Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

About the Author:

Aimee Herman has been slowly disemboweling gender for over 20 years, as a poet, performance artist, educator and human transitioning from what others said they were to what they have been all along. They have a new chapbook of poems, “somewhere in the body a nest of anger hatches.” They love writing letters, embroidering naked bodies, and drinking coffee. Find them making music with their band, Brand New Queers.

Featuring Performances by:
Jona Fine
Shirin Chowdhury
Cortney Collins

Join local DIY hooligans Dark Leaf Press for a night of words & exorcism. Featuring Dark Leaf contributors, music, open mic, ritual, & more.

hosted by Charlotte Sachs & Huck Shine

About Dark Leaf:

Our vision at Dark Leaf is to search out the words and ways that have been hidden away in the dark recesses of our consciousness; both in the collective and in the individual.

We aim to shine light upon the ones cast out into shadows, those now feared, shamed, or ignored - and to coax them into the warm glow of nurturing existence ~ of light.  

We endeavor to tear down limitations and explore the gift that is being human - stunning, raw, grotesque - through words, art, and discussions.  

Join us on our mission to embrace HUMANITY as we experience it in the moments of every day.

Free & Open to the Public 6:00-8:30
Open Mic: 6:00-7:00

Bring an acoustic instrument and sit in with Boulder Old-Time Jam! Every first Thursday on the Trident Patio, starting at 6 p.m.

Daphne Hardy is a singer-songwriter who loves crafting little worlds through song. Inspired by artists such as Adrianne Lenker, Becca Stevens, and Elliott Smith, she writes intimate, emotionally detailed songs shaped by a love of alternate tunings. 

Jim Herlihy is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and music teacher living in Boulder CO. He is a founding member of the critically acclaimed rock outfit Augustus and plays banjo with the local folk group Sturtz. You can catch him around town hosting the weekly open mic at Vision Quest brewery, playing with his other group Lost Bobcat, or sitting in at various bluegrass picks. 

Jason Murray is a singer-songwriter in Boulder. His music brings together a love for exploring the world of subtle voicings on the guitar with introspective lyrics. His songs weave together a wide range of stylistic influences, such as jazz, folk,  blues, and progressive rock.  

Marilyn Walker - Marilyn Walker fuses lyrics, melody, and storytelling from her North Carolina and Floridian upbringing along with her background as an ecologist is at the core of her work. Marilyn’s  fans have been gifted in recent years with an artist who is consistently taking steps forward into new creative territory. A storytelling troubadour who has been described as “John Prine meets Winnie the Pooh,” and recently selected as a Music to Life Juried Artist, Marilyn brings things to life in a way you've never thought about before, through well-chosen lyrics and catchy tunes. www.Marilynwalkermusic.com

Vertigo Road - Roots, rhythm, and wild hearts. For nearly 30 years, Kim Kopp and Dawnia Dresser have been on a musical journey together that’s taken them from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coastline and back again. The journey continues and the music is sweet, so turn it up, let your hair whip in the breeze, and let’s groove.

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Join us for an evening reading with poets Michael Henry & Juan J. Morales from Lighthouse Writers. Michael Henry is the author of, most recently, Gun Poems from Middle Creek Publishing, a collection that personifies the gun as a trickster figure, all too present in our day-to-day. Juan Morales’s most recent book, The Handyman’s Guide to End Times, was the winner of the International Latino Book Award.

About Gun Poems:

Gun Poems is a haunting, unflinching examination of America’s tangled obsession with guns, masculinity, and the systemic violence of individualism. This devastating work of contemporary myth-making—a book-length conjuring of Gun, a trickster persona cut from the same cunning cloth as Marvin Bell’s Dead Man or Ted Hughes’ Crow, yet with distinctly American alloys of chrome and powder.

About Michael Henry:

Michael Henry is co-founder and Executive Director of Lighthouse Writers Workshop, the largest independent literary arts center in the Rocky Mountain west. He is the author of three books of poetry and a nonfiction book, Mountain Biking the Colorado Trail, and has received fellowships from the Colorado Council on the Arts, PlatteForum, and a Livingston Fellowship from the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation.

About Juan J. Morales:

Juan J. Morales (he/him) is the son of an Ecuadorian mother and Puerto Rican father and the author of four poetry collections, including Dream of the Bird Tattoo and The Handyman’s Guide to End Times. Morales has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Macondo, Longleaf Writers Conference, and he has served as the editor/publisher of Pilgrimage Press. Recent poems have appeared in Verse Daily, The Slowdown Podcast, High Plains Pueblo Radio, and Inscape. He lives in Pueblo, Colorado, teaches for Lighthouse Writers in Denver, and is an Assistant Professor of English at Colorado College.

Singer-songwriter Paula Gayatri delivers poetic, intimate performances dripping with soul. Early influences like Joni Mitchell, Indigo Girls, and Bach have woven with her years of chanting and meditation at a yoga ashram. Check out her album, Between Music & Love, and explore her offerings at www.gayatri.devillier.com

Mira Devi's music is a soul-stirring blend of East and West, weaving folk melodies with poetic storytelling. Drawing inspiration from artists like Shawn Colvin, The Band, and Gregory Alan Isakov, her thoughtful musicianship and evocative lyrics explore love, loss, motherhood, and the search for connection in a beautifully imperfect world.  www.miradevi.com

What would a postcarbon future look like? How would a more just, decarbonized world require us to change the way we live? What would it take to build this world? These questions lie at the heart of Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice, and the Energy Transition.

This book offers a comprehensive account of the myriad ways in which people are transforming their social, ecological, and economic systems to create more just, beautiful places in response to the climate crisis.  With contributions from more than a dozen leading scholars of climate justice, Building Postcarbon Futures takes readers through 30 exemplary works of climate justice spanning 43 nations and 6 continents. Together, these illustrated case studies foreground the often-overlooked tactics, strategies, and modes of practice being employed, often by marginalized peoples, to build a more just, decarbonized world—from Cuba to Kiribati.

Building Postcarbon Futures is both a celebration of action underway and a challenge to those tasked with bringing new works of climate justice into the built and natural environments—the planners, designers, policymakers, and activists pushing this planet toward a future of collective flourishing.

About the Author:

Billy Fleming is a leading voice on the role that the design of our cities, communities, and landscapes plays in responding to the climate crisis. He is founding co-director of the Climate and Community Institute, a progressive think tank focused on climate and political economy, and assistant professor of landscape architecture at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture. Fleming is coeditor of Design with Nature Now (Lincoln Institute 2019) and A Blueprint for Coastal Adaptation: Uniting Design, Economics, and Policy (Island Press 2021). Formerly, he cofounded and served as the inaugural Wilks Family Director of the Ian L. McHarg Center at the University of Pennsylvania and worked on urban policy development in the White House Domestic Policy Council during the Obama Administration.

