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!

Intro to Risograph Printing

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

In this 4-hour introductory course, participants will learn the basics of risograph (riso) printing and will leave with an understanding of how to use this print technology to create zines, fliers, posters, or other printed matter. While this technology is not new, riso printing has recently become one of the most exciting developments in independent printing and publishing because of its cost-effectiveness for print runs between 25 and 1,000. Workshop participants will learn how to best maximize the many quirks of riso printing to achieve striking results. Participants are also encouraged to bring files of artwork that they’d like to print (files should be 100% grayscale, letter or tabloid size). For more information on riso printing and the modern riso resurgence, check out the riso wiki.…

$100 – $200

Kids’ Storytime With Sarah & Ian Hoffman

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

Today, authors Sarah and Ian Hoffman join us to read from their new picture book, Jacob’s Room to Choose (Magination Press). When Jacob goes to the boys’ bathroom, he is chased out for looking like a girl because of the way he is dressed. His classmate, Sophie, has a similar experience when she tries to go to the girls’ bathroom. When their teacher finds out what has happened, Jacob and Sophie, with the support of the administration, lead change at their school as everyone discovers the many forms of gender expression and how to treat each other with respect.

Free

Smith & Bybee Writing Workshop

Smith and Bybee Lakes Wetlands 4949 N Marine Drive, Portland

This is an accessible opportunity for people to spend some time connecting with nature and themselves through several writing exercises and a short walk. Trails are paved, and there is an accessible, gender-neutral bathroom available. More information about the space is available here: https://www.oregonmetro.gov/parks/smith-and-bybee-wetlands-natural-area We will be focusing on an embodied approach to writing practice (a fancy way of saying paying attention to your body and breath, and writing from that space). Participants are encouraged to write in whatever forms and genres feel good to them (prose, poetry, memoir, speculative fiction, you name it). Bring a writing utensil & something to write with*, water, and something to sit on that you're okay with getting dirty/potentially a little muddy (a picnic table cloth/rain poncho/something somewhat water-resistant…

Free

Humor and Gag Comics: A Miss Anthology Comics Workshop (all ages)

Marrow PDX 7025 N Lombard St, Portland

Jenny Vu from the Portland Mercury will be teaching Humor and Gag Comics this year! Like to draw? Like making jokes? Gag comics are for you! In this workshop we’ll focus on putting words and images together in a way that is funny and unique to you. All ages, free for youth, enrollment required* Saturday, August 10th, 1-4pm *Limited to 30 participants on a first come, first served basis. Enroll here: https://missanthology.wordpress.com/august-10th-with-jenny-vu/

Free

Recognizing & Honoring Life Transitions

N/A

We transition from the wet womb to open air, sucking in first breath. Relationships form. Some endure. Some end. Our sense of home and belonging shifts. What gives life meaning—school, career, family, beauty, creativity, service—ebbs and flows as we age. Our lives are full of transitions. Some weave in and out of our world seamlessly, going unrecognized until years later. Others create a temporary loss of balance. Then there are the transitions that leave you feeling like the GPS of your life has gone haywire. Taking time to recognize life transitions by naming them can offer relief, release, or an invitation to honor a part of your life journey that you may not have considered relevant. In this workshop, you’ll be introduced to the archetype…

$80

Author Event with Heather Redmond & Grave Expectations

Vintage Books 6613 E Mill Plain Blvd, Vancouver

Vintage Books invites you to join us August 10th at 2pm to celebrate Heather Redmond and her new release, GRAVE EXPECTATIONS. She will be discussing her books, doing a short reading, answering questions and a book signing. In this clever reimagining of Charles Dickens's life, he and fiance Kate Hogarth must solve the murder of a spinster wearing a wedding gown... This is a follow up to her popular first book in the A Dickens of a Crime series, A TALE OF TWO MURDERS. Heather Redmond lives in Clark County and her 2018 Heather Redmond debut, A Tale of Two Murders, has received a coveted starred review from Kirkus Reviews. This is a free event and all are welcome!

