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

Heather B. Armstrong

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

From blogger Heather B. Armstrong (dooce), author of It Sucked and Then I Cried, comes The Valedictorian of Being Dead (Gallery), an irreverent new memoir – reminiscent of Brain on Fire – about her experience as one of only a few people to participate in an experimental treatment for depression involving 10 rounds of a chemically-induced coma approximating brain death. Disarmingly honest, self-deprecating, and scientifically fascinating, The Valedictorian of Being Dead brings to light a groundbreaking new treatment for depression.

Free

Ari Rosenschein presents Coasting

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

Annie Bloom's welcomes Seattle author Ari Rosenschein to read from his debut short fiction collection, Coasting. Coasting follows music industry aspirants, a brooding record store clerk, goth teens, and others into rehearsal rooms, 12-step meetings, a cult indoctrination, even a Russian heavy metal bunker. Along the way, they pursue success, connection, and a sense of purpose. Perched between Middle Men and A Visit From the Goon Squad, Coasting is Ari Rosenschein's debut collection. "His characters inhabit a backstage space, a few steps from glory, looking for the next gig, hoping for a big break, reveling in every note along the way. Their sweet gritty persistence is irresistible." -Ana Maria Spagna, author of Uplake: Restless Essays of Coming and Going "Ari Rosenschein's Coasting does for Gen…

Continue readingAri Rosenschein presents Coasting
Free

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring John Burgess

Angst Gallery 1015 Main St, Vancouver, WA, United States

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna of Printed Matter Vancouver Featuring John Burgess 7 pm Thursday, May 9, 2019 Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7 FREE Angst Gallery 1015 Main Street Vancouver, WA 98660 angstgallery.com Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar: http://briz.us/ LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004 John Burgess grew up in upstate New York, worked on a survey crew in Montana, taught English in Japan, and since 1985 has lived in Seattle, where he works for an insurance company. Past glories include: 2006 Jack Straw writer; co-founder of the original Burning Word Festival; 2008 Words' Worth curator…

Continue readingGhost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring John Burgess
Free

Ted Chiang in Conversation With Daniel H. Wilson

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

From Ted Chiang, acclaimed author of Stories of Your Life and Others – the basis for the Academy Award-nominated film Arrival – comes a groundbreaking new collection of short fiction: nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories. These are tales that tackle some of humanity’s oldest questions along with new quandaries only Chiang could imagine. Exhalation (Knopf) is Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic, and revelatory. Chiang will be joined in conversation by Daniel H. Wilson, author of The Clockwork Dynasty and Robopocalypse.

Free

Landfill: Notes on Gull Watching and Trash Picking in the Anthropocene

Powell's Books on Hawthorne 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR, United States

Over the past 100 years, gulls have been brought ashore by modernity. They now live not only on the coasts but in our slipstream following trawlers, barges, and garbage trucks. In many ways they live as we do, walking the built-up world and grabbing a bite where they can. Tim Dee’s Landfill (Chelsea Green) is the compelling story of how in the Anthropocene we have learned about the natural world, named and catalogued it, and then colonized it, planted it, or filled it with our junk.

Free

A.J. Franks, Stephen T. McCrea, Leah Stenson (Inkwater Press)

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

Join us for our monthly reading by authors from Inkwater Press! Keep You Cold: Chilling Tales by A.J. Franks: What if you received disturbing glimpses of a fate you couldn’t change? Have you ever wondered what thoughts might run through your head just before those final moments of death? How does it feel to wake up and find a dark entity hovering over you, only to discover you can’t move your body and escape? Uncover the darker side of humanity and the supernatural in this genre‑blending collection of original short stories that will scare, shock, and surprise. Stay warm if you can. It’s about to get cold. Jerk Radar: How To Stop a Bad Relationship Before It Starts by Stephen T. McCrea: Have you ever gone out with someone who seemed perfect at…

Continue readingA.J. Franks, Stephen T. McCrea, Leah Stenson (Inkwater Press)
Free

Composers in the Poet’s Cabinets: Works on Paper #1

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

Works on Paper #1: CASPAR SONNET, ROBERT BLATT, & BEN GLAS Three experimental compositions by local composers $5-15 suggested donation, no one turned away The first in an ongoing series of events that use concepts, characteristics, and histories of the book as a frame for exploratory practice across the arts, Works on Paper #1 presents compositions from three local composers. Caspar Sonnet's "Choral for 5 Alpine Bells" recalls the story of Theseus and the Chair of Forgetfulness in the Almglocken's haunting sound. Robert Blatt's piece explores paper as a carrier for language, instruction, and music, and as a sensual object in itself. Ben Glas's aleatoric "Score for Islands" uses a cocktail-party effect to draw semantic and semiotic connections among the many texts and voices of…

Continue readingComposers in the Poet’s Cabinets: Works on Paper #1
$5 – $15

Michael Collier in Conversation with David Biespiel

Mother Foucault's Bookshop 523 SE Morrison St, Portland, OR, United States

Join Michael Collier — poet, teacher, essayist, former poet laureate of Maryland, and former director of the Bread Loaf Writers Conference Michael Collier — as he reads from his new book, My Bishop and Other Poems on Friday, May 10 at 7pm. Collier will be joined in conversation wtih Attic Institute founder David Biespiel. Michael Collier was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1953. He studied with William Meredith as an undergraduate at Connecticut College, and earned his MFA at the University of Arizona. Poet laureate of Maryland from 2001-2004, His books of poetry include The Clasp and Other Poems (1986), The Folded Heart (1989), The Neighbor (1995), The Ledge (2000), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Dark Wild Realm (2006). Collier’s poems often reveal a fascination with objects and their significance;…

Continue readingMichael Collier in Conversation with David Biespiel
Free

Lauren Kessler

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

Over three years, Lauren Kessler helped men facing life in prison confront the reality of spending the rest of their lives behind bars through writing workshops. Kessler brings her experience and some of their most powerful stories to light in her new book, A Grip of Time (Red Lightning). Gripping, intense, and heartfelt, A Grip of Time shows what a lifetime with no hope of release looks like up close.

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