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!

Daisy Hernández in Conversation With Amy Stewart

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Growing up in a New Jersey factory town in the 1980s, Daisy Hernández believed that her aunt had become deathly ill from eating an apple. No one in her family, in either the United States or Colombia, spoke of infectious diseases, and even into her thirties, she only knew that her aunt had died of a rare illness called Chagas. But as Hernández dug deeper, she discovered that Chagas — or the kissing bug disease — is more prevalent in the United States than the Zika virus. Today, more than 300,000 Americans have Chagas. Why do some infectious diseases make headlines and others fall by the wayside? After her aunt’s death, Hernández begins searching for answers about who our nation chooses to take care of…

Free

This Is Not for You: An Activist’s Journey of Resistance and Resiliance, by Richard Brown, with Brian Benson

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This Is Not For You, published by Oregon State University Press, tells the story of activist and photographer Richard Brown, a Black Portlander who has spent decades working to bridge the divide between police and the Black community. We are excited to welcome Richard Brown to our virtual stage on Wednesday, June 16th, at 6 pm, to discuss his book, which he wrote with Portland author Brian Benson. The two authors will be in conversation with our very own Eloise Doubleday. As Mr. Brown approaches his eightieth birthday, he recalls his childhood in 1940s Harlem, his radicalization in the newly desegregated Air Force, and his decades of activism in one of America's whitest cities. He questions how much longer he'll do this work, and he…

Free

Livestream Reading: Megan Galbraith with Liz Prato

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes author Megan Galbraith for a livestream reading from The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child's Memory Book. She will be in conversation with Portland author Liz Prato, whose latest book is Volcanoes, Palm Trees & Privilege: Essays on Hawai'i. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEufumpqjoqHtSkzzUVZXRHo13aHi9p3XAZ About The Guild of the Infant Saviour: Shortly before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, adoptee Megan Culhane Galbraith was born in a Catholic charity hospital in New York City to a teenaged resident of the Guild of the Infant Saviour, a home for unwed mothers. Decades later, on the eve of becoming a mother herself, she would travel to the former guild site; to her birth mother’s home in Scotland; and to Cornell University, where she discovered the startling history…

Free

Writers in the Schools End of Year Celebration

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join Writers in the Schools classroom teachers and writers-in-residence in celebrating the culmination of an incredibly challenging and fruitful 2020-21 school year filled with moments of creativity and community-building. Writers and teachers will take to the mic to share their own words and stories including WITS writers Alex Behr, Ed Edmo, Matt Smith, and Jennifer Perrine, Director of Youth Programs, Emilly Prado, and many more. Hosted by Jules Ohman, WITS Program Specialist. Alex Behr is a writer and editor based in Portland, Oregon. After receiving an MFA in creative writing from Portland State, she’s taught fiction and creative nonfiction at Portland high schools through Writers in the Schools residencies. Her writing has appeared in many online and print publications, including Bitch, Mutha, Propeller, Nailed, Salon, and Tin House. Her debut…

Free

Writing with our Ancestors, with Chelsea Hicks — begins

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

WHAT: A four-week generative online collaboration WHEN: Begins Friday, June 18th, 2021. This class is hosted on our rich interactive online platform, WetInk. The class is broken into four weeks, and within those weeks you go at your own pace. In addition, Chelsea will host five weekly Zoom session on Fridays from 4-5pm PST. The final Zoom session will be a group reading/celebration. (Zoom dates: 6/18, 6/25, 7/2, 7/9, 7/16) ACCESS: While able to be purchased directly from this site at our standard rate of $350, this offering is available at a sliding scale rate to anyone who inquires. Please reach out to Daniel Elder at registration@corporealwriting.com. Payment plans are also available. In Chiapas and Oaxaca, writers center Indigenous literature with translation across languages, sometimes…

$350

June BIPOC writer workshop

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

For BIPOC writers Searching for a space to create new work with fellow BIPOC writers? This two-hour workshop meets on Zoom. A variety of prompts will be presented as avenues for generating and sharing new work in an informal setting. Open to BIPOC writers at all levels writing in poetry, fiction, or nonfiction. Scholarships are available. Contact Susan Moore at susan@literary-arts.org for more information. Jacqueline Fitzgerald is an educator, coach, writer, and musician who believes that creation is a catalyst for transformation. Working at the cross-section of art, healing, and change work, Jacqueline has a passion for stories and their ability to cultivate belonging. Her writing has been published in the Oregonian, The Learning Network of the New York Times, and Beacon Magazine. Currently, she…

$15

Third Eye Books Grand Opening – Special Appearance by Author Tianna Bartoletta

Third Eye Books 2518 SE 33rd Ave, Portland, OR, United States

Welcome to our new location! Join us for our Grand Opening & Ribbon Cutting Celebration Who is Tianna Bartoletta? Born Tianna Madison in Elyria, Ohio she’s the daughter of Robert and Jo Ann Madison (Martial Artist, and Dancer respectively). She’s the middle child her older sister Adrianne is a nurse, her younger sister Christina a world renowned oil-painter both of whom were track athletes. On the surface Tianna’s an American track and field athlete who specializes in the long jump and short sprinting events. She’s got nine global championship medals. Three Olympic gold medals. Three World Championship Gold Medals. Three World Championship Bronze Medals. Truth is though, that’s what Tianna does…it’s not who she is. Not even close. Survive and Advance is her memoir. It’s…

Free

Kai Bird in Conversation With T. J. Stiles

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter (Crown) is an essential reevaluation of the complex triumphs and tragedies of Jimmy Carter’s presidential legacy — from the expert biographer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Prometheus. Four decades after Ronald Reagan’s landslide win in 1980, Jimmy Carter’s one-term presidency is often labeled a failure; indeed, many Americans view Carter as the only ex-president to have used the White House as a stepping-stone to greater achievements. But in retrospect the Carter political odyssey is a rich and human story, marked by both formidable accomplishments and painful political adversity. Forty years before today’s broad public reckoning with the vast gulf between America’s creed and its actions, Carter looked out over a nation torn by race, crippled by…

Free

“George Venn: The Literary Lion of La Grande” Film and Q&A

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

‘George Venn : The Literary Lion of La Grande’ explores George Venn’s upbringing, his environmental work, writing process and legacy all while showcasing La Grande, Oregon as the beautiful backdrop for several poetry readings. Following the viewing of the short film will be a Q&A with filmmaker Erik Schultz from Paper Flames and George Venn. Click here to register for this event in advance. Poet, writer, literary historian, editor, linguist, and educator, George Venn (1943) is an eclectic, complex, and distinguished figure in western American literature. As one university press editor described him, "Venn’s blend of creativity and scholarship is unique...." Venn enhanced that description in the 2005 Contemporary Authors: "Politics: Independent. Religion: Ecumenist; mystic; no literalistic ethnocentric orthodoxy; everything universal." His distinguished and eclectic…

Free

Write Around Portland: Bi-Monthly BIPOC Online Writing Workshop

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

For people who identify as Black, Indigenous or People of Color (BIPOC). 2nd & 4th Friday of every month from 4 to 5:30 pm (Pacific Time), Free. (No workshop 12/25.) Workshops are held via Zoom. Pre-registration is required. Registration opens the 1st of the month every month. Pre-register for our 2nd Friday workshop here. Pre-register for our 4th Friday workshop here. Click here for more workshop details.

Free