Free

Wordlights: Saturday Poetry Evenings

Rocking Frog Cafe 2511 SE Belmont St, Portland

Wordlights Saturday poetry evenings presented by NovaPDX, Rocking Frog Cafe and hosted by Igor Brezhnev. On Saturday, August 10th, we'll have a feature from Sabrina Benaim, mini-features from Stephen Meads & Angelica Burdette, and a short set poetry open mic! OUR FEATURE: Sabrina Benaim According to her thirteen year old cousin, Sabrina Benaim is a real poet. Further proof : she has millions of views of her work on YouTube & is the author of the best-selling poetry collection, Depression & Other Magic Tricks. You can find more information at facebook.com/sabrinabenaim.sb MINI-FEATURES FROM: Stephen Meads Stephen Meads, originally a Bay-based poet, has been living and performing in Portland for over six years. He has featured at slams all across the country - from Portland, Maine…

Free

The Book Burger Reading

Belmont Books 3415 SE Belmont St, Portland

On August 10th, a group of local authors across multiple genres invite you to spend the evening with them. It's an invite unlike many you'll come across, wherein we want you to meet us for a bite to eat at Nick's Famous Coney Island to celebrate the last day of Burger Week before a reading at Belmont Books. After each author reads for about ten minutes, we'll head over to Rendez Vous down the block for a cocktail or tea. What we want is a community of readers who get to know the authors, find new ones, and branch outside their favorite genre–if not just to tell a friend. Belmont Books is a lovely, if not smaller bookstore. That means you we may be at…

Free

Brandi Kruse ‘flat out’ Book Launch + Poetry Reading

Fuller Rosen Gallery 2505 SE 11th Ave Suite 106, Portland

Book launch + poetry reading August 10, 2019 from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM Pre-order a copy of flat out by Brandi Kruse from our gallery shop. Part of an ongoing consideration of immaterial and material intersections, Kruse’s work in flat out investigates imagined spaces, physical absence and how very few things are actually flat. Light, reflection, and memory are compressed and expanded into sculpture, poetry, and found objects. I flatten things every day: my face in mirror images, my body in the shadows, the world through photographs. I have flattened ideas by recording them on pages, in words made of letters, made of lines, shapes without form; seemingly non-dimensional. But they are not formless and they are not without dimension. Through this flattening and…

Free

Summer Park Readings 2019 Vol 2: Galvin, Strom, Chiem, Tobey

Irving Park 707 NE Fremont St, Portland

Nobody likes to go to readings indoors when it's so nice outside! So it's time to dust off the portable amp and mic and claim a spot under a tree at one of Portland's best parks. Future Tense Books presents another year of Summer Park Readings. Volume Two of this legendary series features Sarah Galvin (from Seattle, author of Ugly Time), Dao Strom (Author of You Will Always Be Someone From Somewhere Else), Richard Chiem (from Seattle, author of King of Joy), and Chrys Tobey (author of A Woman is a Woman is a Woman is a Woman). Bring a blanket, lawn chairs, snacks, bevs, puppies, friends, frisbees, and favorite shorts. It's all ages and free (though there will be books for sale). We might…

Free

The Mystery Box Show: Featuring Carol Queen and Amberly Rothfield

Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St, Portland

From vanilla to kinky, queer to straight, and everything in between, a night at The Mystery Box Show brings you tales of one-night stands, explorations into fetish, awkward first times, dark fantasies come true, and much much more. Storytellers have included bestselling authors, nationally touring comedians, adult film industry veterans, theatre professionals, sex toy experts, members from the kink community, students and people from all walks of life. Nothing here is too raw, too sweet, too strange, or too deep; it's all about the sex, and all about the story.

$22 – $57

Mind Meld

Le Salon Rouge SE 78th and Salmon, Portland

Live audiovisual incantation and performance spectacle. Joni Renee Whitworth, Xesxa Despentes, 7777777, Electric Meat Parade, Pat Janowski, The Legendary Mark Peter Savage

Free