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!

Open Mic Night & Chill

IPRC (Independent Publishing Resource Center) 318 SE Main Street #175, Portland, OR, United States

Save the Date!

Free

Drink and Write Tuesdays

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

Jeanne Faulkner hosts this drop-in writing workshop on the last Tuesday of every month. Jeanne provides the prompts, tips, and coaching. You bring your computer and notebook.

Free

BIPOC Reading Series – October

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This bimonthly reading series is intended to prioritize the safety, creativity, and stories of Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color. Come listen to our featured readers, or sign up to share your work in our open mic. Readings will be followed by a short community discussion. The theme for October is “Shadow.” Click here to register for this event. This event is open to everyone, but only people who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color will be invited to read. If you have any questions, please contact our host Jessica at  jessica@literary-arts.org.  

Free

Pop-Up Magazine: The Fall Issue

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall 1037 SW Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

An unforgettable live multimedia experience. “Sweeping the nation with live performances of human interest stories…like an emotionally intellectual rock concert.”—Playbill Pop-Up Magazine is the acclaimed live magazine show, a multimedia storytelling spectacle performed onstage for tens of thousands of people at grand, historic venues across North America. Pop-Up Magazine features original and unforgettable true stories, art, music, and performance from the world’s great and emerging storytellers and journalists, accompanied by illustration, animation, film, photography, and an original score performed onstage by our musical collaborators, Magik*Magik Orchestra. Imagine a comedy show, play, concert, podcast, and film—all wrapped into one night. The full list of contributors will be revealed soon! Stay up-to-date on the latest news at popupmagazine.com. Audience members for this event are not required to…

$39 – $90

In-Store Poetry Reading: Riley Danvers, Xylophone Mykland, Ahuva S. Zaslavsky, Nastashia Minto

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

Annie Bloom's welcome local poets Riley Danvers, Xylophone Mykland, and Ahuva S. Zaslavsky for readings from their new collections, published by Portland's own First Matter Press. They will be joined by fellow local poet Nastashia Minto, who will be reading a selection of new poems. This in-store reading is first come, first served. Please be mindful of any store health policies that might be in effect on the night of the reading. About Even the Air, Too Heavy: When the body becomes a monument of loss, the self must navigate a vast internal space, not on the world's timeline, but in its own circadian cadences. Riley Danvers's collection Even the Air, Too Heavy wayfinds through the emptiness of miscarriage with words and experimental forms that…

Free

Tales from the Other Side: Bone-chilling Stories, Poems, Songs and Lore

Ledding Library of Milwaukie 10660 SE 21st Avenue, Milwaukie, OR, United States

Storyteller Will Hornyak will perform Tales from the Other Side: Bone-chilling Stories, Poems, Songs and Lore for Mature Audiences (14 and older) in Celebration of Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and Samhain (Halloween). A wild and harrowing romp through classic Mexican folktales, Irish and Scottish legends, poems and historical lore. A nationally touring storyteller, Will Hornyak weaves a wide web of oral traditions into lively, engaging and well-crafted performances.  He has performed at the National Storytelling Festival MainStage in Jonesboro, Tennessee and at numerous regional festivals around the United States. “Storyteller par excellence…transports audiences young and old into an amazing world of imagination.”  The Oregonian “Warmth, wit, wisdom…that’s Will Hornyak.”  Rebecca Hom  Director Forest Storytelling Festival Room Location: Community Room

Free

The Break with Kaveh Akbar

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In partnership with Alano Club of Portland, “The Break is a monthly virtual gathering of writers and artists lead by Kaveh Akbar, celebrating amongness, collaboration, and interdisciplinary creative experimentation. Though many of the activities and discussions orbit or are inflected by recovery themes (Akbar has been in active recovery for eight years), participants are not required to self-identify as being in recovery to participate.” Register at: https://www.portlandalano.org/the-break Kaveh Akbar Kaveh Akbar is a poet, teacher and the poetry editor for The Nation. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times, Paris Review, Poetry, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. His newest book, Pilgrim Bell, was published by Graywolf in 2021; he is also the author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James,…

Free

TAP@PBF: Keep Swimming

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Stay tuned for a special podcast-only Portland Book Festival episode of Literary Arts’ The Archive Project! Karen Eva Carr (Shifting Currents: A World History of Swimming) and Bonnie Tsui (Why We Swim) in conversation, moderated by OPB’s Paul Marshall. This event is podcast only, and will be released on The Archive Project wherever you get your podcasts as part of the 2022 Portland Book Festival.  

Free

Delve Readers Seminar: An Intensive Study of Totality: Jorge Luis Borges

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

The Argentine genius Jorge Luis Borges explored every facet of the word during his lifetime of writing. From sonnets about dream tigers to stories about detectives in Buenos Aires to essays on the collapse of time, Borges oeuvre reads as if limitless, always imbuing the reader with a sense of total expansion. This seminar will draw from his Collected Fictions, Selected Poems, Selected Non-fiction in an attempt to construct (& deconstruct) the scope of one of the most boundless authors of the 20th century. Texts: Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges Selected Poems by Jorge Luis Borges Selected Non-fictions by Jorge Luis Borges Access Program We want our classes to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that our tuition structure…

$245

Oregon Humanities Live

Rontoms 600 East Burnside Street, Portland, OR, United States

Join the editors of Oregon Humanities magazine for an evening of readings by recent magazine contributors. We'll hear essays and poems by Sallie Tisdale, Daniela Molnar, Paul Susi, and Laura Gibson. The event is copresented with Literary Arts as part of the Cover to Cover series and sponsored by Lyceum Agency. No RSVP is required.

Free