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!

Reading: Jackie Shannon Hollis: This Particular Happiness

Annie Bloom's Books 7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland

Annie Bloom's welcomes local author Jackie Shannon Hollis to read from her memoir, This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story. She'll be joined in conversation with her husband, Bill Hollis. Knowing where your scars come from doesn't make them go away. When Jackie Shannon Hollis marries Bill, a man who does not want children, she joyfully commits to a childless life. But soon after the wedding, she returns to the family ranch in rural Oregon and holds her newborn niece. Jackie falls deep into baby love and longing and begins to question her decision. As she navigates the overlapping roles of wife, daughter, aunt, sister, survivor, counselor, and friend, she explores what it really means to choose a different path. This Particular Happiness delves into…

Free

Nathan Langston: I Need You to Tell Me Everything

Mother Foucault's Bookshop 523 SE Morrison St, Portland

What Even is This? It’s a book. Or similar to a book. Johannes Gutenberg would have tripped out that this is what counts for a book now. A synopsis: This is a pseudo-surrealistic autobiography about childhood sexual abuse in a spiritual setting and a new therapeutic approach that puts the broken pieces back in place. Neuroscience, religion, philosophy, time distortion, shape-shifting, rock & roll, legal proceedings, the hope of achieving transcendence. About the Author Nathan Langston is a software designer living in Seattle. Once, he dressed up as a bar of soap to pass out coupons in Union Square, Manhattan. Once, he composed scores for an indie ballet company. Once, he wandered the passageways of the Alhambra in Spain and the Ellora Caves in India.…

Free

Heather Christle in Conversation With Zachary Schomburg

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

Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it. Honest, intelligent, rapturous, and surprising, Christle’s investigations look through a mosaic of science, history, and her own lived experience to find new ways of understanding life, loss, and mental illness. The Crying Book (Catapult) is a deeply personal tribute to the fascinating strangeness of tears and the unexpected resilience of joy. Christle will be joined in conversation by Zachary Schomburg, Octopus Books publisher and author of Pulver Maar.

Free