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!

Joanna Rose in Conversation With Susan Leslie Moore

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

How does a librarian from New Jersey end up in a convenience store on Vancouver Island in the middle of the night, playing Bible Scrabble with a Korean physicist and a drunk priest? She gets married to the wrong man for starters — she didn't know he was "that kind of Catholic" — and ends up in St. Cloud, Minnesota. She gets a job in a New Age bookstore, wanders toward Buddhism without realizing it, and acquires a dog. Things get complicated after that. Pattianne Anthony is less a thinker than a dreamer, and she finds out the hard way that she doesn't want a husband, much less a baby, and that getting out of a marriage is a lot harder than getting into it,…

Free

Fall 2020: Nine-Month Novel Intensive

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This course for dedicated writers is designed to guide you through the writing and/or revising of your novel. It begins in September, with the goal of completing a draft of a novel, or rewriting a draft of a novel, by May. You’ll read excerpts from published novels by authors including Han Kang, Tommy Orange, Lina Meruane, Mitchell S. Jackson, Deborah Levy, and Susan Steinberg, as well as craft essays by authors including Dorothy Allison, Jane Alison, and Alexander Chee. Some weeks you’ll have craft assignments to complete outside of class, and other weeks we’ll do in-class exercises together. After the first month of meetings, two students will workshop each week. Though it is not a prerequisite, students who have taken “Writing a Novel in 8…

$1200

Page Turner Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The Books Around the Corner Page Turner Book Club is led by the owner/librarian, Stephanie Rose, and meets monthly on the third Thursday of every month at 6PM. We would like to extend an invitation to all of our mystery and thriller loving customers (RSVP is not required). Our book discussions aim to bring people together to talk about books in a safe and inviting atmosphere. Our meetings are lovely and inclusive; we invite you to attend. Come and enjoy a lively discussion about the chosen book with other readers. Join us on September 17th for our next Page Turner Book Club. We will discuss The Whisper Man by Alex North. In this dark, suspenseful thriller, Alex North weaves a multi-generational tale of a father…

Free

Fall 2020: Nine-Month Novel Intensive: Section 2

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This is the Thursday night section of the Nine Month Novel Intensive. We’ve added a second section! This course for dedicated writers is designed to guide you through the writing and/or revising of your novel. It begins in September, with the goal of completing a draft of a novel, or rewriting a draft of a novel, by May. You’ll read excerpts from published novels by authors including Han Kang, Tommy Orange, Lina Meruane, Mitchell S. Jackson, Deborah Levy, and Susan Steinberg, as well as craft essays by authors including Dorothy Allison, Jane Alison, and Alexander Chee. Some weeks you’ll have craft assignments to complete outside of class, and other weeks we’ll do in-class exercises together. After the first month of meetings, two students will workshop…

$1200

Livestream Reading: Elena Taylor, Baron Birtcher, Kathleen Valenti

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes Northwest mystery authors Elena Taylor, Baron Birtcher, and Kathleen Valenti for a livestream reading from their new novels. Resgister here: In Washington author Elena Taylor's novel All We Buried, interim sheriff Elizabeth "Bet" Rivers has always had one repeat nightmare: a shadowy figure throwing a suspicious object into her hometown lake in Collier, Washington. Then the report arrives. In the woods of the Cascade mountain range, right in her jurisdiction, a body floats to the surface of Lake Collier. The more she learns the tragic history of Collier, the more Bet realizes she doesn't know the townspeople as well as she thought, and nothing can prepare her for what she is about to discover. Portland author Baron Birtcher's Fistful of Rain is…

Free

Kim Johnson & Ibi Zoboi

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Every week, 17-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time — her dad has only 267 days left. Then the unthinkable happens. The police arrive in the night, and Tracy’s older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a “thug” on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike. But will Tracy and her family survive the uncovering of the skeletons of their Texas town’s racist history that still haunt the present? Kim Johnson’s This Is My America (Random House)…

Free

FALL Online: The Speed of Language: Introduction to Fiction Workshop w Thea Chacamaty

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The mechanics of a great short story work in lockstep with exciting, vivid language. How often have we immersed ourselves in a gorgeously rendered landscape while reading, the description igniting each of our five senses? Or in the opening of a scene found ourselves moving from a subway platform into the heart of a forest, all in the space of one paragraph? In this generative workshop we will introduce ourselves to the short-short story, with a focus on sharpening our use of language. The end goal is to write your own piece of very short fiction by the end of the class, or even just the beginning of that story you’ve always wanted to tell. NOTE: To protect everyone during the COVID-19 pandemic, we're offering our…

$65 – $83

Natalie Bakopoulos with Valerie Laken – A Virtual Event

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Bakopolous chats about her captivating, transporting novel that's been named a Best Summer Read by The Daily Beast and Alma, which calls it "A novel where you can practically taste summer on its pages... a magnetic story." Bakopolous will be in conversation with Valerie Laken, Associate Professor of English at UWM. Register for this Zoom event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAvde-trjMrGde8lD8tmGlAB1a16pmEaBJU And purchase you copy of Scorpionfish for 10% off list price here: https://www.boswellbooks.com/book/9781947793750

Free

Delve Readers Seminar Online Fall 2020: Fairytales Retold

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

When exactly is “once upon a time,” what does it mean to live “happily ever after,” and how do these tropes from childhood storybooks find their way into so much contemporary literature and film? These traditional frames for fairytales are just one of the aspects we’ll study in this Delve; we will examine other aspects of structure, characters, and motifs of folktales, both in collected oral tales and literary retellings of those same tales over time, into the current day. We will analyze these stories in various contexts to discover their shifting messages, paying close attention to how they have been used for enculturation, and how their historical values linger today. We will explore the roles of teller and audience, asking how societal norms are…

$230

Kim Johnson in Conversation with Black Cultural Library Advocates

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Kim Johnson's debut novel, This Is My America, has been described as a cross between The Hate U Give and Just Mercy. Join Carla Davis and Ebonee Bell, members of Multnomah County Library’s Black Cultural Library Advocates team, as they chat with Ms. Johnson about first novels, love triangles, and how teens and young adults can advance antiracism and social justice. More about the book: This Is My America tells the story of 17-year-old Tracy Beaumont, who is in a race against time to prove her imprisoned father's innocence and save him from death row. Then the unthinkable happens and the police accuse Tracy's talented older brother, Jamal, of a horrible crime. Register for event via Zoom: https://multco-us.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwrceyupzsuHtPs75wBd5COqAEidcutsXms

Free