Community Calendar

Thursday June 26th 7:00 to 8:00 pm

Jordan Peele’s Nope meets True Grit in Nicholas Belardes’s Ten Sleep, a supernatural modern-day western about a trio of young people on a 10-day cattle drive that leads them through a canyon haunted by ancient mysteries and savage beasts who existed long before humankind.

A young Mexican American woman detects uncanny creatures stalking her on a cattle drive toward a canyon soaked in blood in an unforgettable novel, brilliantly infusing the modern Western with spine-chilling horror . . .

When Greta Molina’s old friend Tiller offered her the job, a ten-day cattle drive across the Wyoming prairie from the ranching town of Ten Sleep, it sounded like a well-paid break. Three hundred and twenty cows and calves, two guys her age she’s known since college, and a few long days on an ATV will give her time to sort out the mess in her head. The canyon along the trail has a history, sure, but nature has a tendency toward violence. Greta can accept that, even if it makes her insides squirm.

What Greta doesn’t know is the legacy of murder and rot that runs deep into the rocks of this land. As each night passes on the prairie, the trio faces mounting supernatural dangers: a ghost train of the damned, wild animals walking alongside dead ones–and evidence of a gigantic creature in the skies, one that’s supposedly been extinct for eons. And Tiller may be hiding even darker secrets the further they go. Safety is only ten sleeps away, but Greta soon realizes that may be too long for all of them to survive.

Nicholas Belardes’s Ten Sleep is a fresh portrayal of the American West for fans of Catriona Ward, Victor LaValle and Jordan Peele’s Nope, by a rising star in horror.

Our Stories Through Art – Kick-Off Event!
Date: Friday, June 27, 2025
Time: 5:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Location: Clock Tower Park, in front of Talent City Hall (110 East Main St, Talent, OR)
Admission: Free and open to the public!

Join us for an exciting evening of creativity and community as we kick off Our Stories Through Art (OSTA)—a bold new public art initiative honoring the history, diversity, and spirit of Talent, Oregon.

What to Expect:
🎨 Interactive community art activities for the whole family! Come share your story with us!
👋 Meet the local organizations leading the project in our community!
🗣 Learn how current (and future) public art transforms public spaces across Talent!

The OSTA project is powered by a passionate coalition of local partners:
Talent Historical Society
Talent Maker City
Coalición Fortaleza
City of Talent’s Public Arts Committee
Talent Business Alliance

This kick-off marks the beginning of a long-term movement using art to tell the stories that shape our community. Don’t miss this opportunity to come be part of something truly meaningful!

Learn more on our website: https://www.talentbusinessalliance.org/programs/osta

Sunday June 29th at 2pm
Kara Loo and Jennifer Young discuss their new rom-com mystery novel Alice Chen’s Reality Check
Launch Party and Tasting Event

Join co-authors Kara Loo and Jennifer Young for a lively discussion about their new addictive beach read and come taste the snacks and treats featured in the book!
In this sizzling rom-com perfect for fans of Dial A for Aunties and One to Watch, a reality show contestant must fake date her rival . . . while solving a murder mystery on set.

Alice Chen doesn’t believe in true love, but she does believe in cold, hard cash. Buckling under the weight of student debt and her mother’s medical bills, Alice will do anything to make bank–even star on Dawn Tay’s Inferno, the hot new reality TV show designed to push couples to their breaking point. The show is Alice’s chance to sip cocktails on the beach and win a cash prize of a million dollars. But when her fiancé cheats on her with another contestant, Alice is faced with a choice: go home in defeat or fake date the other newly single contestant—who just so happens to be her high school rival and sworn nemesis, Daniel Cho. But all’s fair in love and reality TV, and Alice isn’t the only one who will do whatever it takes to win. When a dead body turns up, Alice and Daniel are faced with uncovering the secrets of the cast and crew to catch the killer–all while playing the loving couple on camera. As the show spirals out of control, Alice must crack the case and confront her true feelings if she wants to make it out alive.
Starring a murder mystery twist, plenty of reality show drama, and a thrilling romance, this debut by up-and-coming Asian American writer duo Kara Loo and Jennifer Young is the ultimate beach read.

Take time to nurture your creativity. In this four-session series, we will explore ways to use writing for self-expression, create short pieces of writing based on weekly themes, and incorporate other types of artistic practices into our writing.

No writing experience is necessary - just an interest in being creative in a fun, supportive environment!

Tuesdays, May 13 and 27; June 3 and 10, 2025

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

Hummingbird Estate

1677 Old Stage Road

Central Point, OR

Cost: $100. Limited scholarships available. If you are unable to attend a session, I will send you the materials and we can schedule a time to meet online to go through the writing and art practices.

To register, contact Michelle St. Romain Wilson, michelle.st.romain.wilson@gmail.com.

