Date: Saturday, April 25
Time: Doors at 6:00pm. Reading at 6:30pm.
Venue: North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center
17894 Tyler Foote Road, Nevada City (530) 687-7307

Tickets: $20 presale $25 at the door northcolumbiaschoolhouse.org

Drawing on the title of Peter Blue Cloud’s book of poems, this year’s iteration of Poetic Crossings leans into the notion that what unfolds on the ridge today is inseparable from what came before—and from what may yet come. The present is shaped by memory, by inheritance, by traces of old ways that never fully disappear. Time here is not a straight line but a cycle: what was can return through remembering, through discovery, or, at times, through complete collapse.

Date: Saturday, April 25
Time: 1:00-3:00pm
Venue: Empire Mine State Historic Park, 10791 E Empire St, Grass Valley

The fifth annual Poetry in Parks, in collaboration with Cal Parks, is a celebration of community poetry at the historic Empire Mine, in Grass Valley. SAEL high school students and local poets read their work on the grounds of the Mine, rain or shine. 1-3 pm, Saturday, April 25th, with a $5 entry fee charged by the park.

Date: Friday, April 24
Time: 6:00-8:00pm
Venue: UNR Campus - Incline Village, 999 Tahoe Blvd, Incline Village, NV

Lee Herrick, the two-term California State Poet Laureate, will give a reading and discuss his work at the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. He is set to read from his extensive collection of poetry, including "In Praise of Late Wonder: New and Selected Poems," "Scar and Flower," "Gardening Secrets of the Dead," and "This Many Miles from Desire."

Date: Friday, April 24
Time: 5:00-7:00pm
Venue: ASiF, 940 Idaho Maryland Road, Grass Valley

Local poets will read their poems inspired by the artwork of the resident artists at ASiF. The poems will be displayed in the gallery alongside the artworks that inspired them.  After the readings, the poets will be selling and signing their published works.

This year’s main stage event will take place on April 18, 2026, at The Center for the Arts, in Grass Valley, CA, attended by some of our most exciting local, national, and international poets and performers.

This year’s keynote event features former United States Poet Laureate Robert Hass and Guggenheim Fellow Brenda Hillman, two of the most influential figures in contemporary American poetry. Hass, a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner, is widely celebrated for his lyrical engagement with landscape, memory, and public life. Hillman, known for her formally innovative and politically attentive work, has long been regarded as one of the country’s most original poetic voices.

They are joined by a nationally distinguished roster reflecting the range and vitality of contemporary poetry accross a wide range of aesthetic traditions, regions, and generations, underscoring the festival’s commitment to literary excellence and diverse perspectives.

While Sierra Poetry Festival mainstage readings anchor the day, attendees can participate in generative breakout sessions, facilitated conversations, and interdisciplinary collaborations that integrate music, film, and performance. A robust youth segment continues the festival’s longstanding investment in young writers, offering opportunities for students to share their work alongside established poets.

More information can be found at here.

Date: Friday, April 17
Time: 5:00pm
Venue: Nevada City Winery, 321 Spring Street, Nevada City

Join us for a glass of wine, or tune in from the comfort of home, as we live-stream interviews with the Main Stage presenters.

Date: Thursday, April 16
Time: 5:30pm
Venue: The Iron Door at the Holbrooke, 212 W Main Street, Grass Valley

Annual open mic where community members are encouraged to bring their best poetry and compete for a chance to read from the Main Stage on Saturday, April 18. Two winners will be selected by a panel of judges.

Sign ups begin at 5:00pm, bring one original poem no more than 2-3 minutes in length. Open Mic starts at 5:30 with special guest emcee Michaela King!

Date: Wednesday, April 15
Time: 7:00-8:30pm
Venue: Madelyn Helling Library, 980 Helling Way, Nevada City

A tender, lyrical portrait of pioneer love and labor that revives the quiet heroism of everyday life in 1875, where intimacy, resilience, and devotion shape the story of home.

Date: Saturday, April 11
Time: 6:00pm
Venue: Sierra College, 250 Sierra College Drive, Grass Valley

Culminating event of the annual Nevada County Reads, in conversation with author Daniel Mason.