Contributors:

Catherine de Almeida, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Eliza Breder, Holly Jean Buck, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Keller Easterling, Kian Goh, Rob Holmes, Leah Kahler, Reinhold Martin, Danielle Rivera, Douglas Robb, Akira Drake Rodriguez, Matthew Seibert, Aaryaman “Sunny” Singhal, Abby Spinak, Charles Waldheim.

Shorts: Three piece emo from Boulder

Live Jazz!

Join us for a special, free screening of Art of Mastery – A feature documentary woven from more than 100 films created by 80 filmmakers across 75 countries. Through the stories of master craftspeople, artists, performers, and cultural keepers from around the world, the film explores one of the most universal aspects of the human experience: the desire to create, learn, persevere, and devote ourselves to something meaningful. At a time of rapid technological change, Art of Mastery is a celebration of the creativity, wisdom, and shared humanity that connect us across cultures. A post-film Q&A with director Nick Simon will follow the screening. 

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Please join us Tuesday, September 15th for a night of poetry and community as we celebrate the 50th installment of Naropa's Bombay Gin Literary Journal hosted by Charlie Tea. We will have copies of the Journal from various years, recent and not-so-recent available for poetry lovers. If you'd like to share something, we'll be running an open-mic offering from 6:30-7:00. We will be featuring readings from Bombay Gin editors and contributors from 7:00-8:30. Come add to your poetry collection and grab a beverage from the wonderful folks at Trident!

About Bombay Gin:

Started in 1974, Bombay Gin is the literary journal of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics—co-founded by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman—at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Edited by department faculty, students and staff, Bombay Gin publishes innovative poetry, prose and hybrid texts as well as art, translations and interviews. Emerging from the “Outrider” or left-hand lineage, which operates outside the cultural mainstream, Bombay Gin honors a heritage of powerful scholarship and counter-poetics through the publication of work that challenges the boundaries of language, form, and genre.

pomegranatequestionmark is a salon of sorts—a night for lesbians and friends of lesbians to gather / question / cultivate a collective vision.

still confused? at the september happening, we’ll be sharing a manifesto and initiating an open call for future print / stage collaboration. come curious—come if yer a sapphic poet, painter, jester, sorcerer, rockstar, etcetera.

Jessica Gordon Nembhard is an internationally recognized political economist specializing in community economic development, solidarity economics, cooperative economics, Black Political Economy, racial wealth inequality, community-based approaches to justice, and popular economic literacy. She is Professor of Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Department of Africana Studies, at John Jay CUNY. She’s also the Director of John Jay’s McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program; former Chair of the Department of Africana Studies; former chair of the Malcolm/King Student Leadership Committee; and inaugural Chair of the John Jay Faculty Senate Committee on Racial Justice and Inclusion. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard is an affiliate faculty member for John Jay’s Economics Masters Program; and for the Environmental Psychology Ph.D. Program (in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences), CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice (Pennsylvania State University Press 2014 and 2024), and 2016 inductee into the U.S. Cooperative Hall of Fame.

Júlia Martins Rodrigues, PhD, is a Research Associate and the Associate Director of the Media Economies Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. She also serves as a governor-appointed commissioner (vice-chair) on Employee Ownership at the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade. Her areas of expertise include cooperative law, multi-stakeholder cooperative networks, shared ownership and collective governance. Júlia earned her PhD in Legal and Social Sciences from the Università Degli Studi di Camerino, Italy. She also holds a Master of Law in Human Rights and Innovation from the Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Brazil, where she received her Juris Doctor and served as an Assistant Professor of Law. Additionally, she has obtained a professional certificate as a “Third Sector Operator: Serving Nonprofit Causes & Communities” from the Bottega del Terzo Settore in Ascoli Piceno, Italy. As a Latin woman born and raised in Brazil, she is dedicated to advancing economic democracy and social justice, viewing both as essential pathways to achieving shared prosperity and sustainability.

Come Scream with us for a Trident Late Night mini-music fest featuring the many musicians from Screaming at America: An Anthology of Revolution

Featuring:

Black Market Translation
Eli & The Hypotheticals
Cat Jensen & Green Typewriters
Charlie Tea
Wheeler Light
Jason Brandt
Radiance Bukari
Rowen Foliver
The Poet Val
Jochanaan
and more!

Sliding scale donation suggested. No one turned away. All proceeds go to print costs and paying contributors for their work.

About Screaming at America:

The Screaming at America Anthology series started in 2023, at a time when screams needed to be screamed, shouts needed to get louder, voices needed to be heard, and art needed to be made. Now, in 2026, voices, shouts, screams, and art are needed more than ever. We ARE the artists capturing this defining moment in U.S. history, in all of its painful, beautiful, infuriating, joy, and against all odds - hope.

Learn more at screamingatamerica.com
or on Instagram @screamingatamerica

Join us in the courtyard for an another afternoon author series with author and professor, Michael S.A. Graziano, author of the newly released, The Love Song of Monkey, and more.

Michael S. A. Graziano, PhD, is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Princeton University. Love is his latest work of fiction published by Leapfrog. Others include The Love Song of Monkey, The Divine Farce, and Death My Own Way. He has also published popular science books including God Soul Mind Brain (Leapfrog Press, 2010), Consciousness and the Social Brain (Oxford University Press, 2013), Rethinking Consciousness (W. W. Norton, 2021), which was a finalist for the Penn-Faulkner award, and most recently, Charlie’s Lab (Press 53, 2023). He has regularly written for the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey with his wife and a backyard fox family.

About The Love Song of Monkey:

In a surreal exile on the floor of the Atlantic, a young man faces his own death and his wife’s infidelity. The Love Song of Monkey is a meditation on the simple, inexplicable, and lasting power of love, cast in the metaphor of a journey to the depths of the ocean floor. Precise and beautifully crafted, this modern fable is rich with humor and deep thought.

Alli Cook, aka The Peach Rat, is an up n’ coming singer-songwriter hailing from the Appalachian region of southern West Virginia. Alli now tends to reside along the Front Range, Colorado area. Making her way out of West Virginia and into Colorado was no easy feat. The old saying “trials and tribulations,” come to mind… The name “Peach Rat” stems from the duality inside The Rat herself. The Peach side represents a sweet, charming, dare I say, innocent-esque being. While The Rat showcases levels of hardy, traumatized, Appalachian grunge - if ya know, ya know. It’s all fun and games until you see The Rat perform live… Her music is like some sort of theatrical, bohemian, psychedelic-rock, circus, fever dream. Peach Rat takes you on a journey of soul-bending, up-lifting sorrow, all the while gently kissing you on the forehead to let you know it’s going to be okay. The performance style is one you have never seen before and one you may never see again. The Peach Rat specialties include storytelling, flute, keys, and magical, inflective vocals. Taking the stage with Peach Rat is Cliff Bueno de Mesquita on bass, Lowell Thompson on drums, and Darren Roebuck on lead guitar.

