A resource for the PDX literary community. Produced by Old Pal.
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!
The Independent Publishing Resource Center hosts as cool zinesters read their new work. The Independent Publishing Resource Center will host a live zine reading during #virtualpzs2021. The line-up is yet to be announced but the IPRC is very cool, and we are very excited for this event.
Live on Crowdcast! Joshilyn Jackson, Mother May I, in conversation with Samantha Downing, For Your Own Good IF YOU WANT TO ATTEND AND REQUIRE SHIPPING PLEASE EMAIL US AND WE'LL EXPLAIN THE PROCESS. ORDER AND PREORDER ON OUR WEBSITE NOW! MOTHER MAY I Revenge doesn't wait for permission. Growing up poor in rural Georgia, Bree Cabbat was warned that the world was a dark and scary place. Bree rejected that fearful outlook, and life has proved her right. Having married into a family with wealth, power, and connections, Bree now has all a woman could ever dream of. Until the day she awakens and sees someone peering into her bedroom window--an old gray-haired woman dressed all in black who vanishes as quickly as she appears.…
For July we will be reading A Gypsy's Book of Revelation by Cécile Barlier https://www.tworiversbooks.com/book/9781888996876 "A Gypsy’s Book of Revelation is a collection of stories with an astonishing range of styles and subject matters. A woman visits her cremation from inside the body of her dead self, a competitive couple trains as free-divers, a mother leaves her son behind on top of a mountain, a very pregnant woman experiences a peculiar relationship with a priest-to-be: these stories are full of surprising experimentation that strikes a deeply compelling balance between the real and the bizarre. Embodying unusual premises and worlds, these stories are also fearlessly nontraditional in their structure and approach. These voices haunt, tease, and dare while never providing fully fledged answers. Each story is…
Karolina Waclawiak’s breakout novel, Life Events (Picador), follows Evelyn, who, at 37, is on the verge of divorce and anxiously dreading the death of everyone she loves. She combats her existential crisis by avoiding her husband and aimlessly driving along the freeways of California looking for an escape — one that eventually comes when she discovers a collective of “exit guides.” Evelyn enrolls in their training course, where she learns to provide companionship and a final exit for terminally ill patients seeking a conscious departure. She meets Daphne, a dying woman still full of life; Lawrence, an aging porn king; and Daniel, who seems too young to die and whom Evelyn falls for, despite knowing better, not to mention the exit guide code. Each client…
A family returns to their hometown — and to the dark past that haunts them still — in The Book of Accidents (Del Rey), a new masterpiece of literary horror by Chuck Wendig, bestselling author of Wanderers. Long ago, Nathan Graves lived in a house in the country with his abusive father — and has never told his family what happened in that house. Long ago, Maddie Graves was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t — and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures. Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania. Now Nate and Maddie are married,…
Our Summer 2021 reading period is open until July 31st. We accept defamiliarized works in the following general categories: Short: tell us a story in 3,000 words or less; we are interested in fiction, creative nonfiction, self-contained excerpts, and genre-bending forms. Flash: a fiction, creative nonfiction, or genre-bending story under 500 words. Poetry: share one or more poems, prose poems, or multimedia works for a combined count of 500 words or less. Six Words: a story in six words; you may share up to five stories per submission, but only one will be chosen. Baring the Device: essays about defamiliarization—or defamiliarized essays about storytelling, literary craft, or publishing—for our Baring the Device column and resources; click here to learn more. The Gravity of the Thing publishes work on a rolling basis throughout its quarterly reading periods. A majority of submissions…
A sentient, murderous prosthetic leg; shadowy creatures lurking behind a shimmering wall; brutal barrow men — of all the terrors that populate The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell (Coffee House), perhaps the most alarming are the beings who decimated the habitable Earth: humans. In his new short story collection, Brian Evenson envisions a chilling future beyond the Anthropocene that forces excruciating decisions about survival and self-sacrifice in the face of toxic air and a natural world torn between revenge and regeneration. Combining psychological and ecological horror, each tale thrums with Evenson’s award-winning literary craftsmanship, dark humor, and thrilling suspense. Evenson will be joined in conversation by Matt Bell, author of Appleseed and In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods. Register…
*IPRC Workshops will take place via Zoom through Summer 2021 Taught by MK Chavez Meets: Tuesdays, 6-8pm July 13th – Aug. 3rd $45 – 90 sliding scale Capacity: 15 4 no-cost spots available, BIPOC prioritized; reach out to hquinn@iprc.org to inquire Register here and zoom link will be sent on the day of the workshop Workshop Description: This 4-week workshop will explore writing that lives in a liminal space. There are many benefits in hybrid writing, including providing writers with opportunities to explore and expand writing practices, especially for those of us who are writing to make the invisible visible. To enter a space of generative writing without preconceived notions of form and genre creates a landscape of possibilities that supports us to take risks…
We've selected our next book! On August 3, we'll be discussing Raybearer! From the Publisher: Nothing is more important than loyalty. But what if you've sworn to protect the one you were born to destroy? Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince's Council of 11. If she’s picked, she'll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The…
Two theater icons meet in the afterlife. Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward, one pilloried for being gay and the other the ultimate symbol of cool sophistication. Hear what they have to say on all manner of things, scandal, play writing, coming out. This one-act play is definitely not in hell, but maybe in heaven, maybe in purgatory. At 7 pm Pacific Time, please join us using this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83860730981?pwd=YzRDd0xNUmNOYngxa3BTUUE4K1RRUT09 Meeting ID: 838 6073 0981 Passcode: 725789 One tap mobile +16699006833,,83860730981#,,,,*725789# US (San Jose) Dial by your location +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcAo2emuE NOTE: When our readings are conducted as virtual sessions, readers usually have been pre-cast by the playwrights. Fellow writers, actors and listeners are warmly invited to participate…