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!

Write Around Portland: Bi-Weekly Online Writing Workshop

Online N/A, Portland

Writing is often thought of as something done in isolation; we know there is immense power when writing is done in community. Join us for 90 minutes of creativity and community-building, with generative writing exercises, sharing and strengths-based feedback. Our workshop model, refined over 22 years, is proven for people of all writing levels: from the budding writer to the published author. Workshops are held via Zoom. Weekly registration opens 5 days before each session and closes one hour before the workshop. Click here for more info. Mondays from 3 to 4:30 pm (Pacific Time) Sliding Scale Registration $5-$30. Register here. $0 registration available for past Write Around Portland participants at a social service agency and people experiencing financial hardship. Register here. Thursdays from 11 am to…

$5 – $30

Reading of the Names

Online N/A, Portland

Every year on Yom HaShoah, the Day of Remembrance, communities around the world uphold the memory of victims of the Holocaust through the Reading of the Names, a public recitation of Holocaust victims’ names, ages, and birthplaces. The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education will once again sponsor the Reading of the Names. While the event is normally held at Pioneer Courthouse Square, this year a selection of community members, elected officials, and Holocaust survivors will be reading at the Oregon Holocaust Memorial in Washington Park and the names read will be those written on the Memorial, which recognizes the lost families and friends of local Holocaust survivors. The Reading of the Names will be a virtual event and will be recorded. “The…

Free

Dawnie Walton in Conversation With Nadia Owusu

Online N/A, Portland

Opal is a fiercely independent young woman pushing against the grain in her style and attitude, Afro-punk before that term existed. Coming of age in Detroit, she can’t imagine settling for a 9-to-5 job — despite her unusual looks, Opal believes she can be a star. So when the aspiring British singer/songwriter Neville Charles discovers her at a bar’s amateur night, she takes him up on his offer to make rock music together for the fledgling Rivington Records. In early 1970s New York City, just as she’s finding her niche as part of a flamboyant and funky creative scene, a rival band signed to her label brandishes a Confederate flag at a promotional concert. Opal’s bold protest and the violence that ensues set off a…

Free

Books Around the Corner: Virtual Author Visit with Sarah Penner

Online N/A, Portland

Join us a half an hour before No Shelf Control Book Club for an interview with Sarah Penner, the author of The Lost Apothecary! We will discuss The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner. ABOUT THE BOOK: A forgotten history. A secret network of women. A legacy of poison and revenge. Welcome to The Lost Apothecary... Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary's fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries. Meanwhile…

$27.99

Everybody Reads 2021: Ross Gay

Online N/A, Portland

The selection for Multnomah County Library’s 19th annual community reading project, Everybody Reads, is acclaimed author and poet Ross Gay and his collection of essays, The Book of Delights. Each year, Literary Arts presents the culminating event of the program—an author lecture. This year, the event will be held virtually on Thursday, April 8, at 6:00 p.m (PDT) and will feature an approximately 30-minute talk from Ross Gay, followed by an approximately 40-minute interview with local bestselling author, Lidia Yuknavitch. We are pleased to offer free registration for community members suffering financial hardship, as well as a range of tickets rates, to ensure this event can be accessible to all. Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of…

Free – $100

Books Around the Corner: No Shelf Control Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland

Join us for our first No Shelf Control Book Club. This book club will feature books from a wide range of genres including contemporary fiction, young adult, mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, and more. We will meet second Thursdays. Our April meeting of the No Shelf Control Book Club will be on April 8th at 6:30pm. We will discuss The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner. About the Book: A forgotten history. A secret network of women. A legacy of poison and revenge. Welcome to The Lost Apothecary... Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against…

$27.99

Illuminated Manuscripts :: A decoration of story w/ Katie Collins-Guinn

Online N/A, Portland

WHAT: A five-week online collaboration where we’ll explore the beauty of decorated writings, and create our own versions. WITH: Katie Collins-Guinn WHEN: Thursday, April 8th @6:30pm PT Wednesday, April 14th @6:30pm PT, Thursday, April 22nd @6:30pm PT, Thursday, April 29th @6:30pm PT & Thursday, May 6th @6:30pm PT. WHERE: ZOOM (But of course.) Meeting ID will be provided each morning of meet days. HOW MUCH: $230, with a capacity of twelve writers/artists. Payment plans are available, contact Daniel Elder at registration@corporealwriting.com SCHOLARSHIPS: Click here to apply. In this five week collaboration we will explore the histories and variations of this story-telling artform, while using what we discover as direct inspiration for our own versions. Historically, artists and scribes would create their own pigments, hides and…

$230

Virtual Event: Elle Marr, Author of Lies We Bury, In Conversation with Georgina Cross

Online N/A, Portland

Oregon author Elle Marr celebrates the release of her second book, LIES WE BURY - a psychological thriller set in Portland and drawing on the "twisted history, shadowy passages, and trap doors" of the Shanghai Tunnels under Portland's Chinatown. She is joined in conversation by Georgina Cross, author of The Stepdaughter. Elle Marr Originally from Sacramento, Elle Marr graduated from UC San Diego before moving to France, where she earned a master's degree from the Sorbonne University in Paris. She now lives and writes in Oregon, with her husband, son, and one very demanding feline. Her debut thriller, The Missing Sister, was the #24 Best Selling eBook of 2020 on Amazon, a #1 Amazon Best Seller, #1 in the Kindle Store, featured in Woman's World,…

Free

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Eileen Davis Elliott

Online N/A, Portland

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Eileen Davis Elliott Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige 7 pm Thursday, April 8 On Zoom $5 Suggested donation LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, PRO-SCIENCE, ANTI-FASCIST, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004 https://printedmattervancouver.com/2021/03/21/ghost-town-poetry-open-mic-on-zoom-featuring-eileen-davis-elliott-april-8-2021/ Please support Niche Wine Bar, whose owner, Leah Jackson, has provided a home for the reading series since 2015: https://nichewinebar.com Eileen Davis Elliott is a poet and visual artist from Vancouver, WA where she retired from a career in mental health. She has just released Pobrecitos, a collaborative work written by Eileen Davis Elliott and illustrated by Lily Engblom-Stryker and Ava Town, students from Vancouver School of Arts and Academics who shared and expanded the messages of the written work focusing on the marginalized from all over the…

Free – $5