Events Calendar

On Tuesday, March 5, at 7 p.m., Western Heritage Award-Winning poet Ken Hada will share poems from his books The Way of the Wind, Contour Feathers, and Come Before Winter. Ken Hada is a poet and professor at East Central University in Ada, where he directs the annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival. Ken finds the natural rhythms of nature a powerful inspiration for his writing. He has been recognized as a six-time finalist for the Oklahoma Book Awards and received…

The Oklahoma Territorial Museum and Carnegie Library in Guthrie will offer the evening educational program, From the Stacks: Readings from the Carnegie Library, examining various book titles. The series will take place at 6 p.m. on the third Thursday of January, February, March, and April inside the Carnegie Library. OTM curator/registrar Michael Williams will lead the discussion, exploring the historical context in which the authors lived and wrote the works. Save the dates below, which list the books and authors chosen for the…

On Thursday, April 18, at 7 p.m., author Gary Clayton Anderson will make a presentation about his book Will Rogers and His America (2023). Anderson is a George Lynn Cross Research professor at the University of Oklahoma. He will discuss the title, its new afterword, and the differences he found between the cowboy-trick-roping Will Rogers and the widely-read journalist. He points out Will’s influence during the social, political, and economic transformations of the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression. The first…

On Saturday, August 31, at 1:30 p.m., inside the Pioneer Woman Museum, author Connie Cronley (Cherokee) will discuss the life of Kate Barnard, the first woman elected to a statewide office in Oklahoma. Barnard was elected at a time when women were not allowed to vote. ​ Cronley’s award-winning book, A Life on Fire: Oklahoma’s Kate Barnard, is the biography of Barnard, a popular social reformer who dedicated herself to political and social reform on behalf of orphans, the mentally ill,…

On Sunday, November 3, from 4 to 5 p.m., author Steven Watts will have a book signing and discuss his title, Citizen Cowboy: Will Rogers and the American People (2024, Cambridge University Press). About the title: “Citizen Cowboy is a probing biography of one of America’s most influential cultural figures. Will Rogers was a youth from the Cherokee Indian Territory of Oklahoma who rose to conquer nearly every form of media and entertainment in the early twentieth century’s rapidly expanding…

On Saturday, February 8, at 1:30 p.m., the Oklahoma Territorial Museum will host an author talk featuring Connie Cronley. This event is free to the public. Copies of her book, A Life on Fire: Oklahoma’s Kate Barnard (2021), will be available for purchase in the museum’s store during the event. Cronley’s award-winning biography focuses on Catherine Ann “Kate” Barnard (1875–1930), a passionate political reformer and fearless activist who advocated for the vulnerable and marginalized. Barnard made history as the first…

On Saturday, April 19, at 1 p.m., the Fort Gibson Historic Site will host a book signing for the title Luck is a Fortune: Adventure, Duty, and Buffalo on the 1841 Frontier (2024) with author Dr. Robert Pickering.

Luck is a Fortune recounts the adventures and excursions of two soldiers living at an outpost in eastern Oklahoma in the 1840s. The title is derived from a note one of them scribbled in his diary – “luck is a fortune” – a fitting thought as life on the Plains meant death could come from any direction; one learned survival skills or faced death.

“This book is the result of an extraordinary coincidence,” Pickering said. “The University of Tulsa holds two diaries written by soldiers stationed at Fort Gibson in 1841. One was written by a young lieutenant who was a West Point graduate and the son of wealthy Southern planter family, while the other diary was written by a maker of hats in New York and probably an Irish immigrant – two very different people living on America’s westernmost outpost in 1841.”

The book signing will take place in the Fort Gibson Hospital Visitor Center located at 803 North Garrison Avenue, Fort Gibson.

