Join the King County Library System (KCLS) for all-ages summer reading! Earn prizes and attend events at your KCLS library all summer long. Our free Summer Reading Program is open to children, teens, and adults — all are welcome! Visit kcls.org/summer to get started. Here’s how to participate: Drop into your KCLS library to pick up a Reading Challenge log or…

Like all poets, Jane Wong likes to play with language. Collecting words, ordering them, weaving ideas and stories together, then depositing them on paper with the hurried, scrawling motion of a pen or ubiquitous, punctuating taps on a keyboard. The results are magnetic — both for their narrative and lyrical quality. For anyone who has…

Seattle has never wanted to be cool — and that’s precisely what makes it so. When the grunge movement of the ’90s sprung to the forefront of mainstream American culture, Kurt Cobain’s ripped jeans and thrifted cardigans did so in direct opposition to perfectly over-tweezed eyebrows and super-synchronized boy bands. As Clark Humphrey writes in…

David Schmader lives in El Paso, Texas, now, but he’s no stranger to Pacific Northwest culture. Schmader is a former staff writer and editor at Seattle alt publication The Stranger, where he wrote the popular column, “Last Days: The Week in Review” for 18 years. He is also a performer, and his solo plays were…

Seattle may change, but at its core, it will always be that angsty 90’s kid. This year’s Seattle International Film Festival’s (SIFF) lineup of Northwest-centered films presents a reflection of our city from past to present. Over the years, the ongoing conversations about the changing face of Seattle have permeated all industries from tech to…

How many colors do you see?” Artist and architect Iole Alessandrini asks me this on a cold, windy evening in late February. We’re sitting in an attic-like nook in her apartment at West Seattle’s Cooper Artist Housing, a 36-unit former school that has been transformed into an affordable live/work space specifically for artists. I’m looking…

Travis Bettinson wants people to fall in love with kelp. His organic, gluten-free, and vegan puffed kelp snacks, Seacharrones, hit the market last March with a mission to create a sustainable product that bucks the stereotype that seaweed can’t be crave-worthy. With consumers a lot less salty about the idea of sea-based snacks, thanks to…

At Seattle’s newest Indigenous-owned restaurant, ʔálʔal Café (the Lushootseed word means “home” and is pronounced “all-all”), diners can enjoy dishes from tribal nations across the United States. There’s wild rice from the Red Lake Nation in Minnesota; chocolate from the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma; maple sugar and syrup from the Passamaquoddy Tribe in Maine; blue…

Three years ago — like much of the world — Pacific Northwest Ballet was forced to shut its doors due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Company members, choreographers, and musicians hunkered down in their homes, hoping for a short quarantine that would allow them to get back into the studio quickly. As we now know, that…

YOU KNOW THAT SEATTLE was the birthplace of grunge. You may not be aware that the city also boasts a distinct offshoot of rockin’ R&B that took hold back in the late 1950s. In his newest book, Stomp and Shout: R&B and the Origins of Northwest Rock and Roll, historian Peter Blecha tells the story…

Seattle’s iconic Museum of History and Industry, or MOHAI, is the first venue outside Chicago to host the national traveling exhibit, From the Ground Up: Black Architects and Designers. The exhibit runs through April 30. The exhibit serves as a narrative of the evolution of architecture produced by African American architects across the U.S. and…

In September 2017, I founded Dan’s Tunes, a small publication focused on showcasing Seattle’s local music scene. Throughout the past five years, I have spent countless hours talking with musicians, artists, and other industry folks about the state of the current music climate in Seattle. When we’re on the record, everyone always has nice things…