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!

Author Mat Johnson on His Novel, Loving Day

PSU - Smith Memorial Student Union 1825 SW Broadway, Portland

Black Studies presents this talk by Mat Johnson, author of Loving Day, Pym, Drop, and other books, as part of its Black Bag Speakers Series.  Co-sponsored by the English Department. LOCATION:  SMSU 328/9 In an effort to develop a forum for people and organizations doing work that addresses issues related to the community of Black people in Portland, the Black Bag Speaker Series began in October of 2006. We have featured many key people and organizations speaking on important issues in Portland, including but not limited to former Oregon Senator Avel Gordly, Joann Hardesty from Oregon Action, and Dr. Joy Leary from PSU. Our series has focused on the following issues: race and sustainability, slavery, police violence, segregation and gentrification, education, the Black Panthers, & AIDS and health in Portland -…

Free

Books Around the Corner: Writers Group

Books Around the Corner 40 NW 2nd Street, Gresham

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!

Free

Portland Stories of Change

Castaway Portland 1900 NW 18th Avenue, Portland

Join us in celebration of our incredible Caldera Community at this year's Stories of Change! RSVP Here 2019 Portland Stories of Change Wednesday, November 6, 2019 Castaway Portland 1900 NW 18th Avenue, Portland, OR 97209   Cocktails & Art Exhibitions - 5:30 PM Dinner & Program - 6:00 PM   Please RSVP by October 1

$150

Comic reading with Jul Gordon

Floating World Comics 1223 Lloyd Center, Portland

German comics artist Jul Gordon is coming to Floating World for a special book reading and signing. She will read an excerpt from her new book, still in progress, Route Will Be Recalculated and from her book The Parc. She will bring her zines Contactcenter, Emigrant P., Do you tend to cry?, Flat Nr. 10, 001,  and her book Candie Coloured Clown. Jul Gordon, born 1982, studied illustration at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg, Germany, where she still lives. Besides her activities as a comics artist, she organizes readings and exhibitions and holds comic workshops for kids in a social center in Hamburg St. Pauli. She has recently exhibited her work at the Festival International de la Bande dessinée in Angouleme, France, at the…

Free

ONE PAGE Wednesday: November

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland

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! November's One Page Wednesday is hosted by Natalie Serber. November’s featured readers are Emilly Prado, Sallie Tisdale and Don Waters. The reading begins at 7:00. Doors open around 6:30 p.m. Potential readers can sign up to read and after the list is full, they can add their name to the fishbowl and Natalie will draw as many additional names to read as we have time for before 8:30 p.m. One Page =…

Free

Reading: Jackie Shannon Hollis: This Particular Happiness

Annie Bloom's Books 7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland

Annie Bloom's welcomes local author Jackie Shannon Hollis to read from her memoir, This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story. She'll be joined in conversation with her husband, Bill Hollis. Knowing where your scars come from doesn't make them go away. When Jackie Shannon Hollis marries Bill, a man who does not want children, she joyfully commits to a childless life. But soon after the wedding, she returns to the family ranch in rural Oregon and holds her newborn niece. Jackie falls deep into baby love and longing and begins to question her decision. As she navigates the overlapping roles of wife, daughter, aunt, sister, survivor, counselor, and friend, she explores what it really means to choose a different path. This Particular Happiness delves into…

Free

Nathan Langston: I Need You to Tell Me Everything

Mother Foucault's Bookshop 523 SE Morrison St, Portland

What Even is This? It’s a book. Or similar to a book. Johannes Gutenberg would have tripped out that this is what counts for a book now. A synopsis: This is a pseudo-surrealistic autobiography about childhood sexual abuse in a spiritual setting and a new therapeutic approach that puts the broken pieces back in place. Neuroscience, religion, philosophy, time distortion, shape-shifting, rock & roll, legal proceedings, the hope of achieving transcendence. About the Author Nathan Langston is a software designer living in Seattle. Once, he dressed up as a bar of soap to pass out coupons in Union Square, Manhattan. Once, he composed scores for an indie ballet company. Once, he wandered the passageways of the Alhambra in Spain and the Ellora Caves in India.…

Free

Heather Christle in Conversation With Zachary Schomburg

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

Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it. Honest, intelligent, rapturous, and surprising, Christle’s investigations look through a mosaic of science, history, and her own lived experience to find new ways of understanding life, loss, and mental illness. The Crying Book (Catapult) is a deeply personal tribute to the fascinating strangeness of tears and the unexpected resilience of joy. Christle will be joined in conversation by Zachary Schomburg, Octopus Books publisher and author of Pulver Maar.

Free