being uppity, dense, or purposefully confusing. What is difficult is encountering the kind of poetry that makes the world clear. Li-Young Lee is a poet of clarity, even if that clarity is admitting to multiplicity and to wonder at the simplest, most difficult facts of life. Born in Jakarta after his parents fled China, Lee is a poet of witness to exile, loss, family, love, and stitched through it all: the intimacy of faith. Whether that bond appears in his poetry between a father and son, a god and a human, or a body and the air around, Lee dares each of us to open our eyes wider to the world. There is nothing as divine as this life. There is nothing flawed that is not deserving of a poem. Author of six beloved poetry collections, a memoir, and a translation of the Dao De Jing, Lee is a poet whose voice has shaped generations of writers.
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Youth Poet Laureate: Janae Lu
Jul 2800:45:12Tap to summarizeIn this episode of SAL/on air we were joined in the studio by Janae Lu and Zackary Mickelson for a conversation about Janae’s experience as the 2024-25 Seattle Youth Poet Laureate, and discussion of her chapbook published by Poetry NW Editions, In All Spaces Liminal. Janae Lu is a writer whose work explores the nuances of transition, identity, and self-discovery through free-verse poetry and creative prose. Janae has been a member of SAL’s Youth Poetry Fellowship program for the last two years, and Mr. Mickelson is a language arts teacher at Tesla STEM High School.
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Hinton Cast: Reagan E J Jackson, Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist
Jul 1800:43:29Tap to summarizeSAL is pleased to support our friends at Hinton Publishing with the premiere episode of their brand-new podcast, Hinton Cast! Hinton Publishing prioritizes amplifying the voices of underinvited communities in the Pacific Northwest. The podcast features Hinton publishers, Marcus Harrison Green & Maggie Block, speaking with the storytellers who are carving a path of creative disruption through the publishing industry. Enjoy their debut episode as the Hinton team interviews author Reagan E J Jackson about her book "Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist."
Transcribe →Naomi Shihab Nye
May 23, 202501:14:08Tap to summarizeWhat makes a poet’s voice timeless? For more than 40 years, Naomi Shihab Nye has been writing poems, novels, and stories; teaching workshops to adults, children, and incarcerated individuals. Every piece of her work cherishes and honors, be it people or relationships or olive trees, and each of these vivid snapshots create a timeline of her work that seems to extend forever. In between her poems and laugh out loud stories, Naomi refers to “these hard times of disconnection.” This talk was recorded in 2009, and it is one of the great joys of sharing the SAL archive to hear these moments from so long ago and reckon with how those times felt. Together, we remember those precious evenings, what was difficult now and what was difficult then, how we have changed and how we wish to become still better, more generous, kinder poets.
Transcribe →Ed Yong
May 6, 202501:14:39Tap to summarizeEd Yong’s bestselling first book, "I Contain Multitudes," prompted us to look at ourselves and the microbes we contain as the interconnected, interdependent systems that we are. And his follow-up, "An Immense World," was named one of the best books of the year by numerous publications while opening our eyes to the glorious world right before us. Yong visited SAL virtually in 2022, when microbes were in the news every day and the onslaught of new information overwhelmed, and his talk on the nature of journalism did a world of good.
Transcribe →Julian Aguon
Apr 8, 202501:03:28Tap to summarizeAs an Indigenous human rights lawyer and writer from Guam, Julian Aguon’s book 'No Country for Eight Spot Butterflies' memorizes grief from family to country and into one of the most difficult, intangible feelings of our time: climate grief. Drawing on his experience with the law and litigation against nuclear-powered countries, Aguon reminds us that no love is ever wasted, and grief is so often an expression of that love. Part of that love begs us to question, what does a better world look like? How do we imagine justice for generations upon generations? Where do we go from here?
Transcribe →Patrick Radden Keefe
Dec 11, 202401:20:07Tap to summarizeAs a reporter, Patrick Radden Keefe holds two disparate truths together with unparalleled skill: there are facts, and there is a story. In his work as a staff writer at The New Yorker, Keefe has showcased this talent in long form articles ranging from Anthony Bourdain to the hunt for the drug lord Chapo Guzman, and in his nonfiction books he has entranced a generation of readers. Keefe joined SAL in the summer of 2021 over Zoom to discuss his recent smash hit books, and while there is no thrum and cheer of a crowded auditorium in this recording, Keefe’s words bring all the light and crackle on their own. From how he began Say Nothing by reading an obituary of an unknown woman, to uncovering the moral bankruptcy of the Sackler family in Empire of Pain, Keefe has unearthed stories that must be told, with every fact both a pickaxe and a vein of gold.
Transcribe →Charles Yu
Nov 25, 202401:17:17Tap to summarizeAt the beginning of the pandemic Charles Yu wrote an essay on the experience, which many noted, had a cinematic slant to it. “Five hundred years ago,” Yu wrote, “What we really mean when we say that this pandemic feels “unimaginable” is that we had not imagined it. Just as imagination can mislead us, though, it will be imagination—scientific, civic, moral—that helps us find new ways of doing things, helps remind us of how far we have to go as a species.” Having worked as both a television writer and a poet in addition to writing novels, Yu’s imagination is boundless, generous, and vivid. And while his path to his award-winning book, Interior Chinatown, was long and zigzagging, there was endless imagination to keep him going.
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