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!

FALL Online: The Story is the Thing: Introduction to Short Fiction Workshop w Thea Chacamaty

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Reading a great short story can feel like travelling through time. We might meet our characters as babies in their cribs, and in the span of fifteen pages we’re sitting beside their deathbeds. In this generative workshop we will write a short story from beginning to end, masters of our own time machine. Works by Lucia Berlin, Alice Munro, Bryan Washington, Kristen Valdez Quade, and others will teach us craft elements that will guide us through our mission. We will also cover the art of revision and submitting to literary journals. NOTE: To protect everyone during the COVID-19 pandemic, we're offering our workshops via Zoom. All students must first sign up for a free Zoom account. Setting it up is easy. And we can help you with questions, if…

$215 – $242

Stephen Graham Jones & Jeremy Robert Johnson

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary , The Only Good Indians (Gallery/Saga Press) follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way. A tale of revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition, The Only Good Indians is the latest novel from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, Stephen Graham Jones. Turner Falls is a small tourist town nestled in the hills of western Oregon, the kind of town you escape to for a vacation. When…

Free

Writing White Fragility: An Editorial Discussion

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Brandon Taylor, author of Booker Prize finalist Real Life and senior editor of Recommended Reading, talks to Ross Feeler about “Parisian Honeymoon,” a story about a man who discovers that his new wife is a bigot. They will discuss their editing process, and how to write anti-racist stories with racist characters without being morally didactic. Q&A to follow.

$10

Alice Hoffman in Conversation With Ann Leary

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In an unforgettable novel that traces a centuries-old curse to its source, beloved author Alice Hoffman unveils the story of Maria Owens, accused of witchcraft in Salem, and matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic. Where does the story of the Owens bloodline begin? With Maria Owens, in the 1600s, when she’s abandoned in a snowy field in rural England as a baby. Under the care of Hannah Owens, Maria learns about the “Unnamed Arts.” Hannah recognizes that Maria has a gift and she teaches the girl all she knows. It is here that she learns her first important lesson: Always love someone who will love you back. When Maria is abandoned…

Free

Livestream Reading: Scott Nadelson: One of Us

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes Oregon author Scott Nadelson for a livestream reading from his new story collection, One of Us. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqcOGvqTIvEtWX4PuIh8_hMFqcDFZ5rNeP Signed copies will be available! The stories in Scott Nadelson's One Of Us explore the tension between groups and individuals, the allure of tribalism, the claustrophobia of belonging, and the alienation that comes with separation. They range from autobiographical to historical and roam temporally and geographically, chronicling, among others, an encounter between the sculptor Louise Nevelson and the anti-Semitic French writer Louis-Ferdinand C line; a synagogue congregation facing ongoing public scandal; a comedy improv troupe trying to cross the threshold from amateur to professional; and a young man navigating the competing pulls of adventure and domestic bliss at the cusp of the new…

Free

Swords Out: A Dungeons & Dragons Murder Mystery

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

John Darnielle (Wolf in White Van, Universal Harvester, the Mountain Goats), Leah Johnson (You Should See Me in a Crown), Daniel Lavery (Something That May Shock and Discredit You, The Merry Spinster, Slate’s Dear Prudence, The Toast), Amber Sparks (And I Do Not Forgive You, The Unfinished World), and R. Eric Thomas (Here for It, Elle magazine) join Dungeon Master Matt Lubchansky to play a classic tabletop role-playing game with a literary twist. If you’ve never played D&D before, don’t worry—most of our players haven’t either.

$10

Horror Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The Books Around the Corner Horror Book Club is led by the owner/librarian, Stephanie Rose, and meets monthly on the fourth Thursday of every month at 6PM. We would like to extend an invitation to all of our horror 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. Our October pick is Kill Creek by Scott Thomas and we will meet on October 22nd. About the book: At the end of a dark prairie road, nearly forgotten in the Kansas countryside, is the Finch House. For…

Free

Renee Gladman

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Born in Atlanta, poet, novelist, and publisher Renee Gladman composes prose and poetry that tests the potential of the sentence with mapmaking precision and curiosity. Author of the poetry collection A Picture-Feeling (2005), Gladman has also published several works of prose, including Event Factory (2010),The Activist (2003), Juice (2000), and Arlem (1994), and a monograph of drawings, Prose Architectures (2017). Her latest novel, Morelia, came out in 2019. Gladman has edited Leon Works, an experimental prose chapbook series, as well as the Leroy chapbook series. She lives in Massachusetts and teaches at Brown University. **Register here for the Renee Gladman reading. A link will be emailed shortly before the event.**

Free

Magical Feminism: An Editorial Discussion

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Electric Literature executive director Halimah Marcus talks to Marie-Helene Bertino (Parakeet, 2 a.m. at the Cat’s Pajamas, Safe as Houses) and Elissa Washuta (White Magic, My Body Is a Book of Rules, Shapes of Native Nonfiction) about coping with trauma and subverting expectations at the intersection of magic and reality. They will discuss how magic works in practice and as a rhetorical device in fiction. Q&A to follow.

$10

Roxane Gay, Tracy Lynne Oliver & Rebecca Kirby Ticketed Event

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In The Sacrifice of Darkness (Archaia), Roxane Gay, Tracy Lynne Oliver, and Rebecca Kirby adapt Gay’s New York Times bestselling short story, “We Are the Sacrifice of Darkness,” as a full-length graphic novel, expanding and further developing the unforgettable world where the sun no longer shines. “When I was a young girl, my husband’s father flew an air machine into the sun. Since then, the days have been dark, the nights bright.” Follow one woman’s powerful journey through this new landscape as she discovers love, family, and the true light in a world seemingly robbed of any. As she challenges notions of identity, guilt, and survival, she’ll find that no matter the darkness, there remains sources of hope that can pierce the veil. Please note:…

$24.99