The Peach Rat purpose is to inspire creativity and authenticity. The goal is to bridge mania into a musical reality.

“She ain’t go lookin’ for a fight but by golly, she never back down from one neither”

-Someone about Alli, probably

Liana Gabel and the Human Beings EP release tour: Through her music, Liana Gabel aims to ignite the collective human spirit, with her tap dancing feet and her heart folk rhymes, she gets everyone singing along as she was encouraged to by Pete Seeger. After many years of travel, warming hearts at east coast house shows, festivals and listening rooms, Liana is headed west joined by James Bristol on upright bass of the Pittsburgh band The Hills and the Rivers. Liana will be sharing songs from her latest EP, the Human Beings EP recorded by Grammy award winning producer Kenny Siegal, mixed by Matthew Cullen who has worked with the Spice Girls (making Liana “Folky Spice!”) and Mastered by Greg Kalbi who has worked with John Lennon. Her live shows are transformative and leave everyone feeling lighter, more joyous and a little more connected than they did before they arrived. 

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

The Regeneration Process:
A Revolutionary Method for Uprooting Ancestral Trauma, Embracing Uncertainty, and Cultivating Collective Liberation

Healing Reimagined, Hope Reclaimed,
and Humanity Regenerated —

Your trauma did not start and will not end with you. Despite this fact, our healing-obsessed Eurocentric society consistently misplaces its focus on the self, ignoring the cultural and historical landscape that is inherently tied to our individual and shared troubles. The only way to truly move forward is to abandon the comfort cult of individual recovery and shift toward a new method of collective transformation.

The Regeneration Process is that new and necessary mode of healing. Developed by Dr. Ame Cutler, this method calls us to recognize centuries of Indigenous wisdom, combining it with modern trauma theory to challenge our standard model of psychology, which often overlooks the interconnectedness of people, culture, and the natural world. Both conceptual and practical, this book will equip you with a clear method for breaking cycles of harm, tools for shifting from self-focus to collective responsibility, and a framework for acting as a regenerative agent in your own community and ecosystem.

For those willing to stop simply performing transformation and begin practicing true collective repair, this six-phase process will task you with restoring what has been lost, reclaiming what has been stolen, and regenerating what must now emerge.

About the Author:

Dr. Ame Cutler is a transdisciplinary trauma theorist, regenerative strategist, and spiritual practitioner who refuses to separate healing from history. She holds a PhD in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology and specializes in transgenerational trauma. She's taught trauma therapy internationally for decades and, recognizing what was missing in the field, now offers a path grounded in somatic integrity, Ancestral listening, ecological repair, and systemic dismantling. The Regeneration Process if her first book.

A five-piece with four arms, Blankslate is a queer-femme indie-punk duo that’s been earning fans across Colorado and beyond for years thanks to their unconventional, diaristic songwriting that often spans multiple genres, styles, and time signatures. Their sophomore album, ‘Lookout Mountain Charley,’ earned rave reviews upon its release in August 2025 and the band is currently putting the finishing touches on its next project

A night of dancing to deep cut synth music from the past few decades!

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Open to all disciplines!
Hosted by Dennis Mulherin

Sponsored by the Boulder County Film Commission, this free event is designed to provide creative support for Boulder-area filmmakers! Maybe you'd like feedback on a project you're working on, or perhaps you're stuck and need an idea for how to transition from this to that, or - well, you get the idea. We're here for you; let's be there for each other! Bring a script, a rough cut, an idea, or any creative problem.

Who Should Attend this Support Group?
This event is great if you're a filmmaker and working on a project and would like some feedback, are stuck on a project and need some inspiration, want to connect with other filmmakers, or simply want to see and hear what other Boulder filmmakers are working on.

What To Bring?
You should come with a great attitude, no ego, and the excitement of wanting to talk with others about their, and your own, projects. We will use the Trident's built-in AV system, which consists of a projector, screen, microphone, and its PA system. If you want to share a clip from your project, email Rob at Robshearerfilm@gmail.com with a link to the video.

Location:
This event is being generously hosted by the Trident Cafe and Booksellers, located on the west end of Pearl Street. They will have a cash bar, with beer and wine for sale, along with other non-alcoholic drinks, including coffee!

PLEASE NOTE: These events are held outside on the Trident's back patio, so bring a jacket if you think you might get cold, especially as it gets later in the evening.

Bring an acoustic instrument and sit in with Boulder Old-Time Jam! Every first Thursday on the Trident Patio, starting at 6 p.m.

Join us at Trident on October 2nd for an evening of live music featuring The Band Sundog, The Speeks, and On the Dot in support of Justice for Megan Trussell. This community benefit show honors Megan’s life, creativity, and lasting impact while raising funds to help bring to life a film project she always dreamed of making.

Proceeds will support the development of Megan's film project and ongoing advocacy efforts surrounding her case. Through music, remembrance, and community, we invite you to come together for a night dedicated to keeping Megan’s story alive and supporting the pursuit of justice in her name.

Join local author Christopher Sansone, PhD for a warm, experiential afternoon drawn from his debut book, Longing: A Pilgrimage to Your Quiet Power Within. Chris blends short readings with gentle, optional practices — a guided meditation set to music, simple breathing, and open reflection. Each guided experience is brief and entirely invitational. Come as you are and take part as much or as little as you like; you're just as welcome to listen and enjoy. 

About the Book:

What if your deepest longing wasn’t a problem to solve, but an invitation? Many of us move through life carrying an unnameable ache - an irrepressible void we try to fill with achievement, admiration, or distraction. Yet beneath this yearning lies something far greater: an invitation to awaken, heal, and reclaim our quiet power within. In Longing: A Pilgrimage to Your Quiet Power Within, Christopher Sansone, PhD, weaves personal insight, psychology, and spiritual wisdom to reveal how our innate longing - often mistaken for emptiness or suffering - is actually our inner voice of wisdom calling to us. By blending modern psychology, ancient wisdom, and self-guided transformational practices, Sansone guides readers through personal transformation to living a fulfilled life by: Healing from inherited wounds of shame, fear, and separation; Reconnecting with true life purpose, intuition and inner wisdom; Moving beyond societal conditioning to reclaim personal freedom; Embracing longing as a catalyst for transformation; Practical exercises to deepen self-awareness and release limiting beliefs. By making ancient wisdom relevant and reflective practices easy, and by sharing stories of courageous journeys of transformation, this book serves as a guide for transcending old patterns, embracing the authentic self, and stepping into a life of fulfilling purpose, presence, and love.

About the Author:

Christopher Sansone, PhD  is a seasoned life, leadership, and spiritual coach with 24 years of experience coaching individuals to align with their soul's purpose and live authentically. Holding a PhD in Human Development, certification from the Co-Active Institute (CTI) and certification in past life regression therapy, he integrates human development, transpersonal psychology, and holistic healing practices, along with expertise in spiritual regression therapist and a former Hoffman Quadrinity Process teacher. He lives in Longmont, CO.

