If you’re feeling adventurous and community driven in this brisk autumnal season, I have event news and uplifting reading to share! I recently discovered several fun books that feature community themes, offering resistance to isolation. I hope you will read on. Consider joining local gatherings in our community and be inspired to check out my personal favorite new transformative fictional stories of community connections!
Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead Holiday
Join Somos Lawrence families and Lawrence Percolator to honor lost loved human and animal companions on Saturday, November 1, at John Taylor Park at 200 N. Eighth St. in North Lawrence. Everyone is invited to build an altar with flowers, notes, art, photos, and other non-valuable mementos to honor human and non-human loved ones from 9 AM–5 PM. Sign up, opens a new window to enter the altar-decorating contest. Return at 6 PM to enjoy hot chocolate, tamales, and pan de muerto (Mexican sweet bread)!
An Evening with Margaret Renkl, in conversation with Megan Kaminski
The Commons at KU is hosting Margaret Renkl for their annual Kenneth A. Spencer Lecture on Monday, November 3, from 7–8:30 PM at Liberty Hall. Margaret Renkl is a reflective and lyrical essayist and environmental steward. Reading her work offers a deeper perspective of family bonds, our own backyards, and neighborhoods. She is the author of The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, which won the 2024 Southern Book Prize. Her earlier book, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss, won the Reed Environmental Writing Award, and Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South won both the Southern Book Prize and the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Renkl is also a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. Megan Kaminski, opens a new window, community-engaged poet, essayist, and professor of English and Environmental Studies at the University of Kansas will join Margaret Renkl for a conversation, followed by a book signing, hosted by the Raven Book Store. Register online, opens a new window for free tickets.
BLACK Lawrence Open Mic Night
Meet local poets at the next BLACK Lawrence Open Mic Night, Friday, November 7, at the Lawrence Arts Center's 10th & Mass Studios. From poetry to song, all creatives and skill levels are welcome. Donations are encouraged but not required to attend and participate. And save the dates for every first Friday of September–November and January–May from 7–8:30 PM. Find more details here, opens a new window.
Return of the Sacred Red Rock Documentary
All are invited to a free screening of the Return of the Sacred Red Rock documentary on November 8, from 2–4 PM in the Woodruff Auditorium, inside the Kansas Union at KU. The hour-long film tells the story of the rematriation of In’zhúje’wáxobe, a 28-ton red quartzite boulder sacred to the Kanza people of the Kaw Nation. A panel discussion and Q&A with project leaders will follow. More info here, opens a new window.
Artists Reflect on the Sacred Red Rock
Join Curator Sydney Pursel and local artists featured in the exhibit at the Spencer Museum of Art at KU “In’zhúje’waxóbe: Return of the Sacred Red Rock” for a panel discussion about their relationship to, experiences with, and artwork about the Sacred Red Rock on November 13, from 6–7 PM at KU's Spencer Museum of Art, Marshall Balcony. Learn more here, opens a new window.
More Community Events
And you're likely to discover more events of interest while perusing the library's event offerings, opens a new window and community bulletin board, located within the library near the adult fiction shelves.
Uplifting Community Themed Fiction Books
Now, as promised, here are my favorite recent fiction reads to connect your imagination to community and resilience.
Dwelling by Emily Hunt Kivel is a vivid, surreal, and magical story of found family, community uniting as resistance to society’s alienation. Opening on a dystopia with a major rental housing crisis in New York City, every renter has been evicted since the mayor devised a money-making scheme — all rentals are being renovated for vacation travel lodging. Kivel is reckoning with millennial angst, late-stage capitalism, and she's a big fan of fairy tales. This tale transforms into a resilient heroine’s journey into remote wilderness, learning survival from wild creatures, and an adventure quest into creativity. Oh, and this is Kivel’s debut novel!
Bog Queen by Anna North is an atmospheric, complex mystery thriller with dual timelines set in northwestern England. Alternating chapters give insight from thought-provoking, strong young women. The author also gives a compelling omniscient voice to the peat moss bog, widening our community view to include the land in addition to the human characters. Sensitive and introverted Dr. Agnes Linstrom is a forensic anthropologist in the contemporary year 2018, and in the 1st century Celtic-early-Roman era we meet a courageous druid healer whose leadership is challenged by her envious brother.
Finally, I am currently wrapped in suspense while reading Watershed by the acclaimed and prolific Percival Everett, opens a new window. Interspersed throughout are excerpts from actual treaties the United States made with Indigenous tribes. The author is asking the reader to think about contextual history in this cinematic, fast moving, high interest fictional account. A wise reckoning with environmental racism in a crime novel. The community element comes into deeper focus with reflections of allied bonds uniting activists with the Black Panthers and the Native American Plata tribe in defense of the local watershed. I am in great anticipation with more pages yet to read; the publisher's blurb notes an element of espionage within.
I look forward, dear reader, to meeting you at the gatherings and hearing your perspective from reading, in gratitude and community!
Acknowledgements
My gratitude to The Lawrence Times, opens a new window for Día de los Muertos information.
Heartfelt appreciation to The Commons, opens a new window and also to the Spencer Museum of Art, opens a new window at KU, movers and shakers of culture in our community!
—Shirley Braunlich is a Readers' Services Assistant at Lawrence Public Library.
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