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!

Compose Creative Writing Conference 2019

Clackamas Community College 19600 Molalla Ave, Oregon City

Clackamas Community College’s annual creative writing conference – Compose – features a full day of workshops from local authors and publishers. This year, we are offering workshops in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, publishing, and more!! Schedule for the Day: 8:45am-9:15am / Registration 9:30am-10:30am / Welcome Address 10:45am-12:15pm / Workshops 12:30pm-1:30pm / Lunch 1:45pm-3:15pm / Workshops 3:30pm-5:00pm / Workshops Our Creatives confirmed so far (with more to be added soon): Kate Gray Kate Ristau Tabitha Blankenbiller Stephanie Lenox Dennis Stovall Brett Warnock Trista Cornelius & Robin Vada Melissa Duclos Apricot Irving Courtenay Hameister Jessica Wadleigh Wendy Willis

$25

Intro to Screenprinting

IPRC (Independent Publishing Resource Center) 318 SE Main Street #175, Portland

Join us to learn about silkscreen printing! Learn how to create stencils, prep and process screens while gaining knowledge about tools, tips, and tricks for the photo emulsion process. You’ll have the chance to acquire best practices for setting up your print station, printing and registration while gaining practice with the medium. Our studio area uses only water-based silkscreen inks and is a primarily a non-toxic studio environment. *Screen printing is also called silkscreen or serigraphy *Completion of this course grants Studio Members access to the Screen Printing studio to print during open studio hours. Non-members and Basic Members receive one trial month of Studio Membership after the completion of the workshop. Purchasing a personal screen is not required Screen Printing Resources:  RC SCREEN SHOP &…

$125 – $225

Choose Your Own Adventure Spies: Mata Hari

Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland

YOU are young Margaretha Zelle, a world-famous dancer from the Netherlands. You have just arrived in Bali with your dance troupe when your best friend Althea goes missing. As a master of tongues and disguises, who better to save her? But if you leave now, you will miss your chance to audition for the performance of a lifetime. Katherine Factor’s Choose Your Own Adventure Spies: Mata Hari (Chooseco) stars you as a real-life historical spy in an interactive, multiple-ending book.

Free

Diary Comics with Liz Yerby

Outlet 2500 Northeast Sandy Boulevard, Portland

In this two hour workshop attendants will make a four panel diary comic of their own, which will be assembled into a zine distributed to each attendee after the event! We’ll start off by looking at a wide variety of diary comics and then talk the basics of how to construct an effective comic. Then we will help each other explore mediums and ideas to create their own four panel masterpiece. At the end of the class we will scan our pieces, and a zine with the classes participants will be sent out a few days after the class is done! hopefully you’ll leave inspired and try your hand at creating daily diary comics for weeks or months a time. They’re like cool hand drawn…

$25

STRAY Record Release Party

Nationale 3360 SE Division, Portland

Saturday, May 18, 3pm at NATIONALE, Fonograf Editions presents a record release celebration for Shannon Ebner’s STRAY: A Graphic Tone. Ebner’s project collates poems by Susan Howe and Nathaniel Mackey, exploring the experiments and politics of poetic form. Portland poets John Beer and Endi Bogue Hartigan will each read from Howe’s and/or Mackey’s works as well as from their own. Additional reader(s) TBA. Nationale (est. 2008) is an art space dedicated to the promotion of culture through exhibitions, performances, and a small selection of various publications. Located at 3360 SE Division, Portland, OR. John Beer is the author of Lucinda & The Waste Land and Other Poems, and the editor of Poems (1962-1997) by Robert Lax. He teaches at Portland State University. Endi Bogue Hartigan…

Free

Wordlights: Saturday Poetry Evenings

Rocking Frog Cafe 2511 SE Belmont St, Portland

Wordlights Saturday poetry evenings presented by Nova PDX, Rocking Frog Cafe and hosted by Igor Brezhnev. On Saturday May 18th, we'll have a feature from Julia Gaskill and a long set poetry open mic! OUR FEATURE: Julia Gaskill is a professional daydreamer hailing from Portland, Oregon. When she’s not hosting Slamlandia, she can be found performing on the Portland Poetry Slam stage, exploring the Pacific Northwest, or walking your dog. Julia has competed in IWPS, WOWPS, and NPS throughout 2016 - 2018, and she was the Portland Poetry Slam rep at WOWPS 2018 in Dallas, TX. Her work has been featured on FreezeRay Poetry, Ink&Nebula, Slam Find, Write About Now, Rising Phoenix Review, and Voicemail Poems. It goes without saying that she loves Muppets more…

Free

Amena Brown LIVE: An Evening of Poetry, Music, and Storytelling

Sunnyside United Methodist Church 3520 SE Yamhill Street, Portland

Music, poetry, and storytelling vibrantly infused with laughter, lament, and dance. Amena Brown and her husband DJ Opdiggy are bringing their unique style of music, poetry and event curation to Portland, Oregon in partnership with UMC NW! Spoken word poet and author, Amena Brown, will perform a night of poetry and storytelling, including a reading from her latest non-fiction book, How to Fix a Broken Record. DJ Opdiggy will spin amazing tunes which may even cause a dance party after the show. From learning to love her big feet and natural hair, to bad dating stories and learning how to properly adult, Amena's performance will speak of home, surrender and searching for the groove while leaving the audience room to laugh, lament, and dance as…

$5 – $25

Filament’s May Reading

Mother Foucault's Bookshop 523 SE Morrison St, Portland

Join us at Mother Foucault's for our last official Filament reading of the year! We'll have food, drinks, and really wonderful writing from students in the MFA program. See you on the 18th!

Free

Michael Pollan

Keller Auditorium 222 SW Clay St, Portland

The ARK Series presents author Michael Pollan in conversation with Nick Powers, PhD at the Portland'5 Keller Auditorium on Saturday, May 18, 2019 at 8pm. For the past 25 years, Michael Pollan, author of five New York Times bestsellers (including The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore’s Dilemma), has been writing about the places where nature and culture intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and, now, in the plants and fungi humans use to alter consciousness. Pollan’s unique and elegant blend of science, history, travel writing, and first person reportage has inspired millions of readers to look at familiar experiences in a whole new light while sparking vital national conversations about our relationship to the natural world. In a talk based on…

$45 – $150