Simone Nicole is an award-winning singer-songwriter whose sound blends cinematic storytelling with folk, pop, rock, and Americana influences. Named Fort Worth's Best Musician in 2021 and recognized as Best Female Vocalist and Best Pop Act in the 2023 Fort Worth Weekly Music Awards, Simone is known for her powerhouse vocals and emotionally resonant songwriting. Drawing inspiration from singer-songwriters, '90s country, and pop/rock music, she crafts songs that explore love, loss, longing, and the search for belonging with honesty and depth. Her immersive performances and unmistakable voice invite listeners into richly layered emotional world that feel both deeply personal and universally relatable.

Lauren Frihauf is a rising neo-folk artist whose sound blends indie singer-songwriter intimacy with folk and neo-soul influences. Featured in NPR Music’s 2022 Tiny Desk Top Shelf and a standout on Season 19 of The Voice (Teams Gwen and Legend), Lauren is known for her expressive vocals and emotionally resonant songwriting. Drawing inspiration from artists like Nai Palm and Joni Mitchell, her open-tuned guitar work and fluid melodies create performances that feel both grounded and exploratory. Raised on a rural farm yet carrying a distinctly urban sensibility, Lauren’s music invites listeners into a reflective, soulful space. (www.laurenfrihaufmusic.com)

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Friendship Goodybag is a poetry open mic for friends and by friends. Brought to you by the friendship duo of Aimee Herman & Rebecca Diaz, Friendship Goodybag is back at Trident for a one night only event. Featuring the “best of” from Goodybags past. Bring your poems, bring your friends! Tell us what you love about them!

Cassidy’s Hammer is a new musical project made up of old friends. Clay Carlin, Jon E. Gilmore, and Mike Stephens' time together and their musical connection go hand-in-hand, as proven by their intuitive musical chemistry. Cassidy’s Hammer’s music is built off of catchy, original songwriting, engaging, poignant lyrics, and an improvisational spirit fostered by a willingness to stretch the boundaries of their jamming. It is difficult to place their songs in a specific box or genre, especially since they don’t see walls in their music. The best way to describe their sound is to use a term they coined, “Psychedelic Americana,” drawing from a variety of genres including Americana, folk, country, blues, jazz, and rock. They sing songs that resonate with the soul, fill the spirit with light, and make the body move.

Join Whitley Jean, Meghan Mallon, and Marcus Tenorio for a night of folk and Americana music—where the lineup keeps changing throughout the evening. Expect intimate solo sets and duets as we mix and match our songs, voices, and styles for a one-of-a-kind night of music.

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

A Reading & Discussion ft. local contributor, Susan Devan Harness.

Susan Devan Harness is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, a cultural anthropologist, and author of the multiple award-winning book Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption. Her research, writing, and speaking has informed the child placement community and beyond of the very real and problematic issues of transracial/interracial adoption. She’s appeared on the TEDxMileHigh stage and has been a guest on many podcasts and public radio programs. Susan holds a Master of Arts in Anthropology and a Master of Arts in English, both from Colorado State University, where she’s an affiliate of the Department of Anthropology and Geography. 

About Relative Strangers:

What's it like when a complete unknown is actually close family? In Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Kinship-a provocative anthology curated by B.K. Jackson, with a foreword by Libby Copeland, 28 acclaimed and emerging writers explore the transformative experience of encountering unknown close relatives. These are intimate stories by those who've spent years longing and searching for their unknown biological families and by others shocked to discover they have parents or siblings they never dreamed of-blindsiding revelations that demand both a radical recalibration of identity and a redefinition of family. Each addresses the myriad emotions that arise in the wake of these discoveries and encounters, demonstrating that what we don't know can hurt us, that secrets are toxic, and that truth can bring healing, redemption, and, sometimes, estrangement. Woven through is a universal question: What does it mean to be family?

“Relative Strangers is a collection of essays full of secrets. Family secrets. Imagine finding out that the man who raised you is not your biological father. Perhaps your father never knew you were born. Maybe a parent you never knew has a family full of kids you realize are also your family. And you set out in search not only of those you never knew, but your own identity, which is now in flux. Every one of these essays is written with an almost ruthless honesty, and its companion, vulnerability. This is the most powerful kind of writing-an unforgettable book, and long overdue.”

-Abigail Thomas, author of A Three Dog Life

“The mysterious double helix of identity and belonging binds the heart-achingly unique stories in Relative Strangers. In intimate and haunting prose, the writers fearlessly explore one of humanity's oldest and most existential themes: genetic roots and the shaping of the individual. Breaking the silence of family secrets, rejecting the shame of genetic separation, they share their most intimate and vulnerable moments to shed light on subjects that have long been shrouded in darkness. With stories that plumb the very essence of the human condition, Relative Strangers is not just a compelling and deeply revealing read, but also great literature.”

-Alice Stephens, author of Famous Adopted People

Good ol’ swing music!

Boulder, Colorado based Sherefe (pronounced “Sheriff A”) takes its name from a Turkish drinking toast that translates as “to your honor.” This passionate group of American musicians plays mostly Turkish, Greek and Arabic music but also Bulgarian and Persian. They are a decidedly Humanist band, who believe music connects us better than governments and militaries. Their repertoire is diverse, and their renditions are authentic but not academic, with lots of room for individual expression to shine through. All singing is done in its original language, intonation, and style, and is surrounded by Bouzouki, Gadulka, Oud, Cello, Bass, saz, clarinet, accordion, Zurna, Santoor, and various percussion.

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Jeff Cooper is a law professor, lawyer, former Presidential candidate, and published author of both fiction and nonfiction. A graduate of Harvard College, Yale Law School and New York University School of Law, he spent much of his career working in the law firms and trust banks fictionalized in his novels.

Born and raised in New York, he now lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he has served as an elected member of the Representative Town Meeting, a Justice of the Peace and a Director of several non-profit organizations. When he’s not teaching or writing, he can be found on the golf course.

About The Final Account:

2025 Independent Press Award: Best Legal Thriller

“This will delight seasoned thriller audiences…. The events ring with an authenticity and attraction that makes the book nearly impossible to put down.” Midwest Book Review

“The Final Account is a fast-paced thriller/adventure that I can recommend without reservation….” Whispering Stories

Jack Collins’s upstart law firm is struggling to make ends meet. His solution is to bring in a new senior partner, a seasoned estate-planning lawyer well connected with the Greenwich elite. Unfortunately, his new partner is hiding a secret that could bring down the entire firm.

When Jack catches the lawyer embezzling funds from a millionaire’s estate, he thinks he’s uncovered an isolated crime. But as he slowly connects the clues, he stumbles into a far larger conspiracy involving some of Connecticut’s most powerful figures.