Date: Saturday, April 11
Time: 6:00-8:00pm
Venue: Alibi Truckee, 10069 Bridge St, Truckee

A community open mic as the culmination of the Truckee Literary Crawl hosted by Nevada County Poet Laureate Karen Terrey.

Date: Saturday, April 11
Time: 2:00-7:00pm
Venues: Various locations throughout downtown Truckee

The Literary Crawl is a free community event held at businesses throughout downtown Truckee to celebrate the written word, works by new writers, authors, poets and other creatives, and to create a space to support and promote the arts.

Date: Friday, April 10
Time: 5:30-7:30pm
Venue: Nevada City Winery, 321 Spring Street, Nevada City

A collaboration culminating in an Art Exhibit and Dance Performance, infused with Poetry.

Visual Artists and Dancers collaborated utilizing shared ideas, poems, and a variety of approaches. The process was wide-open for either the Artist to be inspired by a Dancer’s choreographed or improvised piece or for the Dancer to be inspired by the Artist’s artwork, in some cases it went both ways.

For the Opening Art Reception, both Dancers and Artists will share their experience of collaboration with the audience, shortly before the Dance performance.

Featuring a Dance performance by Rebecca Bone and Juliet Lin.

Date: Thursday, April 9
Time: 6:00-8:00pm
Venue: Clover Café, 13623 Rices Crossing, Oregon House

Join us for an intimate evening of poetry and music at Clover Café. The night features poets Carol Lynn Grellas, Diane Pendola, William O’Daly, and fiction writer Michael Golding. Open mic and music will follow. Read your own work or recite a favorite poem from memory. All voices welcome.

Date: Saturday, April 4
Time: 5:00pm
Venue: Nevada City Winery, 321 Spring Street, Nevada City

Poet Samantha Wallen celebrates the release of Weight of Water (Finishing Line Press) with a reading and community gathering. The collection moves through grief, loss, and ecological witness—holding together the death of a mother, the loss of home, and the disappearance of species and landscapes. These poems serve as elegy and survival manual, attending to sorrow while remaining rooted in beauty, devotion, and the possibility of restoration. Wallen is a Grass Valley–based poet and writing guide with an MFA from Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Her work has appeared in Dark Mountain, The Nature of Things: Sacred Spaces, and Kerning, among others. 

Date: Saturday, April 4
Time: 10:00am-12:00pm
Venue: Wildflower Ridge Preserve

Join Nevada County Poet Laureate Karen Terrey and Poets Ingrid Keriotis and Rooja Mohassessy for a poetry reading and writing workshop at Bear Yuba Land Trust’s Wildflower Ridge Preserve. Under the cover of heritage oaks with a view of the mountains beyond, the poets will read poems inspired by the land, with prompts for participants to write and share their own poetry.

This is a free event open to all. Please bring a writing utensil, notebook, and camping chair (though we will also provide some seating). We will also provide light refreshments.

DIRECTIONS: Park in Twin Cities Church parking lot and take Wildflower Ridge trail into the Preserve.

If facing the church, the trailhead is at the far right side of the parking lot, near the road. You will see an event sign and a footbridge. From there follow the signage through the meadow. The walk from the parking lot is less than a half mile.

Date: Friday, April 3
Time: 5:00-7:00pm
Venue: ASiF, 940 Idaho Maryland Road, Grass Valley

Local poets will read their poems inspired by the artwork of the resident artists at ASiF. The poems will be displayed in the gallery alongside the artworks that inspired them. After the readings, the poets will be selling and signing their published works.

Date: Friday, April 3
Time: 10:30-12:00pm
Venue: Truckee Library, 10031 Levon Ave, Truckee

Including social or historical elements along with your personal experience in a new poem can add layers and relevance. Poems of resistance and imagination will be our guides to find approaches to write about a moment within your own life and to explore how to respond with your own voice to current events happening around you.

