Events & Opportunities
October 17, 2026
Conversation Project: Are You Doing Community Wrong?
We all belong to many communities—that is, groups of people with common interests—depending on where we live, the work we do, how we spend our leisure time, political and religious beliefs, and so on. In some communities, finding agreement is easy; in others, especially those that represent many different experiences and points of view, members must work harder to find commonality. It may be easier to find a location for your next book-club meeting than to achieve consensus about a road project at your neighborhood association. In such contexts, are we “doing” community wrong? Are we celebrating diverse points of view and our common effort to find solutions together? If not, why not? What stops us from engaging in more diverse communities?
1:00 p.m., Willamette Heritage Center, Salem
October 17, 2026
Talking About Values Across Political Divides
“How can I be me without making it difficult for you to be you?” This question gets at the fundamental challenge of being in society together. We live in a contentious political world, and it’s difficult to talk about our deepest values and beliefs in safe, civil, and respectful ways. In 2021, the Pew Research Center found that nearly six in ten Americans felt that political conversations with those you disagree with are generally stressful and frustrating, as opposed to being interesting and informative. If we avoid such conversations, we lose opportunities to form a community with others that reflects our best selves. How can we learn to share our values in ways that bring us together rather than push us further apart?
3:30 p.m., Willamette Heritage Center, Salem
October 17, 2026
Conversation Project: Can We Get Along?
Rodney King’s iconic question still resonates today. Despite decades of social justice movements, police brutality and divisions persist in the United States. COVID-19 has only added more challenges. How can we connect to each other during these times? What holds us back from connecting with each other? How do our personal experiences contribute to barriers, or and have the potential to break them down? Join facilitator Chisao Hata as she holds space to examine individual questions on race, cultural values, and what brings us together and what separates us.
10:30 a.m., Willamette Heritage Center, Salem
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.
3:30 p.m., Jacksonville Community Center, Jacksonville
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
November 18, 2026
At a Loss for Words
Join Oregon Poet Laureate Ellen Waterston for a free and public event in the Lincoln City Cultural Center. The event will include a presentation and time for audience Q&A.
6:30 p.m., Lincoln City Cultural Center, Lincoln City
November 19, 2026
Ellen Waterston Reading
A reading by Oregon Poet Laureate Ellen Waterston
2:00 p.m., Miracle Theatre Group Office, Portland
January 24, 2027
Does Nature Have a Purpose in Our Lives? Exploring Our Relationships to the Land
Oregonians have long struggled to balance cultural, political, and values-based differences tied to our use of land and resources. As we enter an age of accelerating environmental change and scarcity, it is important to understand what drives these differences. In this conversation we will explore our attitudes and assumptions about the purpose of the environment in our lives and how those attitudes and assumptions shape our perception of environmental issues and policies.
2:00 p.m., Beaverton City Library, Beaverton