The people behind this financial scheme are ones Jack would never suspect. And they will do whatever it takes to keep him from exposing them.

Fred Moten is Professor in the Departments of Performance Studies and Comparative Literature at New York University, where he teaches courses in black study, poetics and critical theory. He works with lots of social and aesthetic study groups including Stefano Harney & Fred Moten, the Black Arts Movement School Modality, Le Mardi Gras Listening Collective, the Center for Convivial Research and Autonomy, Moved by the Motion, the Institute of Physical Sociality and the Harris/Moten Quartet.

Stefano Harney is a teacher and writer who works collaboratively and collectively in the classroom, in research, and in social practice. He is a black studies scholar who has taught in the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, art criticism, American Studies, and business & management. Stefano has held appointments at Pace University and at CUNY in the US, at the University of Leicester and Queen Mary University of London in the UK, at Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia, at Ton Duc Thang University in Vietnam, and at Singapore Management University in Singapore. During 2020-2021, he was Hayden Fellow and Visiting Critic at the School of Art at Yale University and Honorary Professor at the Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia.

Umniya Najaer is the 2025–2026 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the University of Colorado Boulder’s Department of Ethnic Studies and the inaugural Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for African and African American Studies (CAAAS). She is an interdisciplinary Black Studies scholar who draws on Black Studies theories in conjunction with literary, archival, and social science methodologies to illuminate urgent socio-political issues. Grounded in the thought of Jamaican philosopher Sylvia Wynter, Dr. Najaer’s current book project investigates alternate epistemologies and non-homogenizing metanarratives of the human. Her in-progress manuscript, Sylvia Wynter and Black Study: Experiments in Metasystemic Inquiry and Transcalar Reworlding, offers a conceptual toolkit for future scholars to engage Wynter on her own terms.

A night of dancing to deep cut synth music from the past few decades!

Argentym, known for their premiere blend of 2000s and 90s pop rock, has taken Boulder’s music scene by storm since their early 2025 roots. In under a year, they have brought their sound to legendary venues such as Boulders’ Fox Theatre and have extended their culture to Colorado and beyond.

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Open to all disciplines!
Hosted by Dennis Mulherin

Join us in celebrating the release of not one, but two new books by Boulder poet and author, Moudi Sbeity. Moudi is the author of the poetry collection, Alhamdulillah Anyway and the memoir, Habibi Means Beloved.

Moudi will be joined in conversation by restorative justice practitioner & poet, Jamelah Zidan.

About the Author:

Moudi Sbeity is a Lebanese-American poet, author, and contemplative educator. Born in Texas and raised in Lebanon, he moved to the United States at the age of eighteen as an evacuee following the 2006 July war. In Utah, Moudi founded and operated Laziz Kitchen, a Lebanese restaurant celebrated by the New York Times as "the future of queer dining." Moudi was also a named plaintiff in Kitchen v. Herbert, the landmark case that brought marriage equality to Utah and the 10th circuit states in 2014. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Orison's Best Spiritual Literature. As a lifelong stutterer, he is passionate about writing and poetry as practices in fluency and self-expression.

About Alhamdulillah Anyway:

How totally must a heart break so that gratitude is repeatedly uttered on our lips? In Alhamdulillah Anyway, Moudi Sbeity responds by holding the grief of witnessing the genocide in Gaza and the war in Lebanon alongside praise for existing at all. As a queer muslim who stutters, Sbeity’s debut collection intimately addresses how language and narrative author our collective experience. His poems reach across the divide of border and ideology and into the shared pulse of being, pointing toward the possibility of liberation through a framework of compassion, forgiveness, and awe. So that even with all the difficulties we each face daily, even with all the atrocities of our world, still alhamdulillah– the quieter sister to hallelujah– can be uttered as our final song of gratitude.

About Habibi Means Beloved: A Queer Memoir on War, Stuttering, and Belonging:

Born into a Muslim family from a small Lebanese village, Moudi Sbeity came of age at the intersection of war, displacement, and difference. Queer, with a stutter, and often on the margins of belonging, Sbeity survived the conflicts that fractured their homeland and family before arriving in Utah as an eighteen-year-old evacuee.

From there, Sbeity transformed anonymity into advocacy as plaintiff in Kitchen v. Herbert, the landmark case that secured marriage equality across the 10th Circuit, and as founder of the celebrated Salt Lake City queer-friendly restaurant Laziz Kitchen. Yet behind these outward triumphs, Sbeity felt an inner call to return to their roots through writing and poetry. Habibi Means Beloved interweaves personal narrative, Sufi mysticism, and Lebanese heritage in a memoir of resilience, disconnection, and reconciliation. Both intimate and universal, it invites readers to reimagine belonging and recognize ourselves—and one another—as already beloved.

About Jamelah Zidan:

Jamelah Zidan is a Palestinian-American, restorative justice practitioner, and JD candidate at Vermont Law and Graduate School. She worked as a teacher and facilitator before turning to law, and her interests range from rights of nature to death-positive community, and poetry, of course.

This event is free and open to the public. However, space can be limited. We suggest reserving your spot ahead of the reading at:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/boulder-book-celebration-with-moudi-sbeity-tickets-1998602000384?aff=oddtdtcreator

The Alpine Pickers are a high-energy bluegrass and folk band formed from friendships and Craigslist posts in Denver, Colorado. With a sound that blends folk & americana with modern storytelling, they've been bringing crowds to their feet since the spring of 2025 in venues large and small across Colorado. 

Sid Williamson & The Good Faith is a Colorado-based Americana/Soul/Rock band built around honest songs and loud community nights that leave people sweaty, tired, and feeling a little more human on the drive home.
What started as Sid playing solo with a guitar, harmonica, suitcase kick drum, and tambourine has steadily grown into a full-band sound featuring horns, improvisation, harmony-heavy arrangements, and a rotating cast of musicians from across Colorado’s independent music scene.

Swift Current is an indie folkgrass band based out of Denver, Colorado. Born out of an impromptu jam at a local bar, the duo-turned-quartet features Jason Bishop (lead vocals-guitar), Greg Schlosser (mandolin), Niky Kreiling (upright bass), and Emily Kwiatkowski (banjo-fiddle). The music blends indie rock melodies with traditional string band instrumentation in a mix that is both catchy and unique. Swift Current released its first EP “Start Again” in Spring 2026 and can be found on all streaming platforms.

It’s time again for our 3rd Annual Halloween Edition of Punketry! Punketry is a fusion of improv punk music by the ever-evolving jam band Black Market Translation and poetry from local Spoken Word nerds. Poets TBD

Costume Contest at Intermission! Winner scores a $50 Trident gift card! Dress your best and do the Punk-Mash!

Hosted by Eric Fischman

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Join us for an evening reading in the courtyard with author & photographer, Stephen Collector, celebrating his new book of essays & photos, No Do-Overs in Paradise.

