Named after the Chosen Bean Coffeehouse once located on Main Street in Chatfield, the Chosen Bean Concerts Series has garnered a reputation for presenting the best in live original acoustic music performed by regional and national musicians who stretch the gamut from legendary icons to emerging talents. Originally launched in 2011, the Series is now heading into its 17th run and continues to be presented in Southeast Minnesota's premier listening room, the American Legion Room at Chatfield Center for the Arts.

William Kent Krueger makes his third visit to Decorah for a Dragonfly Books author talk featuring his newest novel This Tender Land followed by a book signing Monday, October 14 at 7:00 p.m. at Impact Coffee, 101 W. Water St.

This Tender Land is set in 1932 in Minnesota at the Lincoln School, a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O’Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own. Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphans will journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole. This Tender Land has been named the #1 Indie Next Pick for September, the Library Reads selection for September, and the Book of the Month selection for September.

Raised in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, William Kent Krueger briefly attended Stanford University—before being kicked out for radical activities. After that, he logged timber, worked construction, tried his hand at freelance journalism, and eventually ended up researching child development at the University of Minnesota. He currently makes his living as a full-time author. He’s been married for over 40 years to a marvelous woman who is a retired attorney. He makes his home in St. Paul, a city he dearly loves.

Everyone is invited to this free event at Impact Coffee, 101 W. Water St. on Monday, October 14 at 7:00 p.m. If you can't attend but would like a book, please call Dragonfly Books at 563-382-4275 to reserve an autographed copy.

Come to Decorah Public Library on Tuesday October 15 at 6:30 p.m. for an entertaining evening with popular presenter Bill Jamerson, who will share a program about the Civilian Conservation Corps featuring storytelling and original songs. Jamerson will also perform at Arlin Falck Assisted Living at 2 p.m. that same day and event organizers invite the public to attend.

With Halloween fast approaching, Luther College organizations are planning some fun family activities and a safe trick-or-treating opportunity.

Stop by from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. in Vesterheim’s Bruening Visitor Center, 502 W. Water Street, to learn a tune, share a tune, jam with us, or just come to listen.

Bring any instrument you play and join in. This informal music collaboration is great fun for all levels and happens the fourth Sunday of each month.

Drop in whenever it works in your schedule. No charge. Recording device advised.

» NEW LOCATION! «

Dragonfly Books welcomes Decorah native Bathsheba Demuth for an author talk featuring her new book, Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait (W.W. Norton & Company 2019). Demuth will talk about writing her book and sign books on Tuesday, October 29th at 7:00 p.m. at The Lingonberry event space, 218 W. Water St.

Along the Bering Strait, through the territories of the Inupiat and Yupik in Alaska, and the Yupik and Chukchi in Russia, Bathsheba Demuth explores an ecosystem that has long sustained human beings. Yet when Americans and Europeans arrived, the area became the site of an experiment and the modern ideologies of production and consumption, capitalism and communism were subject to the pressures of arctic scarcity.
Demuth draws a vivid portrait of the sweeping effects of turning ecological wealth into economic growth and state power over the past century and a half. More urgent in a warming climate and as we seek new economic ideas for a post-industrial age, Floating Coast delivers warnings and poses provocative questions about human desires and needs in relation to environmental sustainability.

Bathsheba Demuth grew up in Decorah where her mother Laura still lives. Demuth is an environmental historian at Brown University, specializing in the United States and Russia, and in the history of energy and past climates. Her interest in northern environments and cultures began when she was 18 and moved north of the Arctic Circle in the Yukon. For over two years, Demuth mushed huskies, hunted caribou, fished for salmon, tracked bears, and otherwise learned to survive in the taiga and tundra. In the years since, she has lived in and studied Arctic communities across Eurasia and North America. From the archive to the dog sled, she is interested in how the histories of people, ideas, places, and non-human species intersect.

Everyone is invited to join Dragonfly Books for this free event on Tuesday, October 29th at 7:00 p.m. This event will be held at The Lingonberry event space, one block west of the bookstore at 218 W Water St. If you can't attend but would like a book, please call Dragonfly Books at 563-382-4275 to reserve a copy and have it autographed for you.

On Wednesday Oct.30 at 1:30 PM at Winneshiek Medical Center, we will have LeAnn Uhlenhake, Speech Language Pathologist, present the speech component of the Big and Loud program. LeAnn is part of the Winneshiek Medical Center Rehab team and offers a wealth of experience and knowledge. All our welcome at WMC in our usual conference room adjacent to the cafeteria.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Halloween is sneaking right up! The Decorah Police Department & Decorah Area Chamber of Commerce encourage you to trick or treat and have fun!

Here are some important etiquette items to share with the costumed kiddos in your life:

1.) Respect lights out. If a porch light isn't on, please don't approach someone's door. What if they are in the middle of a crucial final episode of insert reality television show here?!
2.) As always, observe local laws. Crossing at corners, for example, helps to keep you safe!
3.) Dress as warmly as you're able.
4.) Cross streets carefully. Look both ways. Walk, don't run. We don't want ghouls & ghosts tripping over their sheets & falling down in the streets.
5.) Respect people's property. (For example, use the sidewalk rather than the lawn. Tread on Susan's flowerbeds at your own peril. She planted those Mums herself & she's not having it.)
6.) Mind your manners. We know your Mama raised you right. "Please," & "Thank you," are Decorah values we can all get behind.