Community Calendar

Monday September 14th 7:00 to 8:00 pm
Local author and President of the Friends of Cathedral Trees Sanctuary, Dr. Diana Cunningham spent a decade researching and writing The Natural American Way of Death, after her mother died of Alzheimer’s Disease in 2012. Cunningham began to “connect the dots” from her mother’s disease, her cause of death, and the crematory vapors containing unsafe levels of mercury from dental fillings and body stores. Her research developed into finding compassionate solutions to the problems revealed in Jessica Mitford’s bestselling book in 1962. Now, this 21st century groundbreaking book provides the reader with an uplifting and comprehensive manual in navigating your natural deathcare plans with over 60 color photos, rare interviews of movers and shakers in the American movement, and how to create and document your deathcare decisions. After co-leading an OLLI Class at SOU in 2020, Dr Cunningham realized that natural deathcare 1) needed to be made affordable, 2) deathcare choices needed to be restored from ancient traditions with the offering of a native tree or wildflower graveside planting as part of a larger restoration, and 3) people had a right to know about the connections between mercury emissions of the conventional industry, Alzheimer’s, and other public health epidemics. Find out why there’s a nationwide revolution begun 30 years ago that’s sweeping the country and how our own local project developed into the first restoration non-profit cemetery that’s now licensed and located right here in our region’s best kept secret, Mt. Ashland’s Colestin Valley. Learn about why certified natural burials are the only mercury-responsible choice in deathcare, and how your decision affects our planet and our local public health for at least 225 years into the future. Get inspired to move forward with your own beautiful plan, whether you are aged 18 or 80!”

Kickstart spooky season with Horror Author, Keith Rosson.

Keith Rosson will discuss his life as a writer, the horror genre, and his most recent book, Coffin Moon (he may even share some things about his upcoming book Crone coming out September 22nd, 2026.

There will be a Q&A and Book Signing following the talk.

Keith Rosson is the author of the novels The Mercy of the Tide, Road Seven, Smoke City, Fever House, The Devil by Name, and his most recent novel Coffin Moon. He is also the author of the Shirley Jackson Award-winning story collection Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons. His short fiction has appeared in Southwest Review, Nightmare, Cream City Review, PANK, Redivider, December, and more. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Explore democracy, civic engagement, and social change through thought-provoking books and discussions. This club delves into historical and contemporary works that highlight the power of participation in a democratic society. Join us to read, reflect, and connect with others passionate about making a difference. All are welcome!

We will read:
It Can't Happen Here – Lewis Sinclair (March 19)
Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World – Anne Applebaum (April 16)
The new Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness – Michelle Alexander (May 21)

Thursday September 17th, 7:00 to 8:00 pm

Join award-winning singer-songwriter and author Aliza Hava for an intimate evening centered around her debut book, Into the Light: Ten Songs & Stories Transforming Trauma to Triumph, the companion book to her #1 charting album, Into the Light.

Part memoir and part guidebook, the book follows Aliza’s deeply personal journey of healing from severe childhood abuse. Through ten songs and the stories behind them, she explores trauma, self-discovery, empowerment, and the process of reclaiming your voice. The evening will include readings and reflections from the book, along with live solo performances on keyboard and vocals.

Together, the music and storytelling offer an honest and hopeful exploration of moving from pain toward healing, self-love, sovereignty, and triumph.

Wednesday September 23rd 7:00 to 8:00 pm

A gripping tale of murder and pursuit set against the shifting Sierra Nevada during the Gold Rush, where ambition, violence, and destiny collide.

“What Came West is astonishing. Unraveling the mythology of the Western with a genius for insight and description, Weil tells the story anew: a beautiful, ruminative, bloody, terrifying and brilliant book about a chapter in the life of one man and in the life of our country. Unmissable.” –Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less

Sierra Nevada, 1840s, just before the Gold Rush ignites. Silas Hall has never belonged anywhere except the wild. Bullied as a child and uneasy even within his own family, he finds brief solace in love and fatherhood before the pull of the frontier overwhelms him. One day he heads west, chasing a life that might finally make sense.

What follows is a swift, pulse-pounding journey into the mountains, where Silas becomes one of the first white settlers to cross into the Sierra Nevada. He forges a precarious peace with the Indigenous people who live there–until the Gold Rush crashes in with violent force. As thousands flood the region, the balance shatters, and Silas commits murder, a desperate act that alters the course of every life around him, including his own.

Taut and propulsive, What Came West is told in two parallel voices–one a tense, third-person account of Silas on the run, and the other a confessional letter from Silas to the son he left behind–and confronts many different forms of American inheritance, in all its danger, emotional voltage, and mythic momentum. Weil’s masterpiece is a fierce, heart-driven portrait of an outsider racing toward belonging and barreling headlong into consequence.

Thursday October 1st 7:00 to 8:00 pm

Enter a forest of poems about patience, grace, and wonder. About discovering the code of abiding life already within us. When We Become Trees cultivates the tension of becoming: rooting down while reaching up and trying to see heaven on earth—trying to find the divine even among the rocks around us. This is a book for those who, like trees, are willing to grow “ring-slow but steady.”

