This is Part 1 of a talk by Michael Shuman, Director for Research and Public Policy for the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. An economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur, Shuman is one of the nation’s leading experts on community economics. He has authored, coauthored, or edited seven books, including The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition and Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in the Global Age . He spoke in Portland after the publication of The Small Mart Revolution in 2006.

http://small-mart.org/

Host Kathleen Stephenson speaks with Leslie Marmon Silko, a former professor of English and fiction writing and the author of novels, short stories, essays, poetry, articles, and filmscripts. She has won prizes, fellowships, and grants from such sources as the National Endowment for the Arts and The Boston Globe. She was the youngest writer to be included in The Norton Anthology of Women's Literature, for her short story "Lullaby." Ms. Silko now lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Silko's work is primarily concerned with the relations between different cultures and between humans and the natural world. Silko was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and grew up at Laguna Pueblo. The Pueblo has been home to members of her family for generations and is where she learned traditional stories and legends from her grandmother Lilly and her aunt Susie.

Leslie Marmon Silko will talk about her new memoir, "The Turquoise Ledge," which combines memoir with family history and reflections on the creatures that command her attention and inform her vision of the world, taking readers along on her daily walks through the arroyos and ledges of the Sonoran desert in Arizona.

Host Bruce Silverman speaks with Yiyun Li about her new collection of short stories, "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl."

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing and came to the United States in 1996. Her stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, O Henry Prize Stories, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and awards from Lannan Foundation and Whiting Foundation. Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction; it was also shortlisted for Kiriyama Prize and Orange Prize for New Writers. Her novel, The Vagrants, won the gold medal of California Book Award for fiction. She was selected by Granta as one of the 21 Best Young American Novelists under 35, and was named by The New Yorker as one of the top 20 writers under 40. She is a contributing editor to the Brooklyn-based literary magazine, A Public Space. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and their two sons, and teaches at University of California, Davis.

Stephanie Potter interviews Dianne Aigaki who is a botanical artist and consultant for nonprofit organizations worldwide, who lives between India, Tibet and Mexico. Aigaki moved to Dharamsala, India at the foot of the Himalayas in 1996, and began working as a volunteer consultant for the Tibetan Exile Government.

During her years in Dharamsala, Aigaki learned to speak Tibetan and built a stone house with extensive gardens. She trained over 300 members of the Tibetan Exile Government and Tibetan nonprofit organizations to write project management plans and funding proposals, and has served as an intermediary for them in securing funding. These projects have ranged from water sanitation, pesticide- free agriculture, electric fencing to keep elephants out of crops, medical care and counseling for torture survivors, to building schools for thousands of Tibetan refuges who are orphans.

In 2000 and 2001, she coordinated and was the primary spokesperson for the highly successful Gyudmed Tantric Monastery Compassion Tours in the United States — traveling with six Tibetan Buddhist monks to thirteen cities each year and raising $500,000 for needed infrastructure, educational and health projects at their monastery in South India.

Diane Aigaki is presenting "The Dream of the Turquoise Bee: Cultural Diplomacy in Eastern Tibet, a Slideshow/Presentation on Wednesday, September 22nd at 7PM at the Mazama Mountaineering Center at 527 SE 43rd Ave. in Portland.