Leaburg Library

05/23/2026

Coming soon...

05/12/2026

05/11/2026

Helen Winter has been a library volunteer since 2008.

04/27/2026

Write Your Life, a free six-week memoir-writing workshop, begins at 6 p.m. April 28 at the Leaburg Library. We all have stories to tell. Learn how to write about what is important or funny or heartbreaking in our lives. We are supportive and non-judgmental. For information, contact Duane at [email protected].

04/24/2026

Once upon a time...

04/23/2026

Marty Mealey is director of the library. Under her guidance, the library has grown in terms of books and volunteers.

04/23/2026

Rita Stadel and the late Ruth Mills co-founded the library in 1983. Rita remains on the board of directors and serves as a volunteer.

04/22/2026

It’s National Library Week, and these are some of the volunteers waiting to assist you. Our library is completely staffed by volunteers allowing us to provide services for free

04/21/2026

The Bartender’s Tale by Ivan Doig
I just finished reading “The Bartender’s Tale” by the late Ivan Doig. It was one of his last novels before succumbing to cancer in 2015.
I love Doig’s storytelling abilities. When I read his books, it’s as if he were sitting next to me reading them to me. His writing is not pretentious. Nor is it overly folksy. His characters are authentic, the types of people one might encounter in a smalltown saloon in his beloved Montana.
“The Bartender’s Tale” is told through the voice of 12-year-old Russell Harry, who learns about life through a heating vent that allows him to sit in the backroom, filled with items paid in lieu of cash by bar patrons over the years, and listen to the goings on in his father’s bar, the Medicine Lodge, in 1960.
As I read, I was reminded of “The Tender Bar,” by J.R. Moehringer. The memoir, which was made into a movie directed by George Clooney, describes Moehringer’s childhood on Long Island, where he grew up in his uncle’s bar with aspirations of becoming a writer.
I also was reminded of a writer closer to home. The late Barry Lopez lived near Finn Rock prior to his death in 2020, months after the Holiday Farm fire destroyed manuscripts, honors and other records stored in a building near his home. Lopez lived in the same house on the McKenzie River for 50 years, and, like Doig, wrote his final books while fighting cancer.
Here is a story as well as Doig’s journal entries describing his final years.
https://mountainjournal.org/how-famous-montana-author-ivan-doig-faced-his-terminal-diagnosis/
“The Bartender’s Tale” and a collection of Lopez’ writing are available at the Leaburg Library.

Doig's spirit springs to life in the MSU Library Archives, revealing his literary triumphs, fears and what lay in his heart

04/18/2026

A wonderful tale about the role of books and libraries in Blue River. After the CBS story ran, book donations poured in, and some of the duplicates were donated to Leaburg. Libraries are about sharing.

In Blue River, Oregon, Frances O'Brien runs an all-night library that never closes. In this archival footage from 1983, Charles Kuralt travels to the foot of...

04/17/2026

The Leaburg Library is sponsoring a free, six-week memoir-writing workshop. Classes will be conducted at 6 p.m. Tuesdays beginning April 28. From the fish that got away to the in-laws who never left, we all have stories to tell. Our instructor will be Duane Noriyuki, former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times and co-founder of InsideOUT Writers, a creative writing program for young people incarcerated in the L.A. County juvenile hall system.
For information, contact Duane at [email protected] or (970) 412-2174.