Hannah Hirsekorn is an artist working in ink on paper and skin. She runs Oology Tattoo, and she specializes in flora and fauna. For her, drawing the more-than-human world is a practice of deep looking and a form of environmental conservation. In this workshop, you’ll bring your own art supplies. Hannah will bring items to draw and do some low-key instruction.

Max attendance: 20.

Vibes: Chill, meditative, participatory

Cost: $0-10, sliding scale

Finally, a meeting of the Oakland Garden Club, the newsletter for people who like to think about plants. In this session, we’ll hear about Will Tomlinson’s cactus breeding techniques and we’ll leave with one of his Oakland-bred babies. As he put it, “I thought, ‘Many cactus propagate easily from cuttings, but where’s the novelty in endless cloning? Let’s get weird.’ Sounds great until you’ve been at it for a while and are completely and utterly out of space!” 

RSVP, plz

Max attendance: 50

Vibes: Educational, loose, meetup-y

Cost: $0, as in free

Diane Ehrensaft has spent decades working with children who express their genders in different ways. Her research, writing, and clinical practice have profoundly improved care for young people in our region and across the country. She’s the author of several books including The Gender Creative Child and Gender Explained, as well as the Director of Mental Health at UCSF’s Child & Adolescent Gender Center. Much of this work is now under attack. In this first of a series, we’ll hear from Ehrensaft at this pivotal moment for gender nonconforming kids about her life’s work.

RSVP, plz

Max attendance: 50

Vibes: Narrative, profound, personal

Cost: $0, as in free

Jeff Wright of Edith’s Pie and 50 Minutes has been hosting a regular event on Sunday mornings at his house for months. It’s a chill, low-stakes morning of chatting, coffee, and pastries, and he’s bringing it to Local Economy on a Sunday morning each month.

RSVP, plz

Max attendance: 30

Vibes: Chill, chatty, cozy

Cost: $0, as in free

Story time is great, no matter how it works. BUT, Patricia Zaballos brings you a storytime series that’s for the caregivers, not the cared for. Up first, she’ll be talking with Elissa Strauss, author of  When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others.

Kids are welcome, but not required.

Vibes: Warm, relaxing, communal

Cost: $0, as in free

In this series, a special guest will share work from a work-in-progress and then you can too. Not a crit or a seminar, but a place to try stuff out and have people clap for you. Up first, musician Thao Nguyen, reads from her forthcoming book of essays from Greywolf Press, and then you go. Bring about 3-5 minutes worth of material to try out.

RSVP pls

Max attendance: 30 people

Vibes: Playful, supportive, participatory

Cost: Free to members

Margaret Wise Brown is, of course, the author of Goodnight, Moon, among other children’s classics. Mac Barnett is a neighbor, a best-selling author, and a deep advocate for children’s books. In this special event, Mac will read Wise Brown’s trippy, beautiful work, The Quiet Noisy Book, and some special guests will chime in, reflecting on the elements of this strange little book.

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Max attendance: 60 people

Vibes: Inventive, fascinating, hilarious

Cost: Free to members, $10 for the public

At a time when transit funding is deeply unstable, Local Economy will host a conversation between Oakland's Director of Transportation, Josh Rowan, and SPUR's Director of Transportation, Laura Tolkhoff. How does Oakland's situation stack up with those of other cities? What needs to be done to increase access to and use of transit in our city?

​Vibes: Informative, deep, civic

Cost: $0, as in free

Artist Carrie Sloane helps you learn about different mending techniques and how to patch, darn, hem, fix buttons, and make other small common repairs (not zippers, tho!). Workshop will focus on hand-mending techniques, but machine-mending will also be briefly covered and there will be one sewing machine available for use with supervision.

RSVP pls

Max attendance: 25 people

Vibes: Practical, hands-on, skillshare-y

Cost: Free to members

In the first of our collaborations with our next-door neighbors, East Bay Booksellers, Tommy Orange will be in conversation with Julian Brave Noisecat about the latter’s new book, We Survived the Night. Noisecat is a filmmaker and journalist. His first documentary, Sugarcane, was nominated for an Oscar. This is his first book. Orange is the best-selling author of the era-defining book, There There, as well as Wandering Stars. Both writers grew up in Oakland .