About the Book:

Stephen Collector’s No Do-Overs In Paradise is a collection of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that many of us could only dream of. His work as a professional photographer has taken him front and center to many of the most remarkable sporting locations the western hemisphere has to offer. He shared time with Legends of the Fall author Jim Harrison, dined and cooked at Jimmy Buffett’s home in Key West, witnessed the indigenous wisdom of a Cheyenne medicine woman in Montana, fished countless famed Western trout waters, and so much more. These enchanting essays, along with many of his award-winning photographs, cover all four seasons of the sporting year. Collector captures all the thrills, the disappointments, and the remarkable lessons this world has to pass on to each of us.

About the Author:

Stephen Collector was born in Virginia in 1951. After attending George Washington University for two years, he transferred to the University of Colorado in 1971. A longtime freelance photographer, his book of Stock Detectives, Law of the Range; Portraits of Old-Time Brand Inspectors was published in 1991 by Clark City Press, Livingston, Montana. His feature writing has appeared in The Drake, Anglers Journal, American Angler, The Big Sky Journal, Tail Fly Fishing, Quail Forever Journal, Modern Huntsman, and The Pointing Dog Journal. His photographs have been widely exhibited throughout the West. Collector resides in Boulder, Colorado.

Join us for an afternoon courtyard reading with professor and essayist, Jennifer Sinor, as she celebrates her new novel about the unassuming beauty and grace of the Great Plains, The Beautiful Plain.

Jennifer will be joined by yoga practitioner and scholar, Michael Sowder, author of Sacred Letters.

About The Beautiful Plain:

Set amid the cornfields of central Nebraska, The Beautiful Plain opens on a hot afternoon in a hay barn, where three adolescents push a cardboard box filled with a girl to the edge of the loft. What begins as a prank will reverberate for decades, especially for Laura, who learns that afternoon just how far she will travel for acceptance. Rejected by her former husband and with her precocious child in tow, Laura returns to her hometown of Platte, Nebraska, to see if she can recover what was sent to the ground that summer afternoon long ago. Immersed in the unassuming beauty of the Great Plains and following a single year of one woman’s life, The Beautiful Plain invites the reader to reconsider where beauty and grace reside.

Advance Praise for The Beautiful Plain:
“A study in guilt, grief, and reawakening, The Beautiful Plain examines the bifurcation that comes from the suppression of our shadow selves. Through fragmented recollections—ancestral diaries, personal memories, and traumatic stories of war—Jennifer Sinor interrogates what it means to know and not know, to see and not see, to blindly box ourselves in while the wild world goes on without us, as well as the courage and community it takes to turn and face the refining fire of our own agency.”—Kim Barnes, author of In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

About Jennifer Sinor:

Jennifer Sinor is the author of five books of creative nonfiction and a novel entitled The Beautiful Plain. Her essay collections include Sky Songs: Meditations on Loving a Broken World and Letters Like the Day: On Reading Georgia O’Keeffe. The recipient of the Stipend in American Modernism, her work has appeared in Best American Essays and The Norton Reader. Jennifer teaches creative writing at Utah State University where she is a professor of English.

About Sacred Letters:

In Sacred Letters, Michael Sowder offers poetic meditations on the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet as key to understanding Yoga and the Divine.

These original meditations on the Sanskrit letters range from personal narratives to metaphysical and theological speculations, linguistic play, and inter-spiritual allusions to other works and traditions, all relevant to living a contemplative life in the contemporary world. Sowder’s book is anchored in a devotional Tantrik, Śaiva-Śakta tradition, focused on the Divine Feminine, but allusions to western mystics (Christian, Jewish, Muslim) also appear frequently. No other book like this exists.

About Michael Sowder:

Called by David Bottoms, “one of our finest spiritual poets,” Michael Sowder, long-time yoga practitioner, poet, scholar, Sanskritist, essayist, and father writes about wilderness, fatherhood, yoga, Buddhism, and inter-spirituality.

An emeritus professor of English and an Affiliated Faculty Member of Yoga Studies and Religious Studies at Utah State University, he teaches meditation, Sanskrit, yoga, and philosophy at Utah State, at the Amrita Yoga Meditation Foundation, which he founded, at Sol Speak Yoga Studio and other venues. He is available for lectures, teachings, and leading retreats.

Wave Collector is the downtempo electronica project of Neal Wright. The project’s recent full-length release, Your Call is Important to Us, mixes vibey, warm, retro electronica with sci-fi worldbuilding to create a hold music concept album. Since starting in 2015, Wave Collector has released 4 full-length albums as well as several singles and remixes. Their sound includes soaring analog synth lines, unique organic sampled elements, and acoustic instruments, and covers genres including synthwave, IDM, and downtempo. Their live set features a live drummer and an all-hardware array of samplers, sequencers, and synthesizers with rich effects and improvisational elements.

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Join local fiction writer and poet, Alexander Shalom Joseph in celebrating his newly released poetry collection, “Buffalo Elegies” from Middle Creek Publishing.

Alexander Shalom Joseph is an award winning author of seven published books, most recently The Clearing (Middle Creek Publishing October 2025). He has an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English Education. Alexander lives in Colorado, writes a weekly poetry column on Substack and teaches writing workshops in libraries, schools and prisons across the Colorado Front Range.

To read select poems from the collection, visit:
https://southbroadwaypress.org/category/alexander-shalom-joseph/

Bitterroot began as a Boulder-based trio comprised of songwriter/vocalist/guitarist Caroline Quine, bassist/vocalist Matt Cantor, and guitarist/vocalist Kevin Johnson. The project has welcomed additional local and national artists as they add studio recordings to their songcraft, including producers Julian Peterson and Max DeVincenzo.

Bitterroot's Americana/folk sound features original compositions, engaging vocals, and soulful instrumentation.

MOONS OF PANGAEA are a set of interdependent probability waves. At the Newtonian level, they make instrumental post-rock evoking the alien soundscapes of Mogwai and the fierce riffage of Godspeed; as a quantum phenomenon, it is unclear if they exist at all. Seek enlightenment and/or annihilation in this ocean of heavy guitars and freaked-out synthesizers. 

SLZY MYLFS is a spectacular synth-punk band based in Boulder. Featuring members with collective expertise in art, music, dance, comedy, and forestry management, the band stages elaborate performances that are incandescent with feminist and anti-capitalist rage.

SLZY MYLFS' first EP, ppl slzr, was self-released in late 2025, following the release of a music video for "Cybertruck." Both releases were awarded numerous accolades by the band's friends, as well as grudging respect and/or indifference from its enemies.

As Grodius Maximus (guitarist of GWAR) declares: "When the SLZY MYLFS come to town, you know what's around."

