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!

Passages Bookshop Open House and Reading/Performance: James Year, David Abel, Mark Owens

Passages Bookshop 1801 NW Upshur, Suite 660, Portland, OR, United States

Passages Bookshop Reopens on April 2 Please join us at an open house on the evening of April 2, with readings & performances by James Yeary, David Abel & Mark Owens. The occasion will also serve as a book launch for continue us, a book of poems designed for your home, neighborhood, and playmates by Marko Whens, with linotype composition and printing by Brian Scott Bagdonas. video of Marko performing at Passages in 2015 Doors will open at 6:00 pm, and remain open until just before the performance begins at 8:00 pm; they will be open again after the performance, at roughly 9:00 pm. Proof of vaccination required for admission, and face coverings required for all. (Readers will be unmasked while performing.) Saturday, April 2,…

Free

Overcoming Rejection for Writers

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

FEATURING: Jami Attenberg Deesha Philyaw Tommy Pico Moderated by Denne Michele Norris Sponsored by GrubStreet's Muse & the Marketplace conference Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned pro, all writers face rejection—but how we cope with that rejection plays a huge role in shaping our literary future. Rebounding can be tough, but rather than allowing rejection to stop us in our tracks, we can reframe it into a motivational and instructional tool. Some rejections actually make us stronger—as writers, editors, applicants, and people—while others just need to be ignored. Poet and TV writer Tommy Pico (JUNK, Reservation Dogs), memoirist Jami Attenberg (I Came All This Way to Meet You), and award-winning short story writer Deesha Philyaw (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) will share…

$10

Mimi German Reads from Her Book of Poetry: Beneath the Gravel Weight of Stars

Revolutions Bookshop 8713 N Lombard St, Portland, OR, United States

Mimi German reads from her book of poetry dedicated to the houseless community! You're invited! This was so fun! So we’ve decided to do it again… this Sunday 4/10 at 1:00 with @eyesofhorsehair Mi mi German will be back to read from her book; Beneath the Gravel Weight of Stars. For those that don’t know, Mi Mi is a long time advocate for the houseless and through those experience’s she’s written poetry that reflects the long nights and struggles of the houseless community. Come join us! Houseless Friendly Event Please Wear Masks Inside the Store

Free

Final Windfall Reading

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

We are both excited and saddened to be hosting an in-person reading on Wednesday, April 20th, at 6:30 pm, to celebrate Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place, on the occasion of its final issue. Joining co-editors Bill Siverly and Michael McDowell to read on this evening will be Barbara Drake, Eric le Fatte, Charles Goodrich, Marilyn Johnston, Mike Langtry, Elizabeth McLagan, Paulann Petersen, Carlos Reyes, Penelope Scambly Schott, and Dianne Stepp. The first issue of Windfall was published in Fall of 2002. Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place features poetry which captures the spirit of place as part of the essence of the poem. The journal particularly emphasized poetry which is written in the Pacific Northwest and which is attentive to the relationships…

Free

Sueyeun Juliette Lee

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

Sueyeun Juliette Lee lives in Denver, Colorado. Her books include Underground National (Factory School Press, 2010), Solar Maximum (Futurepoem, 2015), No Comet, That Serpent in the Sky Means Noise (Kore, 2017), and Aerial Concave Without Cloud (Nightboat, 2022). A former Pew Fellow in the Arts for Literature, she's held international residencies in video art and poetry, and presented work at the Denver Art Museum, Artworks Center for Contemporary Art, Chicago’s city-wide performance arts festival IN>TIME, and the Asian Arts Initiative. Her essays on race, contemporary poetics, trauma, and the avant-garde have appeared with Cambridge University Press, Iowa University Press, The Poetry Foundation, Entropy Magazine, and elsewhere. Find her at silentbroadcast.com. Location: SMSU 327 NOTE: This is an in-person event. We ask that all attendees be vaccinated and wear a mask.

Free

Submission Deadline: Pathos Literary Magazine: Spring 2022

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Pathos Literary Magazine submissions for the Spring 2022 issue are open until April 29th! did you have any bright ideas over spring break? 💡we want to read them! submissions for our spring 2022 issue are now open 🌿🌸 You must be a current student at Portland State University to be considered for publication. We are funded by PSU and serve as a creative outlet for its students. We are happy to point non-students toward local publishing resources, but cannot publish non-students at this time. Please only put your name and identifying info in the specified section of the form. All submissions are blind — only the managing editor will know the identity of the submitter until after selections have been made. This eliminates conflicts of interest and…

Free

Submission Deadline: Old Pal: Issue 5

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Old Pal is open for submissions until April 30th, 2022! We publish poetry, fiction, critical non-fiction, audio, mixed-media, and various mediums of art. We encourage artists from all experience levels and communities to submit. Simultaneous submissions welcome, but please let us know if your submission is accepted elsewhere. Multiple genre submissions are also welcome (e.g., if you’d like to submit a combination of poems and art, or poems and a fiction piece, etc.). Contributors will be compensated upon publication. If interested, please send up to 15 pages of written work or 6 pieces of other media to submissions@oldpalmag.com.

Free

Broadway Books: Independent Bookstore Day

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

Independent Bookstore Day (IBD) just hasn't been the same the past couple of years, since Covid reared its ugly head and put a lid on in-store events, but we're happy to announce--with only a slight bit of trepidation--IT'S BACK!!! We are thrilled to once again welcome you into the store to party like it's, well, 2019, before all this nonsense began. On Saturday, April 30th (which also happens to be Jacqueline Winspear's birthday) we will celebrate all that is indie with a party at the store--consider it a warm-up party to our 30th anniversary celebration on May 14th. We will have IBD specialty items created just for this day, including special Blackwing pencils, mugs, tote bags, and other items. We have limited quantities of most…

Free

Pile Press Meet & Greet + Anniversary

Nalu Kava and Tea Lounge 722 N Sumner St, Portland, OR, United States

Pile Press is an alternative publishing collective for women, non-binary + gender fluid creatives. And we are having an 1 year anniversary meet and greet! Open mic, food, drinks, Pile Press merch, and contributors past/present, friends and family. All welcome.

Free

Reagan M. Sova Reading and Music

Revolutions Bookshop 8713 N Lombard St, Portland, OR, United States

Mark your Calendars For May 5th at 7:00 PM with Reagan M. Sova and musical guests Sunday Mornings and Abbot Daimler! We’re super excited to hear Reagan read and Play music from his new book ; Wildcat Dreams in the Death Light published by @firsttoknock Wildcat Dreams in the Death Light is an incantatory work of narrative poetry. Infused with hobo melancholy, Jewish lore, bloodshed, and hilarity, this poem is nothing short of a contemporary masterpiece. It traces young Mort Sloman’s odyssey to honor his jockey uncle—the only dead man ever to have won a horse race. But before Mort can organize a worthy funeral, he must acquire “the Locksmith keys”—a form of esoteric knowledge beyond the understanding of even graybeard rabbis. Undeterred, Mort sets…

Free