Doors at 6:30. Conversation from 7-8. Julian Brave Noisecat will sign after the conversation, next door at EBB.

RSVP pls

Max attendance: 75 people

Vibes: Deep, unexpected, Oaklandy,

Cost: Free for members, $10 for the public

Cookbook Club! With help from East Bay Booksellers’ Thu Doan, we’re going to select, and then parcel out recipes from a cookbook to participants, who will then gather for a potluck at the space to share their efforts. Our first experiment in this format will draw on My Cambodia by Nite Yun, who created Nyum Bai and now Lunette in the Ferry Building. And Nite has even promised to join us on the 26th to roast our valiant attempts at making Khmer food.

RSVP pls

Max attendance: 15 people

Vibes: Delicious, participatory, delightful

Cost: Free for members, $10 for the public (optional wine pairing)

Cherlyn Wagner hosts a monthly daytime potluck for creatives to get help with their work, next up: creative ruts and how to get out of them.

Max attendance: 30 people

Vibes: Participatory, supportive, dishy

Cost: Free

In the second of many collaborations with our next-door neighbors, East Bay Booksellers, Jeff Chang visits Local Economy. Chang’s new book is Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America. Bruce Lee, if you don’t know, spent a crucial period of his early years in Oakland. Chang is also the author of several other celebrated books including Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop and We Gon’ Be Alright. Chang will be in conversation with Alexis Madrigal. They’ll range across the Pacific economic and cultural circuits from the 60s to now, from Lee and the Panthers to today.

Doors at 6. Conversation from 6:30-7:30. Chang will sign after the conversation, next door at EBB.

RSVP pls

Max attendance: 75 people

Vibes: Revelatory, conversational, immaculate

Cost: Free for members, $10 for the public

A cross-sector collaboration between Movement Law, the Sustainable Economies Law Center and Vital Arts, the Artist Legal Cafe is an artist-led initiative that offers direct services and capacity-building support to individual artists, artist collectives, and arts organizations.

Each Artist Legal Cafe provides 1:1 support with licensed attorneys, solidarity economy experts, and cultural workers on a wide range of topics.  

Max participation: 30

Vibes: Helpful, smart, profesh

Cost: Free

Rachel Rosen leads a communal collage session. Collage is the most democratic art form, she argues. Everyone can have success and fun. And it's a great way to use up materials that would otherwise be recycled.

Max attendance: 40

Vibes: Easygoing, heartening, ziney

Cost: Free

These writers celebrate the release of their new books. Emilie Lygren’s second book is Once I was a stone. Deema Shehabi and Marilyn Hacker co-authored Water to Water: Gaza Renga.

Lygen's Once I was a stone is an intimate portrait of gender nonconformity rooted in the context of childhood and the natural world.

Water to Water is a poetic correspondence between Palestinian American poet Deema Shehabi and Jewish American poet Marilyn Hacker. Their project involved an alternating call and response between them in the tradition of the Japanese renga form, each poet picking up a word, phrase, or image from the poem preceding.

Max attendance: 60

Vibes: Profound, lyrical, intimate

Cost: Free

Alli Magidsohn’s leads an hour-long social meditation experience that offers a simple yet powerful technique to help people drop into full presence. We call it a game, but it’s really just a framework to deepen present-moment consciousness in community.

Max attendance: 11

Vibes: Immersive, present, playful

Cost: $25 for members, $35 for non-members

For our second round of the Works-in-Progress series, we’re partnering with MIPSLIP, an ongoing gathering for sharing recent creative work. You bring a recent or unfinished creative work and come prepared to share why it is meaningful to you. All media and themes welcome.

MIPLSIP aims for greater aliveness through consistent practice, self-expression, and collective inspiration. They have some guidelines. ​Part of being seen in your creative process is seeing others in theirs. Please come prepared to witness others and disclose how their works impact you.

Max attendance: 15

Vibes: Participatory, open, supportive,

Cost: Free

Alexis says: I love writing about place… This place. In my work over the years, I’ve found different ways to immerse myself in Oakland and other parts of the Bay. We’ll play with some examples from my book The Pacific Circuit and forthcoming work. Then, we’ll jump off of them for live writing exercises. This is the first session, the other two will be at the same time on November 17 and 24. The price includes all three sessions.

Over these weeks, we’ll look at three different methods of exploration: historical, spatial, bodily.