The Ashland Mystery Fest last weekend, Oct. 20-22, was a smashing success. If you were downtown Saturday, you would have met people trying to solve an original whodunnit mystery written by Ellie Alexander especially for the occasion. Author of the Bakeshop mystery series set in Ashland, Alexander’s vision was an immersive experience for book lovers, “where you get to be your own sleuth for the weekend.”
Local historian and archeologist Jeff Lalande will discuss his new book, “The Jackson County Rebellion” — a chronicle of a historic populist uprising during the Great Depression — at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 12, in the Meese Room at Southern Oregon University’s Hannon Library, the Friends of Hannon Library have announced.
Three performers are bringing poetry, prose and music to the Applegate Valley, including Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani. Titled “Poetry in the Pasture,” the free event will take place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 22, at Plaisance Ranch, 16955 Water Gap Road, in Williams.
Channel your inner Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot or Juliet Capshaw at the first-ever Ashland Mystery Fest Oct. 20, 21 and 22. Meet and interact with 10 mystery book authors at the Ashland Library and at author pop-ups around town. Attend a Mystery Mixology event, an Hercule Poirot play, the Mystery Pub Crawl or a Haunted Ashland walking tour.
John Yunker: In “This Is Wildfire: How to Protect Yourself, Your Home, and Your Community in the Age of Heat,” authors Nick Mott and Justin Angle have created a book that is as much an explanation of how we got to this point in history as it is a hands-on guide to living a more fire-wise life.
The latest book by Bill Meulemans, an emeritus professor of political science at Southern Oregon University, recounts experiences from his 47-year career studying political forces that have shaped American society. His first-hand research includes interviews with Southern Oregon minutemen, members of the Rajneesh cult, and Hells Angels.
Profile: Local writer Kristin Elizabeth Clark, who relocated to Ashland in 2020, brings an elaborate historical patchwork of experiences to her writing, including making silk flowers, teaching taekwondo, producing youth theater and being a scenic artist for theater. Her life’s winding path began with growing up in Las Vegas, attending college in Utah and Nevada, and later marrying, settling, and raising her children in California.
There is likely none better to tell a love story of former nuns than Joanie Lindenmeyer, whose 2023 book, “Nun Better: An Amazing Love Story,” documents her 40-year relationship with Carol Tierheimer, including their effort to marry within the Catholic Church and eventual union before an Episcopalian priest.
It’s no easy task operating a public library during renovations but the Ashland branch pulled it off, reopening the upper level of its building on Monday.
Once upon a time — well, it was Wednesday, May 3 — there was the first live Rotary Ashland Reads event in four years. It was a huge, lively success. First-graders from Bellview, Helman, Walker, Willow Wind, and TRAILS schools arrived by bus and on foot at Ashland High School in the morning, where they were welcomed by Rotarians and members of Ashland Fire & Rescue.
Those driving through downtown Ashland Thursday afternoon may have encountered a traffic disruption at the corner of East Main and North Pioneer streets when first responders closed off some traffic lanes while they investigated what was initially reported as a structure fire.
The recently completed $750,000 Bear Creek River Mile 19 project wasn’t intended to have a strictly surface level effect, but to create a nuanced restoration of eight acres of wildland urban interface within the Almeda Fire scar.
The Ashland Independent Film Festival kicks off its four-day run Thursday, Oct. 3, with the centerpiece film for the festival, ‘Including Us,’ set for its world premiere Saturday. The film, made by local director Brandon Givens, is about the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Hairspray: A Broadway Musical” in 2019. The story focuses on four actors with disabilities who starred in the musical, along with the rest of the cast.
Electric Department Head Tom McBartlett presented a master plan to keep the city of Ashland’s electric department safe, reliable and capable of meeting future demand at the Ashland City Council study session Monday. The plan projected that, with a few changes, the city’s electric system would be capable of handling the projected population growth and with a few potential upgrades and alterations — such as an expansion of the Mountain Avenue substation and a potential upgrade to its transformer.
After narrowly making it back to Southern Oregon on one of the last flights out of Asheville, North Carolina, before remnants of Hurricane Helene touched down last Thursday, Ashland resident Ashley Brown is hearing devastating news directly from friends in the area.
Rough patches of pavement along about a mile of North and East Main streets and Lithia Way were ground up and taken away, replaced by freshly laid inlays of asphalt Monday and Tuesday during a joint project of the Oregon Department of Transportation and the city of Ashland.
(It’s free)
