In So Many Words
Mary Lou's newest talk
My newest presentation.
In So Many Words touches on so many subjects important in our lives: an attentive look at day-to-day life delivered with an eye on the close tie between us and the land that nurtures us. It is from my newest title of the same name, a collection of award-winning writings nominated for a Pacific Northwest Book Award and a Washington State Book Award. I also share excerpts from my newest title, An Island Called Bainbridge: People, Places, Conversations.
Every Little Thing
A reading from the award-nominated collection of essays
“A skillful balance of warm yet unabashed.”
— Seattle Post Intelligencer
In Every Little Thing, Sanelli proves that a narrative essay can be wise and vulnerable and nail what matters most in our lives, all in the same breath. No one tells-truth with more heart, humor, and accountability. Page by page you come to know her — and her beloved city of Seattle and island of Oahu — as well as yourself, a little better.
In her own words:
“In the spring of 2020, when the word ‘corona’ became the panic of our lives — saying it, hearing it, feeling it, each and every moment of every single day — sheltering in place became good reason to complete Every Little Thing.
In quiet seclusion, so in keeping with what I need and who I am, I put off all thoughts of tomorrow and dug in.
Luckily, writing has always made me feel less sheltered from the world.”
Here’s Sanelli on:
Friendship: The simplest way to show support is to never come up dry in the optimism department.
Technology: Thank goodness for Charles. He’d never let something as expansive as our friendship be dwarfed by something small as a phone.
Marriage: I know the truest thing about love, any love, is that it is both strong and delicate — a tension for two. I think: This is where I pull. This is where I release.
Writing: Most days I start off confident, but after I’ve put in the hours, I can start to feel like I’m losing it. And this always reminds me how fit my mental health has to be to repeatedly drive myself crazy like this.
Sanelli brings a welcome sense of the very human. These essays are communal moments of grace and connection.
Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company
Sanelli has the courage to be real.
Columbia Tower Book Club
What a great talk you gave! You have jumped to the top of my reading list.
Julie Mulstein, Everett Women's Book Club
Our group was moved and inspired by Mary Lou's unique and powerful artistry, and I highly recommend her as a speaker.
Jo Ann Satzinger, AAUW, Programming Chairwoman
The Immigrant's Table
This is a Literary Feast — and by far Sanelli's most popular and sought-after performance, especially for fundraising organizations.
This staged reading dramatically and poetically tells a story of immigration, cultural adjustment, and weaving Old and New Worlds together into a rich fabric of memoir. Sanelli’s staged reading from her book, The Immigrant’s Table, includes poetry, storytelling, Italian food & wine: all the elements she so enthusiastically writes about in her story of coming of age first-generation American, born to parents from Italy. Sanelli introduces her audience to her family in the most Italian of settings: around a table. And in introducing her family, she also reveals those long-held family recipes for a great meal as well as those for a lively family.
The Immigrant’s Table has raised thousands of dollars for The Board of Italian Studies at The University of Washington, The San Mateo Public Library (CA), The ArtsWest Theater (Seattle), The Sno-Isle Library System, The Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, The Whidbey Island Center For The Arts, The Land Trust of Port Townsend, The Jewel Box Theater (Poulsbo), The Peninsula College Foundation, The Edmonds College Foundation, Washington State Women’s Reciprocity Fundraising, The Tenement Museum in New York City, Soroptimist International, and The Bainbridge Island Arts Council, as well as many other venues.
What a truly wonderful experience. Sanelli is inspiring.
Lori Dillon, ArtsWest Playhouse, Seattle
Mary Lou is by far the best speaker our organization has ever had.
Diane Green, Soroptimist International
We extend a rave review about the performance. The Immigrant's Table graced our conference.
Elizabeth Guss, Director, Whidbey Island Writers Conference
I feel compelled to say how good, how radiant the performance of The Immigrant's Table was.
Director, Starbucks Corporate Event, Seattle
The Immigrant's Table was one of the most enjoyable and delightful evenings our AAUW group has ever had.
Grace Lynch, President, AAUW
The Literary Gardener
This program is perfect for the Garden Club or Garden Tour venue.
Featured in the Northwest Flower & Garden Show, Seattle Convention Center.
The Literary Gardener lights on a winning combination: cultivating the soil and renewing the language. The gardener’s routine, like that of the writer, sharpens observation and fosters the contemplative spirit. Though the reading’s focus is in the garden, the situations are varied and as much outside the individual’s control as the elements. Wind, rain, and sun may help or hinder growth, but the key to success in both gardening and writing is a ready receptivity, something Sanelli brings to the ordinary happenings of each day.
Sanelli has been a guest of: The Medina Garden Show; The Wallingford Garden Tour; Bainbridge in Bloom; Kitsap In Bloom; The Port Townsend Secret Garden Tour; Sequim, Washington’s Lavender Festival; as well as many other gardening venues.
Our Garden Club is still talking about you and how much your presentation was enjoyed!
Helen Tafejian, Olympia Garden Club
Northwest Reading and Talk
A reading rooted in the people, landscape, and water of the Pacific Northwest.
Mary Lou Sanelli has a personable and striking presence in her writings. Throughout her career — many titles, regular newspaper and magazine columns, and numerous radio commentaries both on local community radio as well as NPR — she brings a sharp eye and sophisticated wit to issues specific to the Northwest.
Sanelli shows, in story after commentary, just what place means to her: the people, the landscape, the gardens, the cafes, and, yes, the rain. And then there’s the harbors and the ferryboat she routinely travels across Puget Sound: this sound, too, serves to inspire and uplift. There are the people who live by the water, the friends and acquaintances, her encounters as she walks the beach, visits the boatyard, watches the sunset from the city pier, or attends a wake in honor of one of the Olympic Peninsula’s old-timers, all of which intensify her love of the Northwest. You’ll come away from her presentation with a deep appreciation of this corner of America and, quite likely, with a longing to know your own city and neighbors a little better than you do now.
I especially like her struggle to understand her adopted city. As an East Coast Italian girl plunked down in white bread, PC Seattle she has the capacity to see ourselves as others see us.
Knute Berger, former editor, The Seattle Weekly
Among Friends
Perfect for the book club, or any group willing to delve into the hodgepodge of emotions common to anyone who decides to befriend another.
An excerpt from the introduction of Among Friends:
Not too long ago, a dear friend, a visual artist, asked me a question that caused me to take a deep breath and pause: “What does friendship look like to you?” I remember trying to stumble through an answer and not being able to formulate my thoughts. In a way, this entire book is an effort to answer that question more clearly.
Today, my answer comes easily: I see laughter. Lots of it. And acceptance, of my friend and of myself, and a desire to learn from each other.
Mothers and Daughters
A talk and reading on the mother/daughter evolution that lasts a lifetime.
This is a presentation about mothers and daughters, the life cycle, the mother/daughter evolutionary process that lasts your lifetime. This dynamic has wiggled its way into so much of what I write. Reading from this work is the most fun. I look out into the audience and the women are nodding their heads, wiping their eyes, smiling. They know what I mean. If I didn’t know they knew, I would have stopped writing long ago.
“There is still lots of work to do, apparently: learning to exchange our appreciation of each other instead of all the silly, useless gifts we buy one another to fill in the gaps of what we don’t know how to say, for one.”
A Woman Writing
Explore all the realities true to anyone who has thought of making writing a part of their life.
A reading and conversation drawn from A Woman Writing — on determination, persistence, and the ups and downs of choosing a writing life.