Once a month, read and discuss a banned book. Explore what caused these books to be banned, what being banned means, and how this impacts us as a society. We will talk about the who and the why, and if we agree or disagree. Stop by the Medford Reference desk to pick up a copy of the month's current title while supplies last!

June: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

July: Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James

August: Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Book One of the Ghostly Ashland Shakespeare Mysteries
The First Thing We Do…

When the deadliest line in Shakespeare is spoken… the curtain rises on murder.
Retired investigator William Mills was hoping for a peaceful retirement in
Ashland, Oregon—a quirky, charming theater town with a haunted past. But when
the OSF attorney is found murdered in the Bowmer Theater, William is drawn into
an intriguing four-hundred-year-old Shakespearean mystery as multi-layered as the
Bard himself.

With the help of sharp-witted realtor Carol Lindsey and Dante, a ghostly cat with a
flair for drama, William uncovers long-buried secrets, nefarious plots, and an over
one-hundred-year-old missing person mystery.

Set against the backdrop of a quirky and charming theater town with a haunted
past, The First Thing We Do… is the perfect blend of cozy mystery, delicious meals,
supernatural intrigue, and theatrical flair.

Perfect for fans of paranormal cozy mysteries, paranormal culinary
mysteries, and small-town intrigue, The First Thing We Do… is Book One in
the Ghostly Ashland Shakespeare Mystery series, where every act hides a
secret, and every ghost has a story.

Teens, it’s time to put your snack skills to the test. Join us at the North Bend Public Library on Tuesday, July 8 at 4:00 PM for a flavor face-off you won’t forget. Can you identify your favorite snack by the flavor alone? Think you’re a chip connoisseur or a cookie expert? There’s only one way to find out. Bragging rights (and snacks) are on the line! No registration is required. This program is open to teens ages 13-18.

Take time to nurture your creativity. In this four-session series, we will explore ways to use writing for self-expression, create short pieces of writing based on weekly themes, and incorporate other types of artistic practices into our writing.

No writing experience is necessary - just an interest in being creative in a fun, supportive environment!

Tuesdays, May 13 and 27; June 3 and 10, 2025

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

Hummingbird Estate

1677 Old Stage Road

Central Point, OR

Cost: $100. Limited scholarships available. If you are unable to attend a session, I will send you the materials and we can schedule a time to meet online to go through the writing and art practices.

To register, contact Michelle St. Romain Wilson, michelle.st.romain.wilson@gmail.com.

Monday July 21st 7:00 to 8:00 pm

Uncover your innate capacity for love, presence, and wisdom with compassion training adapted from Tibetan Buddhism and contemporary psychology.

Everything we care about–our mental and physical well-being, our relationships, our spiritual life, our ability to be useful to others–depends on our ability to access love and compassion within ourselves first. This clear, step-by-step guide offers a way to cultivate this power through an evidence-based meditation method called Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT).

With practices drawn from Tibetan traditions, attachment theory, and cognitive science, How Compassion Works uses a progressive series of meditations to gradually build our capacity for mindfulness and presence–and to help us avoid empathic distress, compassion fatigue, or burnout. Organized into three categories–receptive mode, deepening mode, and inclusive mode–these practices help us cultivate unconditional care and discernment from within.

With a flexible framework that allows practitioners to integrate their own religious or spiritual beliefs, this book offers practices suitable for people of all faiths and those seeking a purely secular path.

PAUL CONDON, PhD, is an associate professor of psychology at Southern Oregon University and a research fellow at the Mind & Life Institute. His work has appeared in leading psychology journals and Buddhist magazines, as well as The New York Times and other major publications. Paul is codeveloper of the Sustainable Compassion Training model, and he teaches Tibetan Buddhist meditation for multi-faith and secular practitioners.

Thursday July 24th, 6:00 to 8:00 pm
So well known it’s often overlooked, The Little Prince is anything but simple. Beneath its childlike surface lives a layered, luminous work – part fable, part spiritual cartography, part wartime reckoning. Its author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, aviator, exile, and poet of the invisible, remains a figure uncannily at home in every era – including ours. In an age of noise, speed, and crisis, how do we stay faithful to what matters: beauty, truth, and the sacred?
This is not a lecture. It’s a conversation.We’ll revisit some of the book’s most enduring moments – the rose, the fox, the king – and ask what they reveal about the world we live in now. What does it mean to tend to something fragile? To meet power when it is hollow? To choose care over cleverness?
Grégory Brun, vintner, engineer and director of the Monterey Friends of CG Jung is the founder of Ashland Symposia. He grew up in Toulouse, France, cradle of l’Aéropostale, where Saint-Exupéry first flew mail across oceans. He’ll guide an evening of readings and reflections, inviting us to see The Little Prince anew – as a story still speaking to how we find our way.