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Jackie Shannon Hollis

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

Jackie Shannon Hollis in Conversation with Annilee Durfey Hyre We are pleased to welcome Portland author Jackie Shannon Hollis to read from her new memoir, This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story, published by Forest Avenue Press. Joining Hollis in conversation will be her niece, Annilee Durfey Hyer, to discuss the many ways of being a parent and mentor to the children in our lives. As a farm girl in eastern Oregon, feeding bottles to bummer lambs and babysitting her little sister, Hollis expected to become a mother someday. After a series of failed relationships, she met Bill, the man she wanted to spend her life with--a man who never wanted children. Saying “I do” meant saying “I don't” to a rite of passage her…

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Free

Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now

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

With luminous insight and fervent prose, Andre Perry’s debut collection of personal essays, Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now (Two Dollar Radio), travels from Washington, DC, to Iowa City to Hong Kong in search of both individual and national identity. While displaying tenderness and a disarming honesty, Perry catalogs racial degradations committed on the campuses of elite universities and liberal bastions while coming of age in America. Perry’s essays take the form of personal reflection, multiple choice questions, screenplays, and imagined talk-show conversations, while traversing the daily minefields of childhood schoolyards and Midwestern dive bars. The impression of Perry’s personal journey is arresting and beguiling, announcing his arrival as a formidable American voice.

Free

15th Annual Gus and Libby Solomon Memorial Lecture

PSU - Smith Memorial Student Union 1825 SW Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for the 15th Annual Solomon Memorial Lecture with guest speaker Eddy Portnoy, author of Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press. Eddy Portnoy has an MA in Yiddish from Columbia University and received his Ph.D from the Jewish Theological Seminary. A specialist in Jewish popular culture, he has published in numerous academic journals and also in The Forward and in Tablet Magazine. He currently serves as Senior Researcher and Director of Exhibitions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. An underground history of downwardly mobile Jews, Bad Rabbi and Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press mines century-old Yiddish newspapers to expose the seamy underbelly of pre-WWII New York and Warsaw, the two major centers of…

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Free

Fundraiser: Physician storytelling night!!

Mother Foucault's Bookshop 523 SE Morrison St, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for a physician storytelling night as five Portland pediatricians share vignettes of the funny, crazy, moving, devastating and weird things we see as we care for children. We are raising funds for an online pediatrician storytelling library, Reflections on Rosebuds. Suggested donation $10.

Free – $10

The History of African Storytelling

Central Library - U.S. Bank Room 801 SW 10th Avenue, Portland, OR, United States

Explore the history of traditional African storytelling and explore the moral lessons behind the stories. Come together with other African American children, families. and elders to share the history of your families. This event will include an open mic for families to share their stories, history, songs and poetry and a kids craft table. Participants are encouraged to bring a photo of their family and those who identify as part of the African diaspora are encouraged to wear African attire.

Free

Melissa Febos Reading

The Corporeal Writing Center 510 SW 3rd Ave #101, Portland, OR, United States

Join us at Corporeal Writing for a phenomenal reading with Melissa Febos. Doors open at 6pm. Reading begins at 6:30pm Stay and mingle for a bit and book signings afterward until 7:30pm. Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir, Whip Smart (St. Martin’s Press 2010), and the essay collection, Abandon Me (Bloomsbury 2017), which was a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist, a Publishing Triangle Award finalist, an Indie Next Pick, and was widely named a Best Book of 2017. Her third book, Girlhood, is forthcoming in 2020. Febos is the inaugural winner of the Jeanne Córdova Nonfiction Award from LAMBDA Literary and the recipient of the 2017 Sarah Verdone Writing Award from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She has been awarded fellowships from the MacDowell…

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Free

Back Fence PDX: RUSSIAN ROULETTE

The Old Church Concert Hall 1422 SW 11th Ave, Portland, OR, United States

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2020 DOORS 7:00PM | SHOW 8:00PM |  18+ THE OLD CHURCH | 1422 SW 11th Ave FEATURING: CHRIS WILLIAMS December RUSSIAN ROULETTE Winner, Creator of Front Porch Sessions and The Turnout Storytelling Series at The Alberta Street Pub, Does a Spot-On Marlon Brando Impression (Heavier Marlon Brando), Has Never Drank Coffee Ever, Not Once, In His Life SHANNON BALCOM GRAVES 4-Time RUSSIAN ROULETTE Winner, HR Manager, Won a Prettiest Baby Contest as a Baby KIRSTEN KUPPENBENDER Past RUSSIAN ROULETTE Winner, Stand Up Comedian, Former Marathon Runner, Founder of Lez Stand Up, Extreme Jigsaw Puzzler ALEX DANG Writer, Storyteller at Head Start, Knows too Much About the Show Friends, Former Speech/Debate Champion SHAIN BRENDEN Named One of Portland Mercury's Undisputable Geniuses of Comedy, Hosts the Weekly Comedy show  DOUGH Wednesdays at Mississippi Pizza Pub, Named…

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$11 – $28

Once In A Blue Moon . . .

Clinton Street Theater 2522 SE Clinton St, Portland, OR, United States

Oddities, Rarities and Other Anomalies Once in a blue moon, an event may happen that sends us careening off into unexpected directions. Occurrences that flip the plans we’ve made upside down. Join storytellers Barbara Fankhauser, Mike Goss, Anne-Louise Sterry and John Wylder for an evening of stories of unexpected turns, oddities, peculiarities and rare, the out-of-time moments. How do they change gears? How do they re-frame? How do they survive? Come enjoy our once-in-a-blue-moon stories. Who knows, perhaps just listening to them might send you off in directions most unexpected, as well. Saturday,Feb. 1  in the Clinton Street Theater at 7:30 pm. Doors open at 7:00 pm. Tickets at the door: $20;Buy on-line and save. General Public: $15 / Guild Members and their Guests: $12…

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$12 – $20

Exploring the Lyric Essay

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

A flexible, hybrid form, the lyric essay employs techniques from poetry, nonfiction, and fiction to create a single work. In this workshop, we’ll experiment with lyric essay techniques and structures, read a variety of examples that employ these techniques, and craft our own lyric essays on subjects of our choosing. You will also learn revision techniques you can implement as you continue to work with your pieces after the class has ended. Miranda Schmidt‘s work has appeared in TriQuarterly, Orion, Catapult, Electric Literature, The Collagist, and other journals. She has taught creative writing at the Loft, the University of Washington, and Portland Community College. Miranda grew up in the midwest and now lives in Portland. They are currently at work on a novel about haunting and a series of lyric…

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$275

Reading: David Hedges: Prospects of Life After Birth

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

Prospects of Life After Birth: Memoir in Poetry and Prose chronicles the first 17 years in the life of Oregon poet David Hedges, from the high drama of his birth through one lively adventure after another. At six, he swings on a rope into the fiery blast from a locomotive's smokestack. At seven, he carries water for circus elephants and earns a reserved seat under the Big Top. At 10, he helps Sailor Jim build the "world's most fantastic hobo shack." At 11, he travels to St. Louis on the Portland Rose and is taken under the wing of Louis, a black waiter who shows him the "other side" of the train, the galley, in full swing. At 15, he leads a troop of 12-year-olds…

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Free
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