Children of Divorce is a Denver-based indie folk trio. They write about themes of queer love, loss, dismantling the patriarchy, and objects of their fandoms. Members Katie Yeager, Genevieve Libien, and Finn O’Sullivan all met while studying songwriting at the University of Colorado Denver and immediately found their writing styles to be compatible, with an emphasis on poetic storytelling through lyrics and ear-catching melodies. They bonded over a shared love of Taylor Swift and Harry Styles (their musical parents and the band’s namesake), and after a writing session over a zoom call mid-pandemic, the rest was history. Á la boygenius, they each play solo as well as with the trio.

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Join Rachel Turney for an evening of writing for fems and women. Open to all forms of writing. Set time aside to write among a collective, with space for support and discussion.

About Rachel Turney:

Rachel Turney, Ed.D. (she/her) is the Writer in Residence (2026) at NKollectiv in Englewood, Colorado. Her poems, research articles, reviews, and drawings can be found in a variety of publications. Rachel is passionate about immigrant rights, teacher support, and empowering other artists. She is a Writers’ Hour prize winner and has been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Microfiction. Her photography appears on a few magazine covers. Rachel is the founder of the popular online reading series Poetry (in Brief) and EIC of PIB (the Magazine). She is on staff at Bare Back Magazine with her monthly column Friday Night in the Suburbs. She reads for The Los Angeles Review. Her debut poetry collection, Record Player Life (the b-side) is available with The Poetry Lighthouse. Her second poetry book, Retired Wannabe Club Kid, is out now with Parlyaree Press. Website: turneytalks.com Instagram: @turneytalks Bluesky: rachelturney

danah boyd is the Geri Gay Professor of Communication at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology and society, with an eye towards how structural inequities shape and are shaped by sociotechnical systems. Her upcoming book Data are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census is an ethnography of the US Census Bureau, Jenga politics, and the struggle to make democracy’s data. She has also conducted research on media manipulation, privacy practices, social media, and teen culture. Her monograph It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens has received widespread praise. She founded the research institute Data & Society, where she currently serves as an advisor. She is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Georgetown University, a fellow of AAAS, a non-residential fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a trustee of the Computer History Museum, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and on the advisory board of Electronic Privacy Information Center. Previously, she worked at Microsoft Research. She received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Brown University, a master’s degree from the MIT Media Lab, and a Ph.D in Information from the University of California, Berkeley.

Colette Perold researches the relationship between media technologies, labor and U.S. foreign policy, specifically the ways in which multinational IT companies shape U.S. foreign policy priorities in Latin America. Her current project draws from the business history of computing and political economy of media industries to analyze the relationship between the U.S.-based IT sector and U.S. foreign policy in Brazil prior to modern computing. Her research has been funded by various sources including the Hagley Library, the Tinker Foundation, and the Charles Babbage Institute, where she received the 2019-2020 Tomash Fellowship. She most recently received the 2022-2023 Brooke Hindle Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Society for the History of Technology.

About the Author:

Mai-Linh Hong is a poet and literary scholar. She is the author of Trio House Press Award recipient Continental Drift, and her poetry has received support from Voices of Our Nation, Tin House, and Vermont Studio Center. Dr. Hong is coauthor and coeditor of The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice (University of California Press, 2021). Born in Vietnam and raised in Virginia, she teaches literature at the University of California, Merced.

About Continental Drift:

“To survive is to refuse / death, but how / to tell refusal from retreat?" In the 2025 Trio Award winning poetry collection Continental Drift, Mai-Linh Hong honors and explores the geography that made and continues to shape her ancestors' story, her own story, and the future story of her descendants. From Vietnam to Virginia, California to Thailand, Hong plumbs the fault lines, crosses the oceans, crystallizing moments into meaning. Whether luxuriating in the small joys of nature and of existence, or marveling at the process of geological shift, these artfully crafted poems bring the reader into complex promises and griefs of migration, navigation, and claiming space in a postcolonial world. 

About Rajiv:

Poet, memoirist, and translator, Rajiv Mohabir is the author of five books of poetry, the latest is Seabeast (Four Way Books 2025). His books have been awarded gold in Forward Indies and Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur. His other honors include being finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/America Open Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award, the Publishing Triangle Award for Poetry and Gay Nonfiction, and both second place and finalist for the Guyana Prize for Literature. His translations have won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the American Academy of Poets. Currently he teaches poetry at the University of Colorado Boulder.

About Banbas / Exile:

Rajiv Mohabir first learned of the Ramayan from his grandmother while sitting on his parents’ brown-tiled porch, surrounded by the scrub forest of central Florida. Descended from generations of Indian indentured laborers who were brought to Guyana under nefarious contracts, they receive the ancient Hindu epic poem as a tale of exile in anthropomorphic wilderness, passed along as it was in stories and songs shared vocally in the cane fields.

Here, in a singular gesture of deeply layered translation, this ember of song is passed along again. Drawing on his grandmother’s Creole, Caribbean Hindustani, and the King’s English on his own decolonized terms, Mohabir reimagines the Ramayan anew. Classical in form yet rooted in Guyanese ancestry and its diasporas, Banbas / Exile is a genre-bending collection of poetry, stories, songs, and reflective prose. Speaking through heroes, villains, and animal deities, this extraordinary translation gives voice to lives shaped by exile and to the enduring search for a world that can hold both difference and communion.

Learn more about Banbas / Exile at
https://milkweed.org/book/banbasexile

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Open to all disciplines!
Hosted by Dennis Mulherin

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Come celebrate Nederland’s very own Carousel of Happiness, with readings from creator & carver, Scott Harrison, local cartoonist & activist, George Blevins, and poet & carousel operator, Burt Rashbaum.

About the Author:

Mary Lemmer is the author of How to Handle Anything: Four Improv Principles for Navigating Life’s Curveballs, and the creator of The Improve Method™, an approach that uses the principles of improvisation supported by research and nervous system science to help people navigate uncertainty, adapt to the unexpected, and move forward when there is no script to follow.

Mary started her first business as a teenager, beginning a career that has since spanned building companies, venture capital, leadership in fast-growing startups, and advising founders and organizations, all while training and performing as an improviser. For more than a decade, she has brought those worlds together to help people and teams become more adaptable, confident, and creative in the face of change. She has brought her work to organizations including Google, Verizon, Square, TED, and Pfizer.

Mary is a graduate of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and trained in improvisation at The Second City, the Upright Citizens Brigade, and The Groundlings. She delivered the TED Talk “How Improv Can Improve Your Leadership and Life,” hosts the How to Handle Anything podcast, and writes Life, Improvised on Substack. She has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, and Fast Company.

About How to Handle Anything:

Drawing on more than a decade spent training leaders and teams — plus a career that has taken her from executive boardrooms and high-growth companies to TED and the improv stages of The Second City — Mary Lemmer translates four core principles of improv into a practical, research-backed toolkit for navigating uncertainty with greater resilience, creativity, and confidence.

It’s a guide for anyone who wants to meet the unplanned, the unexpected, and the unscripted with a little more steadiness, and a lot more joy.

