The Carpenter’s House welcomes Portland author Clare Simons on Friday, Oct. 9, for a reading from her debut memoir, To Be Here Is Immense. The event runs from 6 to 8 p.m. and includes a Q&A with the author and a book signing. Admission is free with RSVP, and copies of the book will be available for purchase.
Simons spent years on the front lines of one of the country’s most consequential end-of-life debates. She was the press person for the terminally ill patients who defended Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act at the U.S. Supreme Court, and she worked for the passage of medical-aid-in-dying laws in several states as an advocate for a lucid death. Her essays about Amma, India’s “hugging saint,” have appeared in Parabola and Spirituality & Health, and her essay “The Greatest” was published on the official Muhammad Ali website.
To Be Here Is Immense follows one woman’s quest for love through art, activism and spiritual surrender — spanning continents, states of being, and the devastating cost of devotion. When shattering loss arrives at her own husband’s deathbed, Simons must reckon with everything she thought she knew about faith, marriage and how to keep living. Kirkus Reviews calls the memoir “a wryly self-aware story of truth-seeking that becomes darkly gripping in its final pages,” praising a narrative voice that is “utterly charming throughout.”
This is the kind of evening The Carpenter’s House was built for: a working artist sharing hard-won work in a room where conversation is welcome. Whether you come for the writing, the questions the book raises, or simply to be in good company, we would love to see you.
Friday, Oct. 9, 6–8 p.m. at The Carpenter’s House, 212 Legion Way SW, Olympia. Free, adults only.