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Emily Suvada in Conversation With Fonda Lee

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

Cat’s hacking skills weren’t enough to keep her from losing everything – her identity, her past, and now her freedom. She’s trapped and alone, but she’s survived this long, and she’s not giving up without a fight. Though the outbreak has been contained, a new threat has emerged – one that’s taken the world to the brink of a devastating war. With genetic technology that promises not just a cure for the plague, but a way to prevent death itself, both sides will stop at nothing to seize control of humanity’s future. Facing her most devastating enemy yet, Cat must race against the clock to protect her friends and save the lives of millions. This Vicious Cure (Simon Pulse) is the gripping finale to Emily…

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Chad Dundas

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

Having lost much of his memory from a traumatic brain injury sustained in Iraq, army veteran Matthew Rose is called back to Montana after his father’s death to settle his affairs, and hopefully to settle the past as well. It’s not only a blank to him, but a mystery. Why as a teen did he suddenly become sullen and vacant, abandoning the activities and people that had meant most to him? Then on his first night back, Matthew sees a house go up in flames, and it turns out a local college student has died inside. And this event sparks a memory of a different fire, an unsolved crime from long ago, a part of Matthew’s past that might lead to all the answers he’s…

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Readings: Unpublished Manuscripts

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

In preparation and anticipation of National Unpublished Manuscripts Day, we’re hosting readings from authors who are either entirely unpublished through traditional channels or who have manuscripts that have been submitted to and rejected by traditional channels. At Rose City Book Pub, we are gate openers, not gate keepers. Please also join us at the Clark County Historical Museum and the Brautigan Library of Unpublished Manuscripts on Saturday, January 25th between 11 am and 4 pm for the main event. The Book Pub has partnered with the museum and the library to provide a series of speakers on different ways of being published in the modern world, writing workshops, and other readerly and writerly activiites.

Free

WITS Grant High School

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

On Wednesday, January 22nd, from 7 to 8 pm, local author and writing instructor Joanna Rose leads a team of students and teachers from Grant High School reading from their own work on this high-energy night. We are consistently blown away by the talent and passion of these young people. Come see for yourself -- it's always one of the most fun nights in the store. Literary Arts’ Youth Programs reinforce the real world importance of reading and writing. They work with high-school-age students in schools and organizations throughout Portland, East Multnomah County, and Oregon. Their programs inspire students to find their voices and allow youth to be a part of the broader literary community. In particular, the Writers in the Schools program offers semester-long…

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William Gibson

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

Verity Jane, gifted app-whisperer, has been out of work since her exit from a problematic relationship with a Silicon Valley billionaire. Then she signs the NDA of a dodgy start-up, becoming the beta tester for their latest product: a digital assistant, accessed through a pair of ordinary-looking glasses. “Eunice,” the disarmingly human AI in the glasses, soon manifests a face, a fragmentary past, and an unnervingly canny grasp of combat strategy. Meanwhile, a century ahead, Wilf Netherton works amid plutocrats and plunderers, survivors of the slow and steady apocalypse known as the Jackpot. His employer, Ainsley Lowbeer, can look into alternate pasts and nudge their ultimate directions. Verity and Eunice have become her current project. Wilf can see what Verity and Eunice can’t: their own…

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WITS Student Reading: Madison High School

Old School Coffee 8101 SE Division St. Suite 107, Portland, OR, United States

Listen to Madison High School students read the original creative pieces they wrote in the WITS residencies that took place in their classrooms. Free and open to all.

Free

Kate Milford

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

Marzana and her best friend are bored. Even though they live in a notorious city where normal rules do not apply, nothing interesting ever happens to them. Nothing, that is, until Marzana’s parents are recruited to help solve an odd crime, and she realizes that this could be the excitement she’s been waiting for. She assembles a group of kid detectives with special skills and together, they explore hidden passageways, navigate architecture that changes overnight, and try to unravel the puzzle of who the kidnappers are. But will they beat the deadline for a ransom that’s impossible to pay? The Thief Knot (Clarion) is the new standalone middle reader mystery set in the world of the Greenglass House, from National Book Award nominee and Edgar…

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Poetry Reading: Emmett Wheatfall & John Sibley Williams

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

Annie Bloom's welcomes Portland poets Emmett Wheatfall & John Sibley Williams. Emmett Wheatfall presents his latest poetry collection, Our Scarlet Blue Wounds. Wheatfall shows us how the roots of love grow deep in the soil of sacrifice. He illustrates the intensely complex relationship between idealism and realism. His poems hurt in just the right way. And it's no small feat opening one's own racial and cultural wounds for the world to see. It takes courage. It takes trust that a country will recognize itself, and its complicity, in those wounds. And Wheatfall trusts us to witness along with him. He proves himself ready and willing, even eager, to, as the titular poem in this collection demands, "build a new world" together. John Sibley Williams's latest…

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John Bruning

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

In 1942, America's deadliest fighter pilot, or "ace of aces" – the legendary Eddie Rickenbacker – offered a bottle of bourbon to the first U.S. fighter pilot to break his record of 26 enemy planes shot down. Seizing on the challenge to motivate his men, General George Kenney promoted what they would come to call the "race of aces" as a way of boosting the spirits of his war-weary command. What developed was a wild three-year sprint for fame and glory, and the chance to be called America's greatest fighter pilot. Based on new research, John R. Bruning's Race of Aces (Hachette) tells the story of how five American pilots contended for personal glory in the Pacific while leading Kenney's resurgent air force against the…

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Carmen Maria Machado in Conversation With Lidia Yuknavitch

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

In the Dream House (Graywolf) is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming. And it’s that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope, through which Machado examines the past from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships. Machado…

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