A resource for the PDX literary community. Produced by Old Pal.
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!
Join fellow writers the first Wednesday of the month for a friendly critique. The goal is to support one another with constructive feedback and participate in writing exercises. All experience levels welcome!
We are excited to announce our newest publication, Carlos Gonzalez’s ‘Gates of Plasma’. This 320 page opus weaves a kaleidoscope of narratives and characters into an astonishing dreamscape that examines human flaws and our quest for connection, oblivion and transcendence. Gonzalez, who also performs music as Russian Tsarlag, will be touring the US this summer. His tour brings him to Floating World on Wednesday, June 5th to celebrate the release of his new book. After the book signing Russian Tsarlag will play a show at Seizure Palace, with live music and video screenings. “If you’ve got a grievance with reality, I reckon you’re in the right place.” A semi-truck driver meets a mysterious woman while participating in a research study for a pharmaceutical corporation. Romance…
In If, Then, the residents of a sleepy mountain town are rocked by troubling visions of an alternate reality in this dazzling debut that combines family-driven suspense with inventive storytelling. The novel is set in the quiet haven of Clearing, Oregon, where four neighbors find their lives upended when they begin to see themselves in parallel realities: Ginny, a devoted surgeon whose work often takes precedence over her family; Ginny's husband, Mark, a wildlife scientist; Samara, a young woman desperately mourning the recent death of her mother and questioning why her father seems to be coping with such ease; and Cass, a brilliant scholar struggling with the demands of new motherhood. At first the visions are relatively benign, but they grow increasingly disturbing. When a…
Birds accompany us in our daily lives with their songs, flashes of bright color, and energetic activity. Even people who don’t consider themselves birders notice them; from urban wetlands to wilderness trails, we follow the sound of a distant twitter or song. Award-winning artist Molly Hashimoto captures birds through different media, from quick sketches with pen and wash to more carefully planned block prints. In Birds of the West (Skipstone), Hashimoto shares her range of artwork as a way to encourage readers, whether artists or not, to observe more closely the feathered friends around us. Through art and words, she explores specific Western habitats, providing the natural histories of birds typically found in each, as well as intimate personal encounters and inspiring passages from others.
Writers, escape the solitude of your desk. Readers, come hear great fresh work. Here is an opportunity to share or listen to one page of work in progress from talented Portland writers. Come with a single page of work and sign up to read – or come to listen and prepare to be inspired! Please, no reading from electronic devices. This month’s one page will be hosted by Natalie Serber
An unnamed Sri Lankan inmate has barricaded himself inside a prison computer lab in Dutchess County, New York. A riot rages outside, incited by a poem published in The Holding Pen, the house literary journal. This, our narrator’s final Editor’s Letter, is his confession. An official accounting of events, as they happened. As he awaits imminent and violent interruption, he takes us on a roller coaster ride of plot and language, determined to share his life story, and maybe answer a few questions. Smart, wry, and laugh-out-loud funny, Ryan Chapman’s Riots I Have Known (Simon & Schuster) is an utter gem – an electric, uproarious, and biting debut novel and an approachable send-up that packs a punch. Chapman will be joined in conversation by Justin…