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Join us for an evening reading with local poet Mathew Cooperman, celebrating the release of his new collection, Time, & Its Monument.

About the Book:

Human folly is to believe our ziggurat is real, a really long time. But as the founder of modern geology Sir George Lyell declared only as recently as 1830, “Amidst the vicissitudes of the earth’s surface, species cannot be immortal, but must perish, one after another, like the individuals which compose them.” Watching the days go by, we write, we build, we grasp, we render frangible towers in the sky. Matthew Cooperman’s Time, & Its Monument captures this eroded sequence by tracking signs of human impermanence: solve et coagula, the inevitable falling away and coming together of all matter, how and what we watch, and who, and the collaborative acts of empathy by which humans might, if not extend, meaningfully ornament the Anthropocene. These are prose poems, cut-ups, necessary collages. They vary in such matters as Wittgenstein, the panopticon, and the Gulf Wars to the poetics of drought emerging through erasure with Ed Dorn’s The Shoshoneans, his famous study of the Great Basin. Cooperman’s Time, & Its Monument frames the artifacts of the human set: “in the long run recurrence / the stacking of shells / days certain seasons / the steeple accrues.”

About the Author:

Poet, critic, editor, educator, Matthew Cooperman’s work explores the inter-disciplinary boundaries of poetry, ethnography, ecopoetics and visual arts. He is the author of, most recently, Wonder About The (Middle Creek Publishing, 2023), winner of the Halcyon Prize. Other works include NOS (disorder, not otherwise specified), w/Aby Kaupang, (Futurepoem, 2018), & Spool, winner of the New Measure Prize (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press, 2016). Matthew Cooperman is a Professor of English at Colorado State University, and lives in Fort Collins with his wife, the poet Aby Kaupang, & their children.

Kevin Bang is a Boulder-area singer-songwriter whose melody-driven songs blend alternative roots, folk, and modern pop influences. After four decades of writing, performing, and recording—including his years in the acclaimed Midwest alternative band World in a Room—he has returned to the stage with a renewed focus on original music.

Since relocating to Colorado, Kevin has become a regular presence at open mics and listening rooms across the Front Range while helping foster the local music community. He also co-hosts Henry's Open Mic in Louisville, creating a welcoming space where musicians of all experience levels can connect and share original songs.

His latest single, "Anna Tells Me," is available on all major streaming platforms, and he is currently working with Nashville-based Done With You Management as he prepares new releases and continues performing throughout Colorado.

Join author and filmmaker, Larkin McPhee for a celebration of her new book, I’ll See You in My Dreams: A Sister’s Memoir.

McPhee will be joined by the ALS United Rocky Mountain Group

About the Author:

Larkin McPhee is a Peabody and Emmy award-winning producer of documentary films covering topics ranging from the environment to mental health to the cosmos. She has been writing documentary scripts for over thirty years and articles related to her films for publications including the Boston Globe and Minnesota Star Tribune. She was inspired to write I’ll See You In My Dreams: A Sister’s Memoir after losing her younger brother to ALS. Charles was host of a popular radio show on dream interpretation, and his story was picked up by multiple media outlets including spots on the Today Show, as well as several articles in the New York Times.

About the Book:

I’ll See You In My Dreams: A Sister’s Memoir is an unforgettable portrait of sibling love as told by Larkin McPhee, a Peabody and Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker, and her dream-expert younger brother, Charles McPhee, host of the nationally syndicated radio program The Dream Doctor Show. At forty-four, Charles’s life changed forever when he was diagnosed with the fatal neurodegenerative disease ALS. Using remembered moments, dreams, emails, and excerpts from his radio show, Larkin looks back on the years with her brother, both before his diagnosis and afterward, tracing a poignant but joyful journey across time as they encourage each other’s creativity and non-traditional careers. In addition to helping his radio listeners, Charles guides Larkin through her dreams and their impact on her life, helping her discover her voice as a documentary filmmaker. And in the face of insurmountable odds, Charles finds hope and beauty, ultimately showing Larkin, and all of us, how to live.

About ALS United Rocky Mountain Group:

ALS United Rocky Mountain provides compassionate support, trusted resources, and personalized care for individuals and families living with ALS across Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Our free programs include care coordination, support groups, educational events, equipment loans, financial assistance, and resources for caregivers and children.

Learn more at www.alsrockymountain.org or contact our Care Services team at 303-832-2322.

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Lively conversation for language learners, native speakers, and everyone in between. We regularly have 10+ languages spoken and always have spirited discussions! 

Open to all disciplines!
Hosted by Dennis Mulherin

Michael Hardt teaches political theory in the Literature Program at Duke University.  His works combine philosophical investigations with analyses of our current political situation.  Studying the current forms of social domination, including the mechanisms of capitalist control, which form the bases of the contemporary global power structures, is a central focus.  Key, too, is engagement with contemporary social movements that refuse domination and present the potential for new, democratic modes of social organization. His first book was Gilles Deleuze: An Apprenticeship in Philosophy (1993). Over the course of several decades, his collaborations with Antonio Negri resulted in six books: Labor of Dionysus (1994), Empire (2000), Multitude (2004), Commonwealth (2009), Declaration (2012), and Assembly (2017).  His latest book, The Subversive Seventies (2023), analyzes liberation movements of the 1970s in a wide range of countries throughout the world, highlighting their relevance for political struggles today.

Rachel Kushner is the author of the novels CREATION LAKE, THE MARS ROOM, THE FLAMETHROWERS, and TELEX FROM CUBA, a book of short stories, THE STRANGE CASE OF RACHEL K, and THE HARD CROWD: ESSAYS 2000-2020. She has won the Prix Médicis and been a finalist for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Folio Prize, the James Tait Black Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was twice a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and the recipient of the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her books have been translated into twenty-seven languages. Her fiction has been published in the New Yorker and the Paris Review, and her nonfiction in Harpers and the New York Times Magazine.

Arne Höcker is Associate Professor of German Studies at CU Boulder. His publications include The Case of Literature: Forensic Narratives from Goethe to Kafka (Cornell UP 2020), and Paranoia and the Totalitarian Drift of Modernity (Cornell UP 2026).

Lilla Balint is Assistant Professor of German at the University of California, Berkeley. She specializes in twentieth- and twenty-first-century German literature, culture, and thought in its transnational European contexts. Her work has appeared in venues such as Critical Quarterly, German Quarterly, Gegenwartsliteratur: A German Studies Year Book, and Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature, among others. She is coeditor of Text + Kritik 244—Judith Schalansky (2024). Her monograph The Contemporary: History and Temporality after 1989 is forthcoming with De Gruyter.

Benjamin Kunkel is the bestselling author of Indecision and Utopia or Bust, and a co-founder of n+1. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books.

This event is made possible by CU Boulder’s 2026 Kayden Book Award.