Anna Elkins is a poet and painter. She earned a BA in art and English, an MFA in poetry, and a Fulbright Fellowship to write in Germany. She has written, painted, and taught on six continents, exhibiting paintings and publishing books along the way, including her poetry collection, Hope of Stones, which won an Oregon Book Award. Anna now lives in a small town on a big river with her husband and many trees. For more, visit: annaelkins.com.

Painter and writer Jacalyn McNamara has worked as a freelance journalist, college writing teacher, and manager of California’s oldest art center, always attending to the poetry and music woven through the world. Her poems move through the personal, cultural, historical, and mythological, exploring thin places where spirits slip through and territories that are unstable or paradoxical. Her work has appeared in Clackamas Literary Review, Midwest Poetry Review, Jefferson Journal, and elsewhere. Most recently, she has been writing poems to accompany artist Betty LaDuke’s Turtle Wisdom exhibit.

October 8-11th 2026

Join us for the 4th Annual Mystery Fest! All Around Ashland!

Friday October 9th and Saturday October 10th 10 am – 12 pm

Here at Bloomsbury Books

Story Clinic: Drop in with Rogue Writers Collective
The doctors are in! Story Clinic is a new offering by Rogue Writers Collective that gives writers an opportunity to have their work reviewed by experienced editors in-person and on-demand. Freelance editor Scout Cox and author Shelly King will be reviewing works up to 1500 words on a first-come, first-served basis. Get advice on what is working and what can be improved in your story. Bring an excerpt or short story, sign up, enjoy a coffee, and learn from two industry pros! Story Clinic is free to attend, but donations to their organization are greatly appreciated.
Included in Event Registration Package – First come, first serve*
*Limited Capacity – Badge Holders Prioritized

October 8-11th 2026

Join us for the 4th Annual Mystery Fest! All Around Ashland!

Friday October 9th and Saturday October 10th 10 am – 12 pm

Here at Bloomsbury Books

Story Clinic: Drop in with Rogue Writers Collective
The doctors are in! Story Clinic is a new offering by Rogue Writers Collective that gives writers an opportunity to have their work reviewed by experienced editors in-person and on-demand. Freelance editor Scout Cox and author Shelly King will be reviewing works up to 1500 words on a first-come, first-served basis. Get advice on what is working and what can be improved in your story. Bring an excerpt or short story, sign up, enjoy a coffee, and learn from two industry pros! Story Clinic is free to attend, but donations to their organization are greatly appreciated.
Included in Event Registration Package – First come, first serve*
*Limited Capacity – Badge Holders Prioritized

Monday October 12th, 7:00 to 8:00 pm

Part adventure narrative, part philosophical inquiry, and part love letter to climbing and natural spaces, Erratica is a radiant exploration of what happens when a human body meets the earth with full attention.

After Brian Laidlaw climbed El Capitan, Yosemite’s iconic stone monolith, he found himself facing a repeated question: “So, what was it like up there?” It isn’t enough, he knows, to just to describe the sensation of the rock beneath his hands and feet—a climb is so much more than physical movement.

This seemingly simple question initiates Brian’s poetic quest for the perfect metaphor, traveling from the erratics of his youth in California to the towers of his current home in Moab, Utah. He traces lines up moon-washed faces in Indian Creek and edits his body language under boulders in Joe’s Valley. He lives parallel lives and dies parallel deaths on free solos in Colorado, and eventually, back in his childhood stomping grounds in the Sierra Nevada, he writes and revises routes of his own.

Along the way, he beckons us into a community bound as much by narrative as by rope. They exchange gear, chalk, and advice as they test each foothold and fissure. Kindred strangers knit into traveling bands of belayers, swapping snacks and cautionary tales. Here, any passing climber holds the ability to shift “spontaneously into the best coach I’ve ever known.”

Exhilarating and lyrical, approachable yet profound, Erratica invites us to share a rope with this community of climbers, to measure our humanity against the expanse of stone.

Thursday November 5th 7:00 to 8:00 pm

When it’s revealed that the new king of Camelud is cursed, Braithe, handmaid to the most powerful priestess in the realm must travel to the land of the fae to break the curse, but to do so Braithe must step out of her mentor’s shadow and into her power, in this bewitching coming of age tale from Louisa Morgan.

When Braithe was left as an acolyte on the Isle of Apples, she never dreamed she’d become handmaid to Morgana, the most powerful priestess in all of Camelud, but now she is content to live out her days in service to the Priestess. But when a powerful mage comes to Morgana and Braithe with concerns that the new king of Camelud is being cursed by powerful magic, the two must journey to the White City deep in fae country to investigate.
The magical city is nothing like Braithe imagined and the fae are cold and callous toward humans and quick to bewitch. Despite the constant threat of danger, Braithe just may be the key to discovering who is cursing the king, but to do so she will have to step into her own power.

This is a sequel to Faerie Morgana one of our favorites! Louisa Morgan lives in Southern Oregon and is the author of many novels including The Secret History of Witches.