What do an AIDS activist, a soccer player, a birth doula, and a bestselling author have in common? They’re all women storytellers using their voices to promote self-love and community building, and they’re coming to Portland this week.  

Here’s the deal: Together Live, a 10-city tour starting in Portland, is here for just one night, with speakers including two-time Olympic soccer gold medalist Abby Wambach, Luvvie Ajayi (executive director of The Red Pump Project, a national nonprofit spreading HIV/AIDS awareness), birth doula Latham Thomas, and Together Live cofounder and memoirist Glennon Doyle.

Together Live bills itself as not just a women’s conference, but one with a focus on “staying together, growing together, and acting together” by bringing in women from diverse backgrounds and generations to share raw stories on topics like addiction, racism, and body image.

Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, behind national conferences for the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Arianna Huffington and cofounder of Together Live, will emcee the evening, and says she created the event as a platform to foster unity in a time of tension.

“It’s a critical time in our lives when everybody is telling us what divides us, and I think it’s a vital act to get together and talk about what we have in common,” she says.

The focus, she says, is on making the space accessible and interactive, with ticket prices starting at $25 and a stage that is designed to bridge the gap between speaker and audience.  

For Walsh, community building is at the heart of Together Live, the objective being to bring audience members together. “People come alone, but they never leave alone,” she says. “We want it to feel like the best dinner party you’ve ever had, but the kind of dinner party where you never even make it into the dining room because everyone is in the kitchen the entire time.”

Together Live

6:30 p.m. Mon, Sept 14, Keller Auditorium, $25–129