2024 Series

Scroll down to locate videos of past events

JUNE 16:
Jonathan Franzen / SHAW READS

Caryn Buck & Andy Thomas’ Barn, 4 p.m.

Crossroads

Jonathan Franzen is the author of six novels, most recently Crossroads and Purity, and five works of nonfiction, including The Discomfort Zone, Farther Away, and The End of the End of the Earth. He is one of America’s most celebrated authors. Franzen’s gift for wedding depth and vividness of character with breadth of social vision has never been more dazzlingly evident than in our Shaw Reads novel, Crossroads.

JUNE 29:
David Campiche

Community Building, 1 p.m.

Black Wing

David Campiche is a novelist, poet, potter, avid outdoorsman, retired innkeeper of 42 years, and a passionate student of Indigenous cultures. He lives on the Long Beach Peninsula in SW Washington state. Of his novel, Black Wing, the author Buzz Bissinger wrote, “His depiction of the Pacific Northwest in all its physical beauty and power is the best I have ever read…read it slowly to savor every word.”

JULY 13:
Ellen Bass

Community Building, 4 p.m.

A Life of Poetry

Ellen Bass is the author of four poetry collections, including Indigo (2020) by Copper Canyon Press. Her poems have appeared in hundreds of publications. She writes with humor and compassion because “we are all so terribly imperfect — starting with myself. And that willingness to feel, even a little, what someone else is feeling is what joins us most intimately to others.” The NYT’s wrote, “Bass’s work…cultivates an exuberance that’s born of, and balanced by, close watchfulness.”



JULY 27:
Rick Ridgeway

Library Back Lawn, 11 a.m. / SIL & HS Annual Meeting

Life Lived Wild

Rick Ridgeway is an outdoor adventurer, writer and advocate for sustainability and conservation initiatives. He is one of the world’s foremost mountaineers. With three companions, he was the first American to summit K2, and he has done other significant climbs and explorations on all continents. He has written seven books, many magazine stories and produced and directed dozens of television shows. Of his memoir Life Lived Wild (2021), Academy Award-winning film director Jimmy Chin said, “Rick Ridgeway . . . captures the essence of a lifetime of story-telling.”



August 24:
Walter Hatch

Community Building, 1 pm

Ghosts in the Neighborhood

Walter Hatch, a Shaw resident, is professor emeritus of government at Colby College in Maine and affiliate professor in the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies. His book, Ghosts in the Neighborhood, explores memory politics in Asia and Europe and was nominated for the Outstanding Book Award from the American Political Science Association.