October 18, 2026

Write Your Own Obituary with Katherine Annala

Writing your own obituary can be an illuminating exercise in exploring who you are and what you want the world to know about your life. Participants will explore their legacy and how to put it into words. Learn the different types of obituaries and the basics of obituary writing with Katherine Annala, a doctor of acupuncture based in Portland, Oregon with a focus on aging adults and women’s health. Writing utensils provided, if preferred, please bring a laptop.

RSVP requested at astoriavisualarts.org

noon, Astoria Visual Arts, Astoria

October 21, 2026

What Does It Mean to Be American?

This conversation will explore when and how we define ourselves as an “American.” Does knowing the Constitution make us American? Does living on land controlled by the United States of America make us American? Through conversation and nonverbal exploration, we will share what “American” means to us individually and within the communities we belong to or came from, and what perspectives shaped our understanding of American identity and who is included in “We the People.”

Facilitator Chisao Hata is a performing artist, educator, and arts integration specialist. She has been called a “community weaver” through facilitation, community engagement and creating artistic collaborations. She has been a protector of imagination and personal discovery and a champion for individual expression. Creating engaged learning is her life’s work. She has had the honor of serving hundreds of Portland’s children, youth, and adults across many communities. Chisao believes we are all inextricably linked, and the power of gathering is a conduit to build and heal our understandings between our communities.

6:30 p.m., Community for Positive Aging, Portland

October 22, 2026

The 1930s Jackson County Rebellion

Author, archaeologist, and historian Jeff LaLande will share the study of a fascinating and insightful political movement in 1930s Southern Oregon. The Jackson County Rebellion explores a dramatic if little-known populist insurgency that captured national attention as it played out in rural Oregon. LaLande traces the rebellion’s roots back to the area’s tradition of protest, including the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, then focuses on Jackson County’s politics of upheaval during the worst days of the Great Depression. The broad strokes of the episode may be familiar to contemporary readers, with demagogues fanning rage and relentlessly accusing an elite of corruption and conspiracy.

Purchase tickets here.

3:30 p.m., Jacksonville Community Center, Jacksonville

October 24, 2026

Saturday Scoundrels

Why is ritual important?

Birthdays. Funerals. Holidays. Handshakes. Morning coffee. Religious observance. Stadium chants. Humans keep inventing things to do again and again in really specific ways.

What does ritual accomplish that an ordinary action does not? Does repetition change us? Can ritual connect people, preserve memory, mark change, or outlive its usefulness?

Join Scoundrels for a conversation about why humans keep returning to ritual.

10:00 a.m., The Catalyst, Astoria

October 24, 2026

Grieving in Nature: Can connecting with nature help us heal?

Most of us know about the physical and emotional benefits of spending time outdoors. But did you know that getting outside can assist in grieving and processing loss? In this conversation, we’ll discuss how our connections to nature provide context and understanding around grieving. Can a deeper connection with nature and the outdoors provide additional value and perspective?

Register for this free program.

Adam Sawyer is an outdoor and travel writer, photographer, published author, guide, and public speaker based in the Northwest. In addition to authoring numerous guidebooks, his work has appeared in several local and national outlets. Nature has been a critical component in helping him process the grief from the sudden and tragic loss of his partner and home in 2022. His weekly Substack newsletter, Collecting Sunsets, covers a broad set of topics including grief, addiction and recovery, travel, life, love, and the healing powers of nature.

10:00 a.m., Neskowin Valley School, Neskowin

October 29, 2026

Community Led Harm Reduction Conversation

Join Rahab's Sisters for a community conversation about harm reduction, drug use and overdose response! Participants are invited to sit together in dialogue over a light dinner to help deepen compassion and care for people who use drugs and to better understand how to participate in community care. This event is intended to bring people with lived experience and people who want to learn more together in dialogue toward the goal of deepened community connection and understanding.

Each participant will also receive overdose prevention training rooted in compassion, designed and led by those with lived experience.

This event is supported by a Public Programs Grant from Oregon Humanities.

6:00 p.m., Montavilla United Methodist Church, Portland

November 4, 2026

Literary Show and Tell with Constellation Reading Series

Inspired by Oregon Humanities magazine’s Works Cited section—where authors unpack the foundational texts that shaped their lives—we’re gathering a stacked lineup of OH contributors and Constellation alums at the new P.A.LS. (Portland Arts & Literary Society) Building for a night of literary show-and-tell. Featuring flash readings from Lydia Kiseling, Eric Tran, Aleksandr Chernosov, Jae Nichelle, Christopher Rose, Tim Lane, and more, plus a lightning-round open mic where you can step up to share the book that started your literary origin story.

7:00 p.m., P.A.L.S Building, Portland

November 5, 2026

Writing Around Harney County

A public reading at the Harney County Library featuring Oregon Poet Laureate Ellen Waterston.

6:00 p.m., Harney County Library, Burns

November 7, 2026

Are We Created Equal?

This conversation will explore equality. It is a core national value of the United States, even if we have not always lived up to that value. What does it mean to say, as the writers of the Declaration of Independence did, that “all men are created equal” and to declare that this is a self-evident truth? In what ways are or should we be equal? How does this ideal of equality show up in our daily lives, our communities, and our politics? How, finally, has this ideal of equality changed over the past 250 years—and how might it change further over the next 250?

11:00 a.m., Grants Pass Library, Grants Pass

November 10, 2026

To What Do We Pledge?

While the opening of the Declaration of Independence gets the fanfare and the fireworks—“When in the course of human events” and all that—the closing clause contains a quiet promise: “We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” When we talk about the founding, we often think of it as a severing from a distant power and a proclamation of individual rights. And yet, buried in that big individualistic origin story, there is a pledge of support, solidarity, and mutual aid. Today, as we witness political violence, hostility, and polarization, this conversation invites us to explore what it means for us to be bound to one another and to ask ourselves: Is there any idea, any value, any dream for the future that we care about enough to tie ourselves to one another to protect or pursue it? What would it mean to “mutually pledge” ourselves to one another today? What would it look like? Feel like? Is it even possible?

Facilitator Wendy Willis is the founding director of Oregon's Kitchen Table, a statewide community engagement program housed at Portland State University. She is also a poet, an essayist, a stitcher, and a self-proclaimed democracy geek. Wendy was raised in Springfield, but now lives with her family in Portland.

6:00 p.m., Eugene Public Library, Eugene