The Seattle Public Library - Programs & Events

Final episode in this series

Much like any book club, Bushwick acts on the urge to read books and discuss what they read. Join us for a performance of original music inspired by Charles Dickens' Christmas classic. The program features the Bushwick Book Club Seattle’s band, Read and Destroy, whose members are longtime Bushwick performers Wes Weddell, Moe Provencher, Aimee Zoe, and Geoff Larson. Everyone is invited to read and revisit "A Christmas Carol" and join in a musical evening.

Schenkkan's lecture is presented in conjunction with “All the Way” and “The Great Society,” a two-part dramatization of Lyndon Baines Johnson's presidency, running at Seattle Repertory Theatre from Nov. 14, 2014, through Jan. 4, 2015. Robert Schenkkan is an American playwright, screenwriter and actor, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for “The Kentucky Cycle” and Tony Award for “All the Way.” He is the author of 13 plays and a collection of one-act plays, “Conversations with the Spanish Lady.” The 2014 Broadway production of “All The Way” swept the awards season, winning the Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Drama League and Tony Award, as well as the Steinberg/American Theater Critics Award, the inaugural Edward M. Kennedy Award and Boston’s Elliot Norton Award. It also set two box office records on Broadway.

In "Let Me Be Frank With You," Ford reinvents Bascombe in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Throughout four stories, Bascombe attempts to reconcile, interpret and console a world undone by calamity. Bascombe travels to the site of his former home on the shore, visits his ex-wife who is suffering with Parkinson's, and meets a dying former friend. Ford is the author of the Bascombe novels, which include "The Sportswriter" and its sequels: "Independence Day," the first novel to win both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and "The Lay of the Land." Other books include the New York Times best-selling novel "Canada," the short story collection "A Multitude of Sins," and the long story collection "Women With Men." Ford lives in Boothbay, Maine.

Thomas Jefferson, portrayed by award-winning humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson, joins the Saint Michael Trio for conversation and a performance of chamber music that was popular during Jefferson's lifetime. The performance will feature composers Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, who were Jefferson’s contemporaries. He would have heard them during his sojourn in Paris as U.S. minister to France. A connoisseur of the finer things of life and an accomplished violinist himself, Jefferson will speak about music and the arts more generally. Jenkinson has dedicated the better part of his life to researching the historical characters he portrays and to bringing back and defining the "living theatre" of Chautauqua. He is one of the nation’s leading interpreters of Thomas Jefferson. Jenkinson hosts the weekly Thomas Jefferson Hour. He is president of Dakota Sky Education, Inc., the founder and chief consultant for the Theodore Roosevelt Center through Dickinson State University, and scholar of humanities at the University of Mary in Bismarck.

Guardians of the Gaylaxy is an out-and-proud and out-of-this-world evening of readings by local writers Astrid Amara, Ginn Hale, Laylah Hunter, Langley Hyde and Nicole Kimberling. From Lambda Literary-winning fantasies to rollicking steampunk stories to racy space romps, each author takes the reader on an exciting, imaginative journey. About the Authors: Astrid Amara, author of the Lambda Literary-nominated fantasy "The Archers Heart," and the new fantasy novel set during the Crimean War, "The Devil’s Lancer." Ginn Hale, is a Lambda Literary nominee and Spectrum Award winner for her fantasy/steampunk novel "Wicked Gentlemen," and author of the new novel "Champion of the Scarlet Wolf." Laylah Hunter’s first novel, the fantasy "Gabriel’s City," releases November 2014. Hunter is also the author of short fiction, including "Safe Harbor." Langley Hyde, is a Clarion Writer’s Workshop graduate whose first steampunk fantasy novel "Highfell Grimoires" was released spring 2014. Nicole Kimberling, winner of the Lambda Literary award for her speculative fiction novel "Turnskin" and founder and editor of the LGBTQ speculative fiction press Blind Eye Books.

Learn about the editing process (developmental editing, copy editing, proofreading), what you need to know about book/cover design, various platforms for digital publishing, and options for printing your book. We'll also cover distribution (getting your book into bookstores and libraries) and marketing - two areas crucial to your book’s success yet often overlooked in the self publishing process. Panelists will include an editor, marketing professional, media escort, distributor and novelist - all with experience in both the traditional and independent publishing worlds. A moderated discussion will be followed by a Q&A session. This program is ideal for fiction, nonfiction and memoir writers.

