Adult Summer Reading Book Bingo NW 2022 Starts TODAY!

Today is the day–Wednesday, May 18th is the start of our 8th Year of Summer Book Bingo with our amazing partner Seattle Arts & Lectures!

The bingo card artwork by local artist Jorge Villavicencio highlights the Library’s Year of Wonder theme with vibrant, whimsical balloons, kites, and reading aliens from outer space to help set the tone of your reading adventure!

Between now and Tuesday, September 6th, you can keep track of your summer reading with the goals of either getting a line of Bingo (a line across, down, or diagonal) or Blackout (filling every square on the board) and submit your entry by September 6th to be entered into a drawing for a gift certificate to a local independent book store, provided by a generous donation from the Friends of The Seattle Public Library, or to enter into the Blackout drawing for a chance to win a subscription to the 2022/2023 SAL series of your choice!

#BookBingoNW2021 is ON!

Bluer skies, longer days, fewer masks – it can only mean one thing. Once again, it’s time for Summer Book Bingo! This is our 7th year – YES, the 7th! Such a lucky number! – partnering with Seattle Arts & Lectures to bring you a free adult summer reading program with reading challenges and drawing entries for fantastic prizes.

Like last year, which was, shall we say, different than any of our previous years, we have launched Summer Book Bingo a bit earlier. This year you have from May 17th to September 7th at 6pm to read either a line of Bingo (4-5 books, depending on which horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line you choose), or to go for Blackout (24 books)! When you are ready to submit your card for the drawing, you can post it on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram with the #BookBingoNW2021 hashtag, or email us at bookbingo@spl.org.

PNW Asian American and Pacific Islander Authors

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage month, but as author Nicole Chung noted, “work by Asian American writers is always timely.” The library has created some fantastic lists celebrating Asian American writers and artists for all ages to explore, but I wanted to call attention to some Pacific Northwest Asian American and Pacific Islander authors and books to explore this May and beyond.

Current Library Board member Ron Chew served as the editor for the International Examiner, the Asian American community paper, for more than a decade, but as Carey Quan Gelernter says in the introduction to Chew’s memoir, My Unforgotten Seattle, when asked 25-years-prior whether Gelernter could write a profile on him Chew was reticent: “He protested that he wasn’t interesting, or important, enough.” Thank goodness Chew later consented to be interviewed, mainly out of his commitment to sharing the good work of the Wing Luke Museum. We are all the more fortunate that years later Chew decided to pen a memoir imparting the depth of knowledge he had to share on his years as an activist and storyteller in Seattle. My Unforgotten Seattle is steeped in history and a deep connection with the Asian American community whose lives and stories Chew reveals with appreciation and care.

Clarion West’s Beyond Afrofuturism series: Black Editors and Publishers in Speculative Fiction

Are you interested in Speculative Fiction? Are you a writer? Are you interested in learning more about Black editors and publishers in the speculative fiction field?

We are pleased to be co-sponsoring this upcoming online event series with the Clarion West Writers Workshop and don’t want you to miss it!

The first event, Ancestors and Anthologies: New Worlds in Chorus, will be on Monday, April 12th at 6:30 pm PST. Moderated by award-winning author, editor, and Clarion West alum Nisi Shawl (New Suns, Everfair, Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany), this panel will feature a discussion with Linda D. Addison (Sycorax’s Daughters), Maurice Broaddus (POC Destroy Horror & Dark Faith), and Clarion West alum Sheree Renée Thomas (Dark Matter & Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine).

Black History Month reading inspiration: short stories

While February is a short month — too short — I decided to celebrate this Black History Month by reading a short story a day by Black authors. I have been rotating through a variety of anthologies and collections, delighted by the discoveries within:

Heads of the Colored People: Stories by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
My favorite story so far is a story in a tradition that I absolutely adore: the epistolary exchange between rivals that becomes increasingly passive-aggressive and ridiculously cruel. “Belles Lettres” finds two professional Black mothers whose daughters attend a predominantly white school trading barbs and insults in increasingly delicious intensity. The daughters at the center of these letters show up in future stories, adding extra dimension and reflection upon that exchange. The Los Angeles Review of Books called this collection “clever, cruel, hilarious, heartbreaking, and at times simply ingenious.”

The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans