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!

Nonfiction

  1. Events
  2. Nonfiction

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

Longreads Club: The Underground Railroad of North Korea

Rose City Book Pub 1329 NE Fremont, Portland, OR, United States

For over two decades, a secret network has worked tirelessly to help thousands of refugees escape the world's worst dictatorship. This is the story of one desperate woman who risked her life to reach freedom, and of the complicated man who led the way. READ THE ARTICLE: https://www.gq.com/story/underground-railroad-of-north-korea Join the Longreads Club where we discuss a long-form article focused on global topics. No membership or registration required. Just read the article, show up, and join the discussion!

Free

A Deadly Wind: The 1962 Columbus Day Storm

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

John Dodge’s A Deadly Wind (Oregon State) is a detailed account of the most powerful windstorm in recorded history to strike the West Coast. The Columbus Day Storm of Oct. 12, 1962, was a freak of nature, with deadly winds topping 100 miles per hour. The storm killed dozens, injured hundreds, damaged more than 50,000 homes, and leveled enough timber to build one million homes. A Deadly Wind tells the story spiced with human drama, Cold War tension, and Pacific Northwest history.

Free

Green Buddhism: Practice and Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times

Powell's Books on Hawthorne 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR, United States

With species rapidly disappearing and global temperatures rising, there is more urgency than ever to act on the ecological crises we face. Leading Buddhist environmentalist Stephanie Kaza has spent her career exploring the intersection of religion and ecology. In Green Buddhism (Shambhala), she offers guidance on how people and communities can draw on Buddhist concepts and practices to live more sustainable lives on our one and only home. Kaza will also present Conversations With Trees (Shambhala), a collection of evocative meditations on the beauty, fragility, and resilience of trees.

Free

Garden+ Lecture Series: Balazs and Botond Bognar

Portland Japanese Garden 611 SW Kingston Ave, Portland, OR, United States

Balazs and Botond Bognar present a public lecture at the Garden to mark the launch of their new book, Kengo Kuma: Portland Japanese Garden (Rizzoli, 2019). Come join us on the Garden’s beautiful Overlook to hear the story of the creation of the Garden’s Cultural Village and the inspiration it took from Japan’s monzen-machi, the small settlements built in front of gates or shrines. The conversation will touch on the Japanese tradition of dwelling in harmony with nature, the Garden’s evolution into a world-renowned Japanese cultural organization, and the bold vision shared across the Pacific that moved the project forward to fruition. The evening will be a chance to learn firsthand about the elements and features in the Cultural Village and their ancient lineage in…

Continue readingGarden+ Lecture Series: Balazs and Botond Bognar
$15

The Socialist Manifesto

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

What, exactly, is socialism? And what would a socialist system in America look like? In The Socialist Manifesto (Basic), Bhaskar Sunkara explores socialism's history since the mid-1800s and presents a realistic vision for its future. The founder and editor of Jacobin magazine, Sunkara shows that socialism, though often seen primarily as an economic system, in fact offers the means to fight all forms of oppression, including racism and sexism.

Free

ANI DIFRANCO in Conversation With Cari Luna – SOLD OUT

Revolution Hall 1300 SE Stark St, Portland, OR, United States

Despite her rebellion against the music industry, Ani DiFranco became one of the most prolific indie artists — selling over 5.5 million albums and winning numerous awards, including a Grammy. In her new memoir, DiFranco shares the unconventional path that led her to become a music industry and activist trailblazer while maintaining an artistic integrity that has inspired and challenged many. In No Walls and the Recurring Dream, DiFranco’s prose is as incisive and poetic as her songs, combining hard-won wisdom and personal expression to convey the power of music, feminism, political activism, storytelling, philanthropy, entrepreneurship, and much more. Passionate and candid, DiFranco shares her inspiring and radical story — from being an emancipated minor sleeping in a Buffalo bus station, to releasing her first…

Continue readingANI DIFRANCO in Conversation With Cari Luna – SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT

A Dog Named Beautiful: A Marine, a Dog, and a Long Road Trip Home

Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd, Beaverton, OR, United States

When U.S. Marine Rob Kugler returned from war, he had not only given up years of his life in service to his country, but he had also lost a brother in the fighting. Lost in grief, Kugler found solace and relief in the one thing that never failed to put a smile on his face: his chocolate lab, Bella. But then Bella started to get sick. It was cancer, and the prognosis wasn’t good. Instead of waiting at home for the cancer to spread, Kugler and Bella packed their bags and hit the road. A Dog Named Beautiful (Flatiron) is the uplifting story of a Marine, his extraordinary dog, and the road trip of a lifetime.

Free

George Estreich

Broadway Books 1714 NE Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

Corvallis author George Estreich joins us to talk about his new book from MIT Press: Fables and Futures: Biotechnology, Disability, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves. The book explores how new biomedical technologies require us to imagine who counts as human and what it means to belong. From next-generation prenatal tests, to virtual children, to the genome-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9, new biotechnologies grant us unprecedented power to predict and shape future people. That power implies a question about belonging: which people, which variations, will we welcome? How will we square advances in biotechnology with the real but fragile gains for people with disabilities -- especially when their voices are all but absent from the conversation? The book explores the troubled territory where biotechnology and disability meet. Estreich, an…

Continue readingGeorge Estreich
Free

Westside Writing Group

Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd, Beaverton, OR, United States

A group for anyone writing nonfiction or memoir who would like company, support, and, most of all, accountability. Whether you’ve never written a word or you’re a published author, join us!

Free

Dead Precedents: How Hip-Hop Defines the Future

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

In Dead Precedents (Repeater), Roy Christopher traces the story of how hip-hop invented the 21st century. Emerging alongside cyberpunk in the 1980s, the hallmarks of hip-hop – allusion, self-reference, the use of new technologies, sampling, the cutting and splicing of language and sound – would come to define the culture of the new millennium. Dead Precedents is a counterculture history of the 20th century, showcasing hip-hop’s role in the creation of the world we now live in.

Free
Click a category label below to view the calendar with only events in that specific category.