The purpose of the Jack Straw Writers Program is to introduce local writers to the medium of recorded audio, to encourage the creation of new literary work, and to provide new venues for the writer and their work. The program was created in 1997. Each year a single curator selects 12 writers/writing teams out of dozens of applicants based on artistic excellence, diversity of literary genres, and a cohesive grouping of writers

Come to get a brief introduction to the art of storytelling, to hear stories by experienced storytellers, and to have a chance to share your own personal stories focused on the theme of Lessons Learned. Listeners and tellers are welcome!

Jonas Salk was born 100 years ago, into a world in which polio was a widespread and fearful possibility in the mind of every parent. Salk's successful polio vaccine was a revolutionary advance in medicine, and he became an international hero. Yet despite the vaccine, the money, and the will to eliminate polio over the last six decades, polio has not been eradicated. In fact, polio eradication has proven to be more challenging and complex than anticipated. What are the factors behind this paradox? Kathleen Murray, who worked with Dr. Salk for many years, will talk about what it was like to live with polio threat before the vaccine and how revolutionary Salk's work was. She will also relate her personal experiences working with Dr. Salk at his Institute. Rob Lin is Vice President of Finance at the Infectious Diseases Research Institute (IDRI) and former Deputy Director of Global Health Financial Planning at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He is a member of the Executive Roundtable of the Washington Global Health Alliance. Dr. Lin represented the Gates Foundation on a 2009 Rotary International Polio Immunization project in Ethiopia.

Ten years ago, "Reading Lolita in Tehran" told the story of how, against the backdrop of morality squads and executions, Nafisi taught "The Great Gatsby" and other classics to her eager students in Iran. In this follow-up, Nafisi writes an impassioned and original tribute to the vital importance of fiction in a democratic society. What “Reading Lolita in Tehran" was for Iran, "The Republic of Imagination "is for America. Taking her cue from a challenge thrown to her in Seattle, where a skeptical reader told her that Americans don't care about books the way they did back in Iran, she energetically responds to those who say fiction has nothing to teach us. Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite American novels -- "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Babbitt,"and "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter," among others -- she invites us to join her as citizens of her "Republic of Imagination," a country where the villains are conformity and orthodoxy and the only passport to entry is a free mind and a willingness to dream. Azar Nafisi is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of "Reading Lolita in Tehran "and" Things I've Been Silent About." A passionate advocate of books and reading, she appears regularly on major media, speaks to audiences around the world. Nafisi is a professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature, and teaches courses on the relation between culture and politics at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.

Jenna Metcalf's mother, a scientist who studied elephants, disappeared more than a decade ago and Jenna has not stopped trying to search for her. Jenna uses all the tools available to her -- searching online, poring over her mother's journals -- until she realizes she needs help in the search. In "Leaving Time," Picoult weaves her research on elephants into a story about love and loss. The novel examines family bonds, grief among elephants and a daughter trying to discover the truth about her mother's mysterious disappearance.

Liu asks, “What does it mean to be Chinese American in this moment of China and America?” In essays that range from the meaning of Confucius, to the role of Chinese Americans in shaping how we read the Constitution, to why he dislikes the hyphen in "Chinese-American," Liu pieces together a sense of the Chinese American identity in these auspicious years for both countries. Eric Liu is the founder and CEO of Citizen University and the author of “The Accidental Asian,” “Guiding Lights” and “The Gardens of Democracy.” He served as a White House speechwriter and policy adviser for President Bill Clinton and as a trustee of The Seattle Public Library. Liu is a regular columnist for CNN.com and a correspondent for TheAtlantic.com.

In "Behind the Curve," Joshua Howe explores the history of global warming from its roots as a scientific curiosity to its place at the center of international environmental politics. "Behind the Curve" was published as part of the UW Press’ remarkable Weyerhauser Environmental Series.

The early immigrants came to be students, however, after the Ethiopian revolution of 1974, returning home meant persecution, exile, torture and even execution. Now exiled the stranded students led the way for new settlers to enter the Puget Sound and thus became pioneers who built a micro community in inner-city Seattle. This captivating book is a history of successes and failures—to be sure more successes than failures. It has new information about refugees, asylees, immigrants, and sojourners, and it will inform alike social scientists and the general public for years and years