Featured Events in Bellingham in May, 2025 (May Updated)

Can poetry evolve culture in service of a wounded Earth? Join ecologist, educator, and award-winning author Frederick Livingston for an evening exploring how the metaphors we inhabit shape the futures available to us. Whether you are a poet, human, or tree, you are sure to leave with seeds of evolution. Are humans parasites, sowing our own hunger or fruit, gifts from Earth to our future? Is the edge of our lives, civilization, and species a cliff to catastrophe, or a bridge to transformation? Our future begins with seeds we sow in this moment. Frederick Livingston is a spoken word ecologist grown beside the Salish Sea. Experiential education and peacebuilding have taken him from WWU's school of environment to Peace Corps Tanzania, the UN's University for Peace, and beyond. He has authored two science and poetry books and won the Prism Prize for Climate Literature. More info at fredericklivingston.com *Feel free to call Village Books and Paper Dreams for further assistance at 360-671-2626!* Information Source: Village Books | eventbrite

Welcome to Queer Line Dance!We sold out the first time, so snag a ticket while you can! :) Do you love to line dance? Or, have you always wanted to learn? Join us on Tuesday, May 6th from 6-9pm for a Queer Line Dance benefitting Whatcom Youth Pride, a youth-centered parade and festival in downtown Bellingham the last Saturday in May. Check them out at www.whatcomyouthpride.com and @whatcomyouthpride. There will be line dance instruction for all levels, raffles, and so much joy! Dress up or dress down! This is an all-ages event and tickets are limited! 100% of the ticket sales and a portion of the drink sales will go straight to Whatcom Youth Pride and the important work they do. Event hours are 6p-9p Line dance instruction is 6:30p-8p Information Source: Whatcom Youth Pride | eventbrite

Join Village Books and North Cascades Institute in welcoming Seattle and four-time awarded nature author Lynda Mapes to the Readings Gallery for her newest book, The Trees are Speaking: Dispatches from the Salmon Forests! With vibrant storytelling supported by science and traditional ecological knowledge, Lynda V. Mapes invites readers to understand the world where trees are kin, not commodities. The Trees Are Speaking is essential reading for those with a deep interest in environmental stewardship, Indigenous land rights, and the urgent challenges posed by climate change Lynda Mapes is a journalist, nature writer, and author based in Seattle. She is the author of six books of natural and cultural history of the Pacific Northwest. Lynda has been awarded the Washington State Book Award, the National Outdoor Book Award, and twice been honored with the international Kavli Gold Award for Science Writing by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the world's most prestigious science writing awards. North Cascades Institute envisions healthy Northwest ecosystems where all communities and species thrive. Our mission is to inspire environmental stewardship through transformative learning experiences in nature. Since 1986, we have helped connect people, nature and community through the hands-on study of the natural and cultural history of the Pacific Northwest. *Feel free to call Village Books and Paper Dreams for further assistance at 360-671-2626!* Information Source: Village Books | eventbrite

Join Village Books and North Cascades Institute in welcoming Jennifer Hahn - you won't want to miss learning about PNW foraging, plus a chance to try popcorn SEA-soned with local kelp! Foraging for wild food, eating between tide and forest, makes life a delicious journey. It is a passport to place for northwest naturalist and author Jennifer Hahn, teacher of a popular science course called Wild Food at Western Washington University's Fairhaven College. Enjoy a lively slideshow talk on the cultural, culinary and ecological uses of sea veggies, land plants and marine shellfish. Jennifer will share stories of her 40 years foraging afoot and afloat from Alaska to California, animals who shelter and eat the foods we also love, sustainable foraging tips, nutrition, recipe ideas, and perspectives from Indigenous traditional food experts. Enjoy popcorn SEA-soned with local kelp and gain a new appreciation of the nature that surrounds and nourishes you. Jennifer Hahn is an author, scientist, teacher, culinary explorer, and wilderness guide. She teaches sustainable wild food harvesting at Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Washington University and leads seaweed workshops for the North Cascade Institute, Salish Sea tribes, and First Nations. Her first book Spirited Waters: Soloing South through the Inside Passage won the Barbara Savage Miles from Nowhere award. A naturalist and guide in Southeast Alaska and the Inside Passage, Hahn has been featured on NPR and lives in Bellingham, Washington. *Feel free to call Village Books and Paper Dreams for further assistance at 360-671-2626!* Information Source: Village Books | eventbrite

