News & Events
Stephen Ambrose Memorial Lecture every fall. Distinguished speakers who have given a lecture include Marga Lincoln (2023), Gerry Robinson (2022) (at right), Scott Hibbard (2020) at left, Lorna Milne (2019), Jamie Ford (2018), Stu Wilson (2017), Paul R. Wylie (2016), O. Alan Weltzien (2015), Russell Rowland (2014), and Hugh Ambrose (2011).
Celebrating a Writer's Journey was launched in 2016 to celebrate Helena writer and educator, Virginia Reeves (at left). Journalist and nature writer Jim Robbins and poet Melissa Kwasny (at right) followed in 2018 and 2020, respectively. In 2023, Caroline Patterson visited from Missoula and took us on her writer's journey. Watch the 2020 Celebrating a Writer's Journey interview with Melissa Kwasny by Foundation board member Virginia Reeves.
Helena Reads Poetry! (formerly the Community Leaders Poetry Reading) - Launched in 2009, this free public event celebrates poetry and prose every April (during National Poetry Month) with short readings by ten members of our community invited by the Foundation board of directors. After a break (due to the library remodel and a very inconvenient pandemic), the event resumed in 2023 with a new name. Read our Mid-Year in Review newsletters for recaps and video links.​​
Other author events co-sponsored by the Foundation have included Alexander McCall Smith, Timothy Egan, Roz Chast, Mary Jane Nealon, Amor Towles, and Shelby Van Pelt.
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The Foundation also hosted a Tribute to Ivan Doig in 2015 when his last novel was posthumously published. The event was one of 10 across the country organized to celebrate the release of Last Bus to Wisdom.
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Bi-monthly artist receptions for local artists and Downtown Helena's Spring and Fall Art Walks were cancelled during the pandemic. We resumed artist receptions in 2023 with Jennifer L. Thompson, Richard Swanson, and Larry Copenhaver. Now that the popular art walks are now happening four times a year, we are sponsoring artist receptions each winter, spring, summer, and fall.
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Stay informed about Foundation events on our Facebook page, the Library Events webpage, and through our Library Foundation e-mail news (subscribe below).
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