LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.
For details regarding specific events please contact the organizers or venues. If you are an organizer or venue and would like to reach out to us please feel free to contact us or submit an event using our submission form. We’d love to hear from you!
- This event has passed.
Wordplay Festival: West x Midwest Present Alison Bechdel in Conversation with Cheryl Strayed
May 6, 2021 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
FreeJoin The Loft’s virtual Wordplay Festival for a conversation between Alison Bechdel and Cheryl Strayed about Bechdel’s new graphic memoir, The Secret to Superhuman Strength.
The long and complicated history of workout crazes in the US—from the Thighmaster, to Nordictrack, to Peloton and Soul Cycle—have created a culture that chases fads over facts. And Alison Bechdel, iconic, award-winning graphic memoirst, has not been immune to the promises. But in her quest for superhuman strength, Bechdel’s journey leads her to another muscle: the heart. And then turns towards the ultimate flex: letting her brain guide her. Join her and fellow soul-seeker Cheryl Strayed as they discuss Bechdel’s latest graphic memoir.
In partnership with Literary Arts (Portland, OR), The Loft (Minneapolis, MN), Black Mountain Institute (Las Vegas, NV), and Wisconsin Book Festival (Madison, WI).
The Loft’s Virtual Wordplay is presented by St. Catherine University and Star Tribune.
Copies of The Secret to Superhuman Strength will be distributed for free to the first 150 attendees who reserve a copy. During the event, there will be a link to claim your book. Simply fill out the form and a book will be sent to you from one of our partnering bookstores.
Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New York Times best seller Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which became an Oscar-nominated film starring Reese Witherspoon; Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, a national best seller now the basis of the WBUR podcast “Dear Sugar Radio,” co-hosted with Steve Almond; and Torch, her debut novel. Her books have been translated into forty languages, and her essays and other writings have appeared in numerous publications. Website – Facebook – Twitter – Instagram – Tumblr
Alison Bechdel is the author of the bestselling memoir FUN HOME: A Family Tragicomic, which was named a Best Book of the Year by Time, Entertainment Weekly, New York Times, People, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Village Voice, and San Francisco Chronicle, among others. For 25 years, she wrote and drew the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, a visual chronicle of modern life—queer and otherwise—considered “one of the preeminent oeuvres in the comics genre, period.” Bechdel was guest editor of Best American Comics 2011 and has drawn comics for Slate, McSweeney’s, Entertainment Weekly, Granta, and the New York Times Book Review.