LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.

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Winter Poetry Festival

Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) 511 Northwest Broadway St, Portland, OR, United States

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.

Free

Spec Script: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Kelly's Olympian 426 Southwest Washington St, Portland, OR, United States

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…

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Free – $5

The Poe Show 2020

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

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…

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$5

Blackout Party feat. David Loftus

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

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…

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Free

The Moth: StorySLAM: Beg Borrow Steal

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

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+.

$15

A Reading of The Berlin Diaries

Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education 724 NW Davis Street, Portland, OR, United States

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…

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$10 – $15

7DS: Pants On Fire!

White Eagle 836 N Russell St, Portland, OR, United States

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…

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$10

James X Preview

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

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.

Free

More Devotedly Volume II: Climate Crisis

Shout House 210 SE Madison St #11, Portland, OR, United States

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]

$20
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