On Saturday, June 28, from 1 to 4 p.m., the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum in Clinton will host a special book signing for the new book Route 66 - The First 100 Years with Jim Ross and Shellee Graham. Buckle up and take a generational journey with Route 66 ambassadors Jim Ross and Shellee Graham as they time-travel through the legendary highway’s life, demise, and renaissance. Explore the Mother Road from its birth in 1926 through its centennial, experiencing the…

Join the Oklahoma Territorial Museum and Carnegie Library in Guthrie on Thursday, August 28, at 6 p.m., for an author talk and book signing with Susan Dragoo. She will discuss and sign copies of her book Finding the Butterfield: A Journey Through Time in Indian Territory (2024). Finding the Butterfield: A Journey Through Time in Indian Territory takes the reader through the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, both in the late 1850s as a passenger on the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach and…

On Thursday, September 11, at 6 p.m., the Oklahoma Territorial Museum and Historic Carnegie Library will host Dr. Lisa Barnett for a book discussion on her new book, Peyote Politics: The Making of the Native American Church, 1880–1937 (2025, University of Oklahoma Press). Dr. Lisa Barnett is an associate professor of American Religious History at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa. She completed her doctoral work in the history department at Texas Christian University, focusing on US history since 1877, specifically…

On Monday, October 6, at 7 p.m., the Will Rogers Memorial Museum will host author Mark Archuleta for a book signing of his title, The Reel Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Starr: From Gentleman Bandit to Movie Star and Back Again (2025, University of North Texas Press). The event is free, and copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event. About the book: “Born in 1873, Cherokee outlaw Henry Starr had survived shootouts and death…

On Sunday, October 12, at 2 p.m., the Pawnee Bill Ranch and Museum will host an afternoon with author Mark Archuleta. He will discuss his book The Reel Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Starr: From Gentleman Bandit to Movie Star and Back Again (2025, University of North Texas Press). About the book: “Born in 1873, Cherokee outlaw Henry Starr had survived shootouts and death sentences and lived long enough to witness the invention of moving pictures. In 1919, after…

On Sunday, October 26, from 1 to 4 p.m., the Pawnee Bill Ranch and Museum will host a book signing with author Chris Enss. The event will introduce her new title, The Sharpshooter and the Showman: May Lillie, Pawnee Bill, and Their Wild West Show (2025, Farcountry Press), which features the detailed history of Pawnee Bill and his wife, May Lillie. The era of Wild West Shows revealed America at its most enterprising. Pawnee Bill and May Manning Lillie embarked on…

On Thursday, April 23, at 6:30 p.m. the Will Rogers Memorial Museum will host a special Civil War-themed lecture featuring author and Claremore native Steven L. Warren. Warren will present an in-depth program on the Second Battle of Cabin Creek, one of the most brilliantly planned military engagements fought in Indian Territory.

On Saturday, May 16, at 2 p.m., the Pioneer Woman Museum is pleased to host a book discussion with author Chris Enss. Enss will share untold stories of the bold women who rode harder, roped faster, and stole the spotlight in early Hollywood, while she discusses her new title, Daughters of Daring: Hollywood Cowgirl Stunt Women (2026, Lyons Press). In the early days of Hollywood, there were many leading cowgirls and real cowgirls who kept the Western spirit alive. They…

Join paranormal author and investigator Heather Woodward for a live book talk on Eerie Oklahoma at the Oklahoma Territorial Museum on Saturday, May 23, at 1 p.m. Woodward has spent years digging into Oklahoma’s strangest corners. Haunted locations, local legends, and the kind of stories people usually only whisper about after dark. If you like your history a little haunted and your reality slightly questionable, you’ll feel right at home. Woodward will discuss the research behind Eerie Oklahoma, share stories…

On Wednesday, September 9, at noon, the Oklahoma Territorial Museum and Carnegie Library will host a book presentation by author Robert Lee Maril. He will be discussing his book Hungry Oklahoma: Confronting Poverty and Food Insecurity (University of Oklahoma Press, 2026). In writing the book, Maril drew upon interviews and participant-observation data from his volunteer work at a food pantry and combined them with census and sociological data. Join the discussion on the ethnographic details of the current status of…