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!

Submissions Open: Portland Review

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A new season is upon us! We open for submissions on September 18th. For over sixty years, Portland Review has published the works of emerging writers and artists alongside the works of well-established authors. We warmly encourage previously unpublished writers and artists to submit, and we aim to support work by those often marginalized in the artistic conversation, including (though certainly not limited to) people of color, women, disabled people, LGBTQIA people, and people with intersectional identities. Please note Portland Review does not accept previously published material. Portland Review accepts simultaneous submissions, but please immediately withdraw your work via Submittable if it is accepted elsewhere. If one work out of a collection of poems or images needs to be withdrawn but the other works in the collection are still available, message us via…

Free

FALL :: A (Virtual) Generative Creative Lab :: Exhausting Metaphor— begins September 18th

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Fall :: A Generative Creative Lab :: Exhausting Metaphor Collaboration Leader: Domi Shoemaker, alongside weekly videos featuring Domi and Lidia Yuknavitch in conversation When: Begins September 18th Where: Videos are hosted on our site—you’ll receive a link to one each week on Sundays, and then have access to them always. Domi will host a Zoom meeting every Monday from 5:30-7:30PM PST. Meeting dates: September 19th, September 26th, October 3rd & October 10th Cost: $250—payment plans are available. Please contact Daniel at registration@corporealwriting.com. Scholarships are also available—Apply Here. Seven years ago (!!!) Corporeal Writing hosted its first ever seasonal lab—and we started with Fall. It’s an exciting time for us all as we cozy back into this beautiful season ripe with metaphors. Color. Changes in light,…

$250

In-Store Reading: Marianne Monson: The Opera Sisters

Annie Bloom's Books 7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes back Oregon author Marianne Monson for an in-person reading from her new novel, The Opera Sisters. This in-store reading is first come, first served. Please be mindful of any store health policies that might be in effect on the night of the reading. Signed and personalized copies are available for order! Please, please, please include the name for personalization in the order notes; or indicate "signed only." About The Opera Sisters: Based on the true story of the Cook sisters, who smuggled valuables out of 1930s Nazi Germany to finance a daring, secret operation to help Jews find hope for a new life in England. British sisters Ida and Louise Cook enjoy their quiet, unassuming lives in south London. Ida writes romance…

Free

The Moth: StorySLAM: Outlaws

Holocene 1001 SE Morrison St, Portland, OR, United States

OUTLAWS: Gangsters to double parkers, prepare a five-minute story about a lawless moment from your life. Rebels with a cause, readers of banned books, questioners of authority. Entering The Restricted Section or The Forbidden Forest. Trespassers welcome! COVID Requirements: See Holocene's COVID Policy for details. We will not be selling any tickets at the door. This venue is 21+ *Seating is not guaranteed and is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please be sure to arrive at least 10 minutes before the show. Admission is not guaranteed for late arrivals. All sales final. Media Sponsors: OPB and Literary Arts

$15

Refuse the Given World: Breaking Blocks Through Play

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

“When I sit down and start writing, I feel the given world recede, and I can just play.” —Sam Lipsyte Remember when you were a little kid, playing on the floor for hours and hours? Our best writing days are often imbued with that same sense of timelessness, freedom, wonder, and escape—in other words, our work often works best when it feels like play. In this generative writing course, we will tap into a playful mindset—by using silly rules, obstructions, oblique strategies, games, dreams, ephemera, constraints, and more—to unlock problematic works and/or generate new material. You will leave this class with more than a dozen techniques for starting a new project, breaking a block, or working through something sticky in a piece of writing. This…

$285

Buzz Bissinger

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

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, college football was at the height of its popularity. As the nation geared up for total war, one branch of the service dominated the aspirations of college football stars: the United States Marine Corps. Which is why, on Christmas Eve of 1944, when the 4th and 29th Marine regiments found themselves in the middle of the Pacific Ocean training for what would be the bloodiest battle of the war — the invasion of Okinawa — their ranks included one of the greatest pools of football talent ever assembled: former All-Americans, captains from Wisconsin and Brown and Notre Dame, and nearly 20 men who were either drafted or would ultimately play in the NFL. When the trash-talking between the 4th…

Free

In-Store Reading: Michelle Ruiz Keil: Summer in the City of Roses

Annie Bloom's Books 7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes Portland author Michelle Ruiz Keil for a reading from the paperback release of her novel Summer in the City of Roses. About Summer in the City of Roses: Inspired by the Greek myth of Iphigenia and the Grimm fairy tale "Brother and Sister," Michelle Ruiz Keil's second novel follows two siblings torn apart and struggling to find each other in early '90s Portland. All her life, seventeen-year-old Iph has protected her sensitive younger brother, Orr. But this summer, with their mother gone at an artist residency, their father decides it’s time for fifteen-year-old Orr to toughen up at a wilderness boot camp. When their father brings Iph to a work gala in downtown Portland and breaks the news, Orr has already been…

Free

Exploring Fiction Narratives: How’d They Do That?

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

When was the last story you read that really changed you? Maybe you thought about it for days, weeks, you’ve re-read it over the years. And maybe you said to yourself, “I wish I could write like that. How’d they do that?” This course is all about the how. In this combination craft and workshop class, we will read and dissect the work of writers from different times and places and we’ll answer the question: how did they do that? What makes a story good? What makes it feel complete? What details will strengthen a story and enhance plot and which are unnecessary? How do writers use their words to evoke emotion, create setting and carry us through the story effectively and make a story—or…

$285

Candice Carty-Williams in Conversation With Leni Zumas

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

Candice Carty-Williams, the author of the “brazenly hilarious, tell-it-like-it-is first novel” (Oprah Daily) Queenie, returns with another witty and insightful novel about the power of family — even when they seem like strangers. If you could choose your family… you wouldn’t choose the Penningtons. Dimple Pennington knows of her half-siblings, but she doesn’t really know them. Five people who don’t have anything in common except for faint memories of being driven through Brixton in their dad’s gold jeep, and some pretty complex abandonment issues. Dimple has bigger things to think about. She’s 30, and her life isn’t really going anywhere. An aspiring lifestyle influencer with a terrible and wayward boyfriend, Dimple’s life has shrunk to the size of a phone screen. And despite a small…

Free

Submission Deadline: Pile Press 2022 Fall Submissions

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Submissions for our Fall Issue close on the first official day of Fall. Have you submitted yet? Pile Press accepts poetry, short fiction, CNF, art, photography, comics, and more. Pile Press is an alternative publishing collective for women, non-binary, and gender fluid creatives. You can find more information on their website here. Submission guidelines can be found here.

Free