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!
First Word is our new monthly reading series to be held the first Thursday of each month. Join us for a night of readings, talks, and tunes from the Portland zine distro and cassette tape label, Antiquated Future. Words from Joshua James Amberson, Karleigh Frisbie, Christopher Sutton, Danny Noonan, Candi Floss, and Bryce Canyon. Music from Olympia indie-pop supergroup Guidon Bear.
Part spoken-word poetry, part storytelling, part extreme athletic art performance. Michael Namkung’s one-man show Seeing The Invisible is a no-holds-barred love story that journeys through the emotional life of men with a rawness and vulnerability that will break your heart wide open and reveal the creative power that lives within us all. Join Michael as he invites the audience directly into the work in his debut presentation of Seeing The Invisible INTERACTIVE. …….. Michael Namkung is Bob Ross diguised as an Olympic athlete. Michael is a father, poet, artist and multiple world champion. He is best known for Drawing Gym, an art form that inspires audiences to transcend their personal limitations by drawing while performing rigorous physical exercise. He has spoken and performed in museums,…
Musicians, writers, poets, fans and friends will play music, read work/tributes and tell stories about the great American poet and songwriter David Berman (Purple Mountains, Silver Jews) on what should have been his 53rd birthday. A benefit for Moms Demand Action and Write Around PDX With… Stephen Malkmus Bob Nastanovich Rebecca Gates William Tyler Clay Cole Franklin Bruno Oed Ronne A Certain Smile and writers: Kevin Sampsell Chelsey Johnson Jon Raymond Mo Daviau Kjerstin Johnson Daniel Elder Sophia Shalmiyev Douglas Wolk (MC) & Special Guests presented by chickfactor
Hey, champ! Thanks for checking out Telltale. This is a monthly curated storytelling event for people that like to get vulnerable and take no shit. We are into genuine connection, laughter, heartbreak, poignant moments, and community building. We are now in our third season, and we are very excited for all the shows coming up this year. At Telltale, you can expect 8-10 performers sharing something with you, in the way that feels right to them--so there will be a mix of comedy, stories, music, essays, and more. Your evening will likely include honesty, swear words, enthusiasm, resistance, alcohol if that floats your boat, excellent pizza, dark humor, and some rad raffle prizes. You might make a new friend. You know how hard it is…
Portland’s second Winter Poetry Festival is a joyful gathering of poets and poetry lovers. Winter is a magical time where the beauty of language burns brightly in the darkness. The festival will feature a marketplace where you can support poets by buying from them directly, inspiring workshops for poets of all levels of experience, innovative performances and craft-talks from top-notch poets, a guest-screening from Seattle’s Cadence: Video Poetry Festival, and the “Poet’s Playground” an ephemeral pop-up of poetic challenges and collaborations. The Festival will be housed in the beautiful PNCA. ADA accessible. Centrally-located, near many major transit lines.
This exhibition is open during Central Library's hours of operation. Black history is far more than the Civil Rights era. In response to the racism that marginalized and harmed Black Portlanders, the Portland Black Panther Party formed its Portland Chapter in 1969. Their goal was to build equity for the oppressed in our city. This exhibition features artwork by Elijah Hasan and the HeArt Gallery that responds to the legacy of the Black Panthers' Ten-Point Program. Opening reception on Saturday, January 11, 3-5 pm. Explore the legacy of the Portland Black Panther Party through art, music and storytelling featuring Kent Ford. Light refreshments will be served.
This Saturday, January 11, poet and book artist MC Hyland will be in Portland and reading from her latest collection, THE END (Sidebrow 2019). She’ll be joined by New York artist and public practitioner Chloë Bass. MC Hyland is a poet, publisher, scholar, teacher, and public artist. Her poems have been published in journals in the US, UK, and Australia, and she is the author of two full-length books of poetry—THE END (Sidebrow, 2019) and NEVERAGAINLAND (Lowbrow/ H_NGM_N)—and a dozen poetry chapbooks and artist books. From 2009-2012, she ran the Pocket Lab Reading Series in Minneapolis with Jeff Peterson, and she now occasionally curates poetry readings in New York City with various friends. The founding editor of DoubleCross Press, she has worked at Minnesota Center…
Spec Script is ringing in the New Year in Portland on Sunday January 12th for another episode of tv written by someone who has never watched the show! This episode is going to be massive because we are doing Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Our writer for the bloodsucking 90s hit is PDX theatre superstar and Spec Script fave Heidi Hunter! Reading Heidi's script is another cast of excellent bbs! We have: Caitlin Nolan Jeremiah Coughlan Jamie Carbone Kara Morehart and more! The main part of Spec Script will be a table read of the script, but if you’ve been to a Spec Script before you know there’s more! That’s right, we got the best damn preshow in all of comedy! For the Spec Script Primo…
Every year we celebrate Edgar Allan Poe with a birthday party/roast that includes a variety of performances. This year is no exception. We're looking at bringing six new acts to you along with some surprises. Join us for a taste of the macabre like only Portland can provide! Sally K. Lehman Melissa Lynne Katie Doyle Tim Stapleton Beats by Taber Arias Nastashia Minto performing The Raven and more TBA! Celebrate the master of the macabre with spoken word, music, improv, and skits that are inspired by Poe, are interpretations of his work, or roasts of Poe. DOORS AT 7:30pm. From the Poe Museum website: The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His…
BONUS BLACKOUT PARTY: In honor of the fun we had last year when the power went out, we have established an annual blackout party. We will operate by candlelight, no recorded music. David Loftus will launch the evening with Story Time for Grown Ups, and then guests are welcome to play non-amplified acoustic music or simply enjoy a gentle, quiet evening. “Story Time for Grownups” presents an American original: the uncanny, unearthly, and chillingly amusing Ambrose Bierce. A journalist of the Old West who (unlike Stephen Crane or Mark Twain) really did fight in Civil War battles and chose to tell the truth about them. No cover. Bierce specialized in three kinds of stories: realistic accounts of Civil War battles, ghost stories set mostly in…
BEG BORROW STEAL: Prepare a five-minute story about need, desire, and greed. Extraordinary measures. Swindles, heists and deals with the devil. Robin Hood or hood-winked. Making “it” happen by any means necessary…. This venue is 21+ *Tickets for this event are available one week before the show, at 12pm PT / 3pm ET. *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 Additional Information About the Venue This venue is 21+.
