WEBVTT

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Thank you.

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I'm so excited
about this reading.

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In the last essay of
her new collection,

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Aisha Sabatini
Sloan sees an owl.

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That had to have been a
hawk, she tells herself.

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It's still daylight.

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But the eyes of
the owl haunt her,

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and she shares the
experience with a friend

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who studies Chinese medicine.

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If you've seen an
owl, you are being

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asked to use your powers
of keen silent observation

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to intuit some life situation,
the friend tells her.

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Pay attention to the
signals and omens.

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And she does.

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Her debut essay collection,
titled The Fluency of Light:

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Coming of Age in a Theater
of Black and White,

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is rich with silent observations
and collected omens.

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Sloan is a master of
the braided essay,

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pairing her own understated
experiences of race and place

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with a startling but brilliant
array of other stories.

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In the first essay,
"Birth of the Cool,"

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Sloan explores her first
experiences of race

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against a backdrop of Thelonious
Monk as he glints and pauses

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on stage, leaving listeners with
the shadow of what he means.

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In Aisha's work, we make
meaning in the gaps like this.

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The sentences are clear,
exquisitely wrought,

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and the voice consistent even
as the essay backdrop moves on.

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Aisha Sabatini Sloan
earned a master

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of arts in cultural
studies and studio art

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from the Gallatin School of
Individualized Study at NYU.

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She also completed her
MFA in creative nonfiction

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writing here at the
University of Arizona.

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Her essays have been named
notable for The Best American

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Nonrequired Reading and The
Best American anthologies,

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were nominated for
a Pushcart Prize,

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and her work has been published
in Ninth Letter, Identity

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Theory, Michigan Quarterly
Review, Terrain, Callaloo,

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and The Southern Review.

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She has taught writing for
more than six years here

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at the University of
Arizona, and she is currently

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a contributing
editor for Guernica,

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a magazine of art and politics.

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In "Birth of the Cool,"
Sloan writes, "To glint

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is to throw a brief
glance at something

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or to take a brief look.

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It means to be shiny
as if wet, to glisten,

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to be looked upon by light."

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Sloan's writing is like this,
a beam glancing sideways,

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illuminating for a moment what
is often so hard for us to see.

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We're so fortunate
tonight to have

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Aisha Sabatini Sloan with us.

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Please welcome her.

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[APPLAUSE]