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!

Readings

  1. Events
  2. Readings

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

Liz Prato

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

Liz Prato combines lyricism, research, and humor to explore her role as a white tourist in a seemingly paradisiacal land that has been largely formed and destroyed by white outsiders. In Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege (Overcup), Hawaiian history, pop culture, and contemporary affairs are masterfully woven with Prato’s personal narrative of loss and survival in linked essays, offering unique insight into how the touristic ideal of Hawai‘i came to be, and what Hawai‘i is at its core. Prato will be introduced at the event by Karen Karbo, author of In Praise of Difficult Women.

Free

Reading: Lindsey Freeman

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

A reading from the author of This Atom Bomb in Me.

Free

Judy Nedry presents Blackthorn

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

Portland author Judy Nedry returns to Annie Bloom's for Blackthorn, the latest in her Emma Golden Mystery Series. A crumbling old resort. A dead brother. A phantom boat in the mist. Nightmares. And then, a body. In this modern-day gothic novel set on the scenic Columbia River Gorge, Sage Blackthorn revisits demons from her past and confronts a multitude of new ones when she returns to her childhood home to solve the mystery of her brother’s death. Sage left the Pacific Northwest ten years ago and has worked her way into a cushy travel editor’s job at one of the big five women’s magazines based in New York City. Recently, however, her life has taken an ugly turn. Her leave of absence from the magazine…

Continue readingJudy Nedry presents Blackthorn
Free

Jeff Alworth

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

Come hear all about the beginning of Portland’s craft beer scene as we welcome author and beer connoisseur Jeff Alworth at 7 pm on Wednesday, April 17th, to talk about his newly published book The Widmer Way: How Two Brothers Led Portland’s Craft Beer Revolution (Ooligan Press). At the time the two Widmer brothers, Rob and Kurt (the second and fourth of four siblings), began thinking about brewing their own beer, the United States had only ninety breweries, and that number was dropping. When they went looking for financing, banks laughed at them. But the brothers were committed to bringing Portland’s crafty can-do attitude to the beer industry, and they succeeded in spades, changing the world of craft brewing forever. Jeff Alworth has written five…

Continue readingJeff Alworth
Free

Delilah Dawson & Kevin Hearne

Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd, Beaverton, OR, United States

Go big or go gnome. The bestselling authors of Kill the Farm Boy return to the world of Pell, the irreverent fantasy universe that recalls Monty Python and Terry Pratchett. In No Country for Old Gnomes (Del Rey), Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne lovingly tweak the tropes of fantasy. Here you’ll find goofy jokes and whimsical puns, but you’ll also find a diverse, feminist, and lighthearted approach to fantasy that will bring a smile to your face and many fine cheeses to your plate.

Free

Ungovernable: The Victorian Parent’s Guide to Raising Flawless Children

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

Feminist historian Therese Oneill is back to educate you on what to expect when you're expecting… a Victorian baby! In Ungovernable (Little, Brown), Oneill conducts an unforgettable tour through the backwards, pseudoscientific, downright bizarre parenting fashions of the Victorians. Endlessly surprising, wickedly funny, and filled with juicy historical tidbits and images, Ungovernable provides much-needed perspective on – and comic relief from – the age-old struggle to bring up baby.

Free

Slamlandia April Picnic PDX Poetry Open Mic

Picnic PDX 1305 NW 23rd Ave, Portland, OR, United States

Join us on APRIL 18TH for our third Thursday Poetry Open Mic! Doors and sign-ups are at 6:30 PM Get there on time to get a spot in the open mic! Show begins at 7:00 PM Picnic PDX 1305 NW 23rd Avenue Portland, OR 97210 This show is all ages. Please see our Accessibility and Safer Space info below. $5 suggested donation at door. This show will not have a poetry slam or a featured poet. We ask for just poetry on this mic, no music or stand up comedy. ★ •*´¨`*• O P E N • M I C •*´¨`*• ★ The open mic will start the show out. The open mic is a great way to share your wonderful poetry! You can share…

Continue readingSlamlandia April Picnic PDX Poetry Open Mic
Free – $5

Washington County – Arthur Sommers

Another Read Through 3932 N Mississippi Ave, Portland, OR, United States

Washington County, Oregon is a visual history of Washington County with over 200 black and white images. Each image has a brief, informative, and accurate caption of approximately 40-100 words. The book has 9 chapters and covers timeframe of 1840s through 1960s with emphasis on turn of the last century. Arthur Sommers was born and raised in northern California, and earned a B.A. in History 1972 from San Francisco State College. Enlisted in Navy 1972-1976. Federal Government Civil Servant from 1978-1999. Many different jobs as civilian employee with the U.S. Air Force. Collects old photographs and uses them in visual histories of Placer County, California and now Washington County, Oregon. Living in Hillsboro, Oregon 2015-2019. Has also published three volumes of family history.

Free

Sophia Shalmiyev in Conversation with Leni Zumas

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

We are thrilled to welcome Sophia Shalmiyev at 7 pm on Thursday, April 18th, in conversation with Leni Zumas to discuss Shalmiyev's recently published memoir Mother Winter (Simon & Schuster). Born to a Russian mother and an Azerbaijani father, Shalmiyev was raised in the stark oppressiveness of 1980s Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). An imbalance of power and the prevalence of antisemitism in her homeland led her father to steal Shalmiyev away, emigrating to America, abandoning her estranged mother, Elena. At age eleven, Shalmiyev found herself on a plane headed west, motherless and terrified of the new world unfolding before her. Now a mother herself, in Mother Winter Shalmiyev depicts in urgent vignettes her emotional journeys as an immigrant, an artist, and a woman raised without…

Continue readingSophia Shalmiyev in Conversation with Leni Zumas
Free

Northwest Academy: Victor Lodato

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

Northwest Academy presents a reading with Victor Lodato Victor Lodato is the author of two critically acclaimed novels: Mathilda Savitch, winner of the PEN USA Award, and the recently published Edgar and Lucy. His stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, The New York Times, and Best American Short Stories. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Born and raised in New Jersey, Victor currently resides in Ashland, Oregon.

Free
Click a category label below to view the calendar with only events in that specific category.