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!

Prose

  1. Events
  2. Prose

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

Everyone’s a Critic

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Whether it’s the role of take-downs, accusations of smarm, writers rebutting their reviews, or the daily Twitter discourse, the role of criticism in our culture is complex, ever-changing, and seemingly always up for debate. The tools of criticism are evolving, too. Goodreads, Substack, and social media remove critics from an ivory tower and allow anyone to assume the mantle. New Yorker staff writer and former New York Times book critic Parul Seghal, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott, and novelist-cum-critic Brandon Taylor will discuss these topics as well as their own pursuits of critical honesty and excellence. Moderated by Halimah Marcus. Their discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A. This event is part of Electric Lit’s Fall 2021 series, presented by Mount Saint…

Continue readingEveryone’s a Critic
$10

Portland Storytellers’ Guild: Story Swap

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

PSG Story Swaps are a great way to visit with others that love stories. Story Swaps are open to all whether or not you are a PSG member. You will hear stories from every level of teller; seasoned, first timers, or those in between. Many people come at first just to listen to stories but decide over time to give storytelling a try. Swaps are a safe place for people to take those first steps into the world of storytelling. We like to get in as many tellers as possible. However, we only have so much time. If you want to tell a story, try to arrive early and get your name on the list.

Free

Writing Characters Who Take Up Space

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

For all the descriptive writing in the world, it is often difficult to fully realize a physical body in a physical space for a reader. Bodies are so varied, spaces contain so many possibilities, but both bodies and spatial possibilities are often overlooked in writing craft. This class will use ideas presented in Amy Cuddy’s book, Presence: Bringing your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges, Bessel Van Der Kolk’s, The Body Keeps Score, and others, to present new ways of exploring the physical presence of characters on the page, their experiences with themselves, with their environment and with other characters. Access Program We want our writing classes to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that our tuition structure can present…

Continue readingWriting Characters Who Take Up Space
$190

Story Time for Grownups – You Might As Well Laugh

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

"After 20 months off, “Story Time for Grownups” is back! … with a program of humorous readings from Mark Twain, Woody Allen, Robert Fulghum, Dorothy Parker, Ian Frazier, and David Niven. No cover. Warm yourself with a mug of beer, a pot of tea, soup, sandwich, or cookies while reliving the childhood experience of being read to before bedtime. Proof of covid vaccination is required of all attendees. Rose City Book Pub observes all the current anti-infection protocols. David Loftus has read aloud to live audiences, for recordings, and as a principal character in the science-fiction podcast series “Exoplanetary.” He has performed as a voice character and narrator with the Willamette Radio Workshop, Filmusik, and Third Angle New Music Ensemble; and at Powell’s Books, Borders…

Continue readingStory Time for Grownups – You Might As Well Laugh
Free

Livestream Event: Belonging – Middle Grade Author Panel

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join Annie Bloom's Books for a livestream event with middle grade authors Waka Brown (While I was Away), Kathleen Lane (Pity Party), Susan Hill Long (The Care and Keeping of Freddy), Rosanne Parry (A Whale of the Wild) and Kate Ristau (Clockbreakers series). The authors will discuss the theme of belonging: how kids search for and maintain connections, and how the books they read explore and support those connections too. This event is free and open to all ages. Please register in advance for this Zoom event: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIud-CqqzgpG9UUTbHOhaYNOUq-9c1Smc0q If you would like signed or personalized copies of the authors' books, please leave a note in the comments section of your order! Waka T. Brown's While I Was Away is an empowering middle grade memoir from debut author…

