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!

Tiana Clark, Vanessa Friedman & Shayla Lawson in Conversation With Katherine Morgan

Online N/A, Portland

In May 1962, Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl sent shockwaves through the United States, selling more than two million copies in three weeks. The future Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief’s book promoted the message that a woman’s needs, ambition, and success during her single years could actually take precedence over the search for a husband. While much of Brown’s advice is outdated and even offensive by today’s standards, her central message remains relevant. In their exceptional anthology, Sex and the Single Woman (Harper Perennial), editors Eliza Smith and Haley Swanson bring together insights from many of today’s leading feminist thinkers and writers to pay homage to Brown’s original work and reinterpret it for a new generation. These contributors provide a much-needed reckoning while addressing today’s…

Free

Forest Bathing and Writing: Hoyt Arboretum

Hoyt Arboretum 4000 SW Fairview Blvd., Portland

This class, held outdoors at Hoyt Arboretum, will guide you in practicing skills associated with shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing—a gentle, meditative approach to being with nature. The class will include several invitations to explore your senses and your relationship with nature, time for written reflection, and opportunities to share your observations and your writing, if you wish. In each class, you’ll learn approaches to writing and to being with nature that you can use in your everyday life to help promote a sense of relaxation, connection, and wonder. No prior experience with writing is required. All forest bathing and writing prompts may be practiced seated, standing, or walking, depending on your comfort, ability, and interest. Classes will be held rain or shine, so please dress…

$75

CANCELLED Mat Johnson in Conversation With Cari Luna

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

We are sorry to report that this event has been cancelled. When sociologist Nalini Jackson joins the SS Delany for the first manned mission to Jupiter, all she wants is a career opportunity: the chance to conduct the first field study of group dynamics on long-haul cryoships. But what she discovers instead is an entire city encased in a bubble on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. Even more unexpected, Nalini and the rest of the crew soon find themselves joining its captive population. New Roanoke is a city riven by wealth inequality and governed by a feckless, predatory elite, its economy run on heedless consumption and income inequality. But in other ways it's different from the cities we already know: It’s covered by an enormous…

Free

In-Store Reading: P. C. Cast: Into the Mist

Annie Bloom's Books 7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland

Annie Bloom's welcomes local author P. C. Cast for an in-store reading from her new novel, Into the Mist. A few reminders if you are planning to attend the event: Masks are required, and must be worn at all times. Social distancing is also required, and any photographs or selfies will have to be taken from a distance. Everyone must remain masked while indoors, including for photographs. Our current capacity is for 40 attendees. Seating is also limited, and this reading is first-come, first-served. If we reach capacity, you are welcome to order a copy of Into the Mist here, to be signed after the event, and either picked-up or mailed to you. Out of respect for the author and other attendees, our events have…

Free

2022 Tin House Summer Workshop Reading Series: Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Book Release for “The Man Who Could Move Clouds”

Reed College - Cerf Amphitheater 3203 Southeast Woodstock Boulevard, Portland

We are excited to once again be offering in-person readings as part of our 2022 Summer Workshop programming. Starting at 7:30 pm, these events will take place in Reed College’s Cerf Amphitheater and are free and open to the public. Faculty books will be available for purchase at the Reed Bookstore, with authors signing after the event. Masks are not required in the outdoor amphitheater. Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her first novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree was the silver medal winner in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and a New York Times editor's choice. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Buzzfeed, Nylon, and Guernica, among others. Rojas Contreras has received…

Free