'Seismic' literature inspires and changes Seattle through story “Literature is an unopened umbrella in the rain ... literature is a cathedral.” John O'Brien Play AudioListen 2 hours
2020 Hugo House Fellows share works of ‘Luminosity’ for the new year Poets and essayists conjure post-holiday light Sonya Harris Play AudioListen 2 hours
Charles Blow's 'The Devil You Know' Is A Black Power Manifesto For Our Time Blow's book is a call to action for Black Americans to reconsider their Great Migration North and imagine new possibilities of Black political might. Hope Wabuke
Becoming Rebecca Solnit: a room and a life of her own ‘I was trying not to be the subject of someone else’s poetry and not to get killed.’ John O'Brien Play AudioListen 2 hours
Jess Zimmerman subverts the dominant monster myth paradigm ‘These are the bedtime stories the patriarchy tells itself.’ John O'Brien Play AudioListen 2 hours
Author M. Leona Godin shares the trope-free history of 'blindness' Godin’s new book sheds an intriguing light on the tropes surrounding those on the spectrum of blindness. Sonya Harris Play AudioListen 2 hours
'The ingredients for madness': Author Grace M. Cho’s memoir on colonialism, food, and love Author Grace M. Cho breaks bread with the numerous voices haunting her ‘pained spirit’ in her new novel. Sonya Harris Play AudioListen 59 mins
A democracy worth saving: Author Ben Rhodes on the rise of global nationalism In his new book After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made, author Ben Rhodes grapples with the dissolving notion of American exceptionalism in a post-Covid world. Using a global lens, Rhodes presents a glimpse of a highly possible democracy-free future, presently modeled by countries like Hungary, Russia, and China. Sonya Harris Play AudioListen 57 mins
Fantasy books are my escape, but I wish the genre was more inclusive Adar Abdi is a White Center teenager with a passion for fantasy. She gravitated to fantasy novels as an escape from reality, into worlds without racism or sexism. But as she continued to read, she found more messages — subtle and overt — that brought the same issues she tried to avoid to the forefront. This piece is an imagined confrontation between Adar and a fantasy writer. Adar Abdi Play AudioListen 5 mins
Anna Qu’s fierce memoir grapples with child labor, immigration, and love As a teen, Chinese American author Anna Qu was forced by her mother to work in their family's garment factory in Queens, New York. At home she was the family’s maid, and faced punishment for doing things like schoolwork. Qu contacted Child Protective Services to report her mother, but due to bureaucratic bumbling she was left her to fend for herself. Now as an adult, Qu reckons with life, family, and not so easy answers to past trauma in her memoir. Sonya Harris Play AudioListen 2 hours
