Before your first visit, please read our Parking requirements. Also check our WORKSHOPS for writers for even more events! Unless noted, no RSVP required. ALL ARE WELCOME!
WED, APRIL 17, 2-4: HOME OF THE LIVING GOD, ERDRICH
Set in an indeterminate future that could well be just a few decades away — 90 degrees is “an unusually cool day for August” in Minnesota, where the Erdrich's novel is set, and the first winter without snow has come and gone — the characters here are facing an unanticipated crisis. For reasons no one understands, evolution has stopped; it is now running backward. As Cedar Hawk Songmaker, the book’s narrator, puts it: “Maybe God has decided that we are an idea not worth thinking anymore.” Barbra Lesch McCaffry, our Erdrich expert, leads the Book group discussion.
SUNDAY, APRIL 28, 2-5: MAYA KHOSLA, LOCAL LEGACIES
The Sitting Room and Poet Laureate Maya Khosla are celebrating poetry month and the conclusion of three Fall 2018 teatime events with a reading event featuring Sonoma poets. Part of Maya’s Local Legacies Project, the event will be held outdoors if weather permits, and will include plenty of time for informal exchanges before and after the readings. Refreshments will be served! The event is free and open to the public. With permissions from participants, parts or all of the celebration will be filmed.
Previous readings in the series were dedicated to the fires and evacuations, and to returning to Sonoma. The April 28th readings, will express a shift towards healing, rebuilding, renewal at personal and landscape levels, and to the ways that the ancient, astonishing post-fire rejuvenation of the natural world can create a path for healing.
Previous readings in the series were dedicated to the fires and evacuations, and to returning to Sonoma. The April 28th readings, will express a shift towards healing, rebuilding, renewal at personal and landscape levels, and to the ways that the ancient, astonishing post-fire rejuvenation of the natural world can create a path for healing.
SATURDAY, MAY 4, 9:30-3:30: BOG OF MEMORIES WRITING WORKSHOP WITH RIVER (AKA HEIDI) LA MOREAUX
From River, SSU Professor Emerita: What do bogs and memories have in common? More than most people think (and I should know having published scientific research about peat bogs). Please join me for an Inner Geographies workshop where you will learn about peat bogs and brains do (and don’t) store information, use personal mapping as a gateway to memory exploration, create artwork (if desired) that explores your own Bog of Memories, and write creatively about place and memory using targeted prompts and exercises.
Cost: $25.00 Space is limited. To reserve your spot, please contact River at Riversteadt@gmail.com. A list of materials and some advanced readings will be given to registered participants.
Cost: $25.00 Space is limited. To reserve your spot, please contact River at Riversteadt@gmail.com. A list of materials and some advanced readings will be given to registered participants.
SATURDAY, MAY 18, 10 AM-1 PM: SPRING NATURE JOURNALS
Celebrate spring with your own nature journal! See a variety of examples and develop your own unique style. Create your own pages of studies and see how much more you notice the world around you. Part outdoor exploration, sketching and note-taking, Krista Anandakuttan will introduce some of her favorite tips for drawing insects and butterflies. For all ages, beginner to experienced; Children with an adult are welcome. Please bring a journal or sketchbook, a pen and pencil. Optional: watercolors and colored pencils, and a sack lunch.
WED, MAY 15, 2-4: BOOK GROUP, THE IRON HEEL
Avis Everhard, wife of a labor leader, narrates this curious novel. In moving terms, she reveals the wretched poverty that props up aristocratic wealth and recounts the desperate struggles of revolutionaries against the insidious rise of the Iron Heel. George Orwell hailed this prescient tale as "a truer prophecy of the future than either Brave New World or The Shape of Things to Come." Written more than a century ago, Jack London's harrowing vision of class warfare and a totalitarian state anticipates the development of fascism, the spread of terrorism, and the oppressive forces of government surveillance and authority. A short novel with remarkable depth, it continues to resonate with modern readers as both a satire and a warning. Clarice Stasz, our London expert, leads the Book Group discussion.
SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2 PM: MEMORIAL CELEBRATIONS
At this annual tradition we honor women writers and artists who have died since our last memorial gathering. We read from their obituaries and also from their writings, in order to get their voices out in the room. Certainly this year we will be reading poems by the late Mary Oliver (shown) – bring one of your favorites. And Francine du Plessix Gray’s death will be an opportunity to find out more about the writing of this “cultural amphibian” as she is described in the obituary. This ritual, or is it an anti-ritual?, has always turned out to be a surprisingly positive time together, healing and sometimes LOL. Please come. No need for reservations but if you have any questions, call J.J. Wilson at 707 795-9028 any time after May 1, or email her at boxcar@sonic.net.
SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2-5: BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!
What are we really celebrating at this event? Maybe mainly Persistence – not only that The Sitting Room itself has lasted so long (almost 40 years) but that the achievements of women in literature and the other arts have continued to thrive and now almost crowd us out, at The Sitting Room. There is ALWAYS room here on our birthday to celebrate Creativity and Conversation and, as we hardly need to mention, Cake. So please come by to enjoy the three Cs. No need to rsvp, no need to bring comestibles, but anything on paper is considered an appropriate birthday gift for your Sitting Room. CU there.