Hand2Mouth Theatre and OJMCHE present a theatrically staged reading of The Berlin Diaries, by Andrea Stolowitz, finalist for the 2017 Oregon Book Award. Performers are Erin Leddy and Damon Kupper, Directed by Hand2Mouth's Artistic Director Jonathan Walters. The great-grandfather of playwright Andrea Stolowitz kept a journal for his descendants after escaping to New York City in 1939 as a German Jew. Following the complicated lure of genealogy, Stolowitz goes back to Berlin to bring the story of her unknown ancestors out of the archives into the light. The record keeps as many secrets as it shares; how do people become verschollen, lost, like library books? In this complex, contemporary drama about the search for home, fragmented heritage and Jewish diaspora, two performers scintillate between characters…
Pants On Fire! features seven storytellers telling the most insane, outrageous, hard-to-believe stories from their own lives. The catch? One of those seven will actually be telling a bald-faced lie -- a whopper that never actually happened. Think you can spot which of our seven storytellers is the liar? If you can, you might win a stay at McMenamin's Edgefield Hotel on us. Not sure you can which is guess the liar? No worries! There will be other ways to win valuable prizes throughout the evening, including a chance to take on one of your fellow audience members in our Two Truths & A Lie Mano-y-Mano Cage Match. Even if you don't win, you'll walk away having heard seven of the most wild, outrageous, hard-to-believe…
Corrib Theatre will give a sneak preview of their upcoming play James X by Gerard Mannix Flynn, which plays February 13 – March 1, 2020 at New Expressive Works (corribtheatre.org) Plaintiff James X confronts the defendants, Church and State, for injustices they perpetrated throughout his childhood. While awaiting his trial, James examines his confidential state files compiled over the previous 45 years, and takes us on a journey through the schools, courts, health boards, industrial schools, psychiatric hospitals, and prisons. Artistic Director Gemma Whelan will introduce the play, actor Todd Van Voris will read a short scene, and then Gemma , Todd and special guest Rene Denfeld will discuss issues raised by the play and invite questions and comments from the audience.
Volume II: Climate Crisis, the second installment of More Devotedly, realizes we know the facts about climate change—what’s needed now is an emotional transformation that incites action. Combining live music, poetry, dance, and audio storytelling to tell three stories around climate change, composer, and podcaster Douglas Detrick invites guest artists Joe Kye, Stephanie McCollough, and Lara Messersmith-Glavin to open our hearts to the enormity of our present challenges. Presented as part of the Fertile Ground Festival. More information at MoreDeVOTEdly.com [Note that there are multiple performances set during this event's time: Sat - Feb 1 - 5:30 pm Sat - Feb 1 - 9:30 pm Sun - Feb 2 - 1:00 pm Sun - Feb 2 - 5:30 pm Buy Tickets Here]
It's time to celebrate smutty books as Lacy Productions presents... BOOKLOVER'S BURLESQUE: Erotica Edition Saturday, February 1, 2020 on the Crush Bar stage in Portland, Oregon! Booklover's Burlesque is the Pacific Northwest's sexiest literary salon which matches titillating, inspiring, and empowering book readings with burlesque performances all in one show! Professional readers, actors, and/or local authors & writers read aloud a three to five minute piece of erotica for this edition of Booklover's Burlesque, which is then followed by a burlesque performance inspired by the piece. Burlesque Artists for this chapter of Booklover's Burlesque include: Sandria Dore BeeBee Sanchez Resa La Revv (Theresa Hanson) Paige Rustles Luz de la Concha Whisper DeCorvo MissDoe Chanterelle Charm Velveteen Sweets Readers for this chapter of Booklover's Burlesque include…
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…
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…
Church of Film and Future Prairie present: Channel One an evening of light and sound directed by Higher Feeling music by Jonathon Mooney, Casey Marx, Onry, Dashenka, Amenta Abioto, and a special guest visuals by Church Of Film projections by sarah sarah turner turner installations by Talia Gordon and Clamber poetry by Joni Renee Whitworth tea ceremony by Brianna Sas Our show is sponsored by the Regional Arts and Culture Council!