Date: Thursday, April 2
Time: 7:00pm
Venue: Madelyn Helling Library, 980 Helling Way, Nevada City

What does “home” mean to you? In this poetry workshop, we’ll explore our varied ideas of home, the homes we come from, and the homes we make for ourselves. We’ll read and discuss poems about home and discuss how writers express belonging, memory, distance, discomfort, and love. Through guided writing exercises, we'll craft and share our poems in a supportive and creative environment. All levels of experience welcome. 

Date: Wednesday, April 1
Time: 7:00pm
Venue: The Onyx Downtown at the Nevada Theatre, 401 Broad Street, Nevada City

A week in a life.
A life in a poem.

To begin National Poetry Month, the Sierra Poetry Festival and the Onyx Theatre invite you to a special one-night screening of PATERSON, at the Nevada Theatre.

Directed by Jim Jarmusch and starring Adam Driver, PATERSON follows a bus driver and poet living in Paterson, New Jersey. Over the course of a single week, the film gently observes work, love, routine, and the quiet poetry woven into daily life.

Simple, intimate, and deeply attentive, PATERSON reminds us that poetry is not distant. It rises from place, from repetition, from paying attention.

This screening is a fundraiser supporting the Sierra Poetry Festival.

Doors at 6:30 PM
$18 in advance
$20 at the door

Join us for an evening that honors poetry on screen and on the page.

Whatch this short piece from PBS
'Paterson' is an ode to making art from the details of everyday life

Date: Saturday, March 28
Time: 3:00-6:00pm
Locations and Schedule here

Now in its second year, wander the streets of Nevada City and enjoy a variety of readings and performances by Nevada County Poets. Grab a drink or a tasty treat and delight in the variety of performers from Nevada County youth to poems set to music, and everything in between!

Date: Friday, March 27
Time: 6:00-7:30pm
Venue: Miners Foundry, 325 Spring Street, Nevada City

Five Nevada County Women Poets—Kirsten Casey, Judy Crowe, Molly Fisk, Ingrid Keriotis, Judie Rae—read poems about hope and history, love and life, the joys and tribulations of our time and place, and more. Collectively, the poets have published hundreds of poems in books, magazines, anthologies, newspapers, and literary journals.

Date: Tuesday, March 24
Time: 4:30-6:00pm
Venue: Truckee Library, 10031 Levon Ave, Truckee

A conversation and writing workshop for readers and writers of North Woods by Daniel Mason led by Nevada County Poet Laureate Karen Terrey

Date: Sunday, March 22
Time: 2:00-4:00pm
Venue: Nevada County Jewish Community Center, 506 Walsh Street, Grass Valley

Sounds from Darkness and Light is enacted poetry drawn from Words Between Darkness and Light, poetry by Una Kobrin, with Micah Cone and Una Kobrin performing along with musicians breathing music through the poems, creating something that is neither quite a reading nor a concert, but a weaving of both in an inner journey moving through a range of — levity, wrestlings and wonder.

Date: Saturday, March 21
Time: 11:00am-3:00pm
Venue: Wonder Docent, 230 Broad Street, Nevada City

World Poetry Day is a celebration highlighting poetry's role in promoting harmony and social cohesion, particularly by amplifying marginalized voices and supporting endangered languages.

Join us for a generative afternoon and write a poem or two. Your poems will be on display during Sierra Poetry Festival on Saturday, April 18 at The Center for the Arts in Grass Valley.

Date: Thursday, March 12
Time: 6:00-8:00pm
Venue: Alibi Truckee, 10069 Bridge St, Truckee

Open Mic hosted by Nevada County Poet Laureate Karen Terrey, open mic readers compete for a chance to read their work from the Main Stage at the 10th annual Sierra Poetry Festival on Saturday, April 18. Two winners will be selected by a panel of judges.

Date: Friday, Feb 6, 2026

Time: 10:30am-12:00pm

Title: Reading Northwoods and Writing History

Venue: Truckee Library, 10031 Levon Ave, Truckee

Workshop for writers and readers around Nevada County Common Read Northwoods by Daniel Mason led by Nevada County Poet Laureate Karen Terrey.