Join Village Books and North Cascades Institute in hearing this story of kinship, queerness, and the secrets of the body in the wake of illness and loss. Spirography is about the bond between a father and daughter, their intertwined illnesses, and the enduring love that persists even after death. Set in the author's childhood home on a lake, this memoir traces the author's experiences of cancer, grief, and coming out as queer in the culturally conservative Midwest. Cara Stoddard is a creative nonfiction writer and poet who grew up on a lake in Michigan. Their poems and essays have appeared in Fourth Genre, The Gettysburg Review, Terrain.org, and Ninth Letter. Currently, they live in Seattle and work as a grant manager for the University of Washington. North Cascades Institute envisions healthy Northwest ecosystems where all communities and species thrive. Our mission is to inspire environmental stewardship through transformative learning experiences in nature. Since 1986, we have helped connect people, nature and community through the hands-on study of the natural and cultural history of the Pacific Northwest. *Feel free to call Village Books and Paper Dreams for further assistance at 360-671-2626!* Information Source: Village Books | eventbrite

Do you struggle with knowing who you are? Is it hard to make decisions or even know what you want? If you do know what you want, is it hard to ask for it? Sometimes we used to know who we were, and then a life change happened, such as divorce, illness, retirement, or graduation, and we feel lost. This workbook is designed to help you become strong in your identity and stay true to yourself. Through guided exercises you will learn more about yourself, your needs, and what makes you...you. Bring paper and pen or pre-purchase the book as some of the exercises will be done together at this event. Maureen Kane is a mental-health therapist in private practice in Bellingham. She is a Sue Boynton Poetry Walk Award winner. Her therapy Workbook titled A Guide Back to You: A workbook for exploring who you are and staying true to yourself is a Chanticleer International 1st place category award winner. Information Source: Village Books | eventbrite

Doors open and music begins at 6:30pm. Interviewer: Rich Donnelly Musical Guest: Phil Paige Spaces are limited and REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED to secure your spot so don't delay. A nationally bestselling memoir of Patrick Hutchison's journey from an office job to restoring a cabin in the Pacific Northwest, based on his wildly popular Outside Magazine piece. Wit's End isn't just a state of mind. It's the name of a gravel road, the address of a run-down off-the-grid cabin, 120 shabby square feet of fixer-upper Patrick Hutchison purchased on a whim in the mossy woods of the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. To say Hutchison didn't know what he was getting into is no more an exaggeration than to say he's a man with nearly zero carpentry skills. Well, used to be. You can learn a lot over six years of renovations. CABIN is the story of those renovations, but it's also a love story; of a place, of possibilities, and of the process of construction, of seeing what could be instead of what is. It is a book for those who know what it's like to bite off more than you can chew, or who desperately wish to. PATRICK HUTCHISON is a writer and builder from the Pacific Northwest. His work has appeared in Outside, Wired, Vice, Seattle magazine, and Seattle Weekly. He grew up in Washington State's rainy southwest corner, eventually moving to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. After a decade of copywriting, Hutchison left a career behind a keyboard to pursue carpentry. His first book, CABIN, follows him as he makes that clumsy transition. He now lives and works in Tacoma, WA with his wife, Kate, and their black lab, Marge. Rich Donnelly began his radio career in his 20s, working weekends at KGMI and KISM, at first mostly changing tapes and reading weather forecasts on the air. Over the years he has kept busy in the radio world, even while his career diverged into technical journalism. He's done jazz shows, interview shows, and 15 years of Grateful Dead music shows for both KISM and KUGS. He also did two short freelance stints at Blue Danube Radio, an English-language service in Vienna. But the pinnacle of his radio career, of course, is the Chuckanut Radio Hour! Phil Paige is a singer songwriter who recently moved to Bellingham, WA. Originally from Seattle, he has lived and played music up and down the West Coast for over forty years, and was most recently based on Lopez Island. He has released two CD's of his original music, which are described as folk, alt-country, and pop-oriented songs. - The Chuckanut Radio Hour, a recipient of Bellingham's prestigious Mayor's Arts Award, is a radio variety show that began in January 2007. Each Chuckanut Radio Hour includes guest authors, musicians, performance poet Kevin Murphy, and episodes of As the Ham Turns serial radio comedy performed by the Chuckanut Radio Players Les Campbell, Tonja Meyers, Lisa Colburn, Dee Robinson, Sarah Hawley, and Robert Muzzy. Not to mention groaner jokes by hosts Paul Hanson, Kelly Evert, and announcer Rich Donnelly. The Chuckanut Radio Hour's first guest was Erik Larson and has since included, Tom Robbins, Maria Semple, Christopher McDougall, Erica Bauermeister, and Garrison Keillor, among many others. Tickets for the Chuckanut Radio Hour are $5 and are available on Eventbrite.The Radio Hour airs Sundays at 7pm on Community Powered KMRE at 88.3FM and kmre.org.Co-sponsored by 12th Street Shoes. *Online registration closes two hours prior to the event. Tickets may be available at the door. *Feel free to call Village Books and Paper Dreams for further assiantance at 360-671-2626!* Information Source: Village Books | eventbrite