Continue readingLivestream Event: Belonging – Middle Grade Author Panel
Free

Telltale Presents: Don’t Be Afraid

Chapel Theatre 4107 SE Harrison St, Milwaukie, OR, United States

Hey, champ! Thanks for checking out Telltale. We are a monthly curated storytelling event for people that like to get vulnerable and take no shit. We are keen on connection, laughter, heartbreak, poignant moments, and community building. We are in our fifth season now, which is wild. After a number of zoom shows, and then a number of outdoor summer shows.... we are just rolling with what's happening around us and we are officially back inside the Chapel Theatre starting in October--unless the weather is magically perfect--with an all vaccinated staff, vaccinated performers, and a vaccine card requirement at the door, as well as many assertive reminders about wearing your mask properly. At Telltale, you can expect about 7-10 performers sharing something with you, in…

Continue readingTelltale Presents: Don’t Be Afraid
Free – $10

Premise Course: Do we have the ability to make ourselves free? de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity & Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

(Learn about Premise classes here: https://www.premiseinstitute.com/premisefaq) In her book The Ethics of Ambiguity, the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir asks us to consider what it means to exercise individual freedom and to live in community with others. Where does our individual freedom begin and end? Simone de Beauvoir wrote The Ethics of Ambiguity in 1947, in the wake of Nazi atrocities and totalitarianism. She questions and seeks to define personal ethics and freedom and claims that such freedom can be manifest only when we “will others free.” How do we create a life where we protect our individual freedom and work toward the freedom of our neighbor? Can both forms of freedom truly exist? At first glance, Franz Kafka may seem an odd pairing with Simone…

Continue readingPremise Course: Do we have the ability to make ourselves free? de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity & Kafka’s The Metamorphosis
$150

BOOKLOVER’S BURLESQUE: The Gothic Edition

Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St, Portland, OR, United States

Show | 7pm // Doors | 6pm “Deep into that darkness…dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” -Edgar Allen Poe Dream dreams you’ve never dared to dream before and venture into the darkness with us as Lacy Productions and the Alberta Rose Theatre present… BOOKLOVER’S BURLESQUE: The Gothic Edition A Booklover’s Burlesque special edition at the Alberta Rose Theater, where we explore the strange, the mysterious, the creepy, and the unexplained in the sexiest literary way possible, just in time for All Hallow’s Eve! Booklover’s Burlesque is the world’s sexiest literary salon which matches titillating, inspiring, and empowering book readings with burlesque, boylesque, and draglesque performances all in one show! Professional readers, actors, and/or local authors & writers read aloud a three to…

Continue readingBOOKLOVER’S BURLESQUE: The Gothic Edition
$20 – $30

Portland Storytellers’ Guild: Storytelling 101

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A virtual workshop on Zoom For aspiring, beginning and intermediate tellers Hone your craft! Shape and practice your story! Are you working on a short story to share with family, to tell at the Moth or a story swap, or to another audience? Would you like to polish a story to submit to the Guild Selection Committee in hopes of appearing in the Guild Storython, where many tellers share 5 minute stories? (The Storython is a prerequisite for new tellers to be considered for a PSG main stage show.) Join us in the workshop with a 5-6 minute story that you wish to prepare for presentation. Please check the story timing before the workshop. Aim for 5 minutes. Stories should be spoken rather than read.…

Continue readingPortland Storytellers’ Guild: Storytelling 101
$25

Post-Show Interview with Vanessa Severo

Portland Center Stage 128 NW 11th Avenue, Portland, OR, United States

Emilly Prado, Portland-based founder of Nocha Libre DJ collective and author of Funeral For Flaca, will be on hand after the show to interview Vanessa Severo, the playwright and star of Frida ... A Self Portrait. This is your chance to dig deeper into the play, through the unique perspective of an exciting local artist. All guests who attend events or gatherings at The Armory must provide documentation that they have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by the date of their visit. If you are unable to be vaccinated, you may provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours before your visit. Masks are also required at The Armory. FULL DETAILS HERE About Vanessa Severo Vanessa Severo is the recipient of the TCG 11th Round of the Fox Foundation resident Actor…

Continue readingPost-Show Interview with Vanessa Severo
Free
Click a category label below to view the calendar with only events in that specific category.