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!

First Friday Poetry Reading and Open Mic on Zoom

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

First Friday Open Mic and Poetry Reading a virtual event on Zoom. Co-sponsored by the Milwaukie Poetry Series and St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church. Featured Readers are the Eugene First and Third Thursday Poetry Group. They will read their own work or their favorite poems. Members who will read are Quinton Hallett, Laura LeHew, Catherine McGuire, Nancy Carol Moody, Keli Osborne, Colette Tennant and Ingrid Wendt.. The Open Mic will follow their reading. Email Tom Hogan at tomhogan2@comcast.net to register. You will receive a zoom link prior to the event. Plan to read 1 or 2 poems depending on the number of participants and length of the poems. If time permits additional poems will be allowed. The event will be recorded and available for viewing on demand on the Ledding Library YouTube Channel after the event.

Free

The June Open Mic feat. K McClendon

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for our June Open Mic! Sign ups will be available in the event 30 minutes before we start! You will have 3 minutes to read 1-2 poems. We will have a feature from K McClendon! More about K: K McClendon uses they them pronouns and is a lot of things but mostly a poet and human trying to cope with the effects of late stage capitalism while embracing radical self love. We are working in a virtual space and plan to keep doing that until Dr. Fauci says it’s okay to do live shows again. Please let us know if you need anything from us to make the online open mic work for you. You can email us at portlandpoetryslam@gmail.com.

Free

Livestream Reading: Donna Ward & Jackie Shannon Hollis

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes Australian author Donna Ward for the US livestream launch of her memoir, She I Dare Not Name: A Spinster's Meditations on Life. She will be joined by Portland author Jackie Shannon Hollis, whose memoir is This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story. They will discuss childlessness, writing, and "spinsterhood." Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIlce-oqTsoEtGoLdIc0iRs3pEUF-LjxyU3 About She I Dare Not Name: Astonishing. Luminous. A book about being human. She I Dare Not Name is a compelling collection of fiercely intelligent, deeply intimate, lyrical reflections on the life of a woman who stands on the threshold between two millennia. Both manifesto and confession, this moving memoir explores the meaning and purpose Donna Ward discovered in a life lived entirely without a partner and children. The book…

Free

Trystan Reese in Conversation With Andrew Solomon

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

When Trystan Reese was just a year into his relationship with Biff (now his husband), the couple learned that Biff’s niece and nephew were about to be removed from their home by Child Protective Services. Immediately, Trystan and Biff took in one-year-old Hailey and three-year-old Lucas, becoming caregivers overnight to two tiny survivors of abuse and neglect. From this surprising start, Trystan and Biff built a loving marriage and happy home — learning to parent on the job. They adopted Hailey and Lucas, and soon decided to grow their family biologically with a child that Trystan, who is transgender, would carry. Trystan’s groundbreaking pregnancy attracted media fanfare, and the family welcomed baby Leo in 2017. In How We Do Family: From Adoption to Trans Pregnancy,…

Free

The Milwaukie Poetry Series: Paulann Petersen

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Paulann Petersen's poetry reading will be livestreamed on June 9, 2021 on the Ledding Library YouTube Channel. (link is external) Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita, has seven full-length books of poetry, most recently One Small Sun from Salmon Poetry in 2019. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry, The New Republic, Prairie Schooner, Willow Springs, Calyx, and the online Poetry Daily. She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and the recipient of the 2006 Holbrook Award from Oregon Literary Arts. In 2013 she received Willamette Writers' Distinguished Northwest Writer Award. A flier of the 14th season readings is available here or at the Ledding Library. Thank you to all the volunteers who make this reading possible. For information or questions about the reading and to join the group list, please contact the Series Coordinator…

Free

Jonathan Evison in Conversation With Thomas Kohnstamm

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Dave Cartwright used to be good at a lot of things: good with his hands, good at solving problems, good at staying calm in a crisis. But on the heels of his third tour in Iraq, the fabric of Dave's life has begun to unravel. Gripped by PTSD, he finds himself losing his home, his wife, his direction. Most days, his love for his seven-year-old daughter, Bella, is the only thing keeping him going. When tragedy strikes, Dave makes a dramatic decision: the two of them will flee their damaged lives, heading off the grid to live in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. As they carve out a home in a cave in that harsh, breathtaking landscape, echoes of its past begin to reach…

Free

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic on Zoom Featuring Shawn Aveningo-Sanders

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Shawn Aveningo-Sanders Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige 7 pm Thursday, June On Zoom $5 Suggested donation LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, PRO-SCIENCE, ANTI-FASCIST, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004 Please support Niche Wine Bar, whose owner, Leah Jackson, provided a home for the reading series from 2015-2020: https://nichewinebar.com Shawn Aveningo-Sanders grew up in Missouri and after a bit of globetrotting finally landed in Portland, Oregon. Her recent chapbook, What She Was Wearing, tells her #metoo story that took 30 years to reveal. Shawn’s work has appeared worldwide in over 150 literary journals and anthologies, including Calyx, Amsterdam Quarterly, American Journal of Poetry, Timberline Review and Poets Reading the News. She is a Pushcart nominee, Best of the Net nominee, and…

Free – $5

Daisy Hernández in Conversation With Amy Stewart

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Growing up in a New Jersey factory town in the 1980s, Daisy Hernández believed that her aunt had become deathly ill from eating an apple. No one in her family, in either the United States or Colombia, spoke of infectious diseases, and even into her thirties, she only knew that her aunt had died of a rare illness called Chagas. But as Hernández dug deeper, she discovered that Chagas — or the kissing bug disease — is more prevalent in the United States than the Zika virus. Today, more than 300,000 Americans have Chagas. Why do some infectious diseases make headlines and others fall by the wayside? After her aunt’s death, Hernández begins searching for answers about who our nation chooses to take care of…

Free

Livestream Launch: Cindy Baldwin with Jamie Pacton

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's Books welcomes back Portland author Cindy Baldwin for the livestream launch of her new Middle Grade novel, The Stars of Whistling Ridge. Cindy will be in conversation with Jamie Pacton, whose new MG novel is Lucky Girl. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAkduitqjorH9ISUvnW3LZ7OCxcDq0wvrQB About The Stars of Whistling Ridge: Ivy Mae Bloom is almost thirteen years old, her name is almost a complete sentence, and her family’s RV is almost a home. That’s one too many “almosts” for Ivy. She desperately wants a place to put down roots, but it’s her mama’s job as a fallen star to tend the magic underpinning the world—a job that’s kept Ivy’s family living on the road since before Ivy was born. After Ivy steals Mama's entire supply of wish…

Free

Matthew Clark Davison in Conversation With T Kira Mahealani Madden

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Matthew Clark Davison’s Doubting Thomas (Amble Press) chronicles a challenging and disruptive year in the life of a young, gay teacher in the waning years of Obama’s America. Thomas McGurrin is a fourth-grade teacher and openly gay man at a private primary school serving Portland, Oregon's wealthy progressive elite when he is falsely accused of inappropriately touching a male student. The accusation comes just as Thomas is thrust back into the center of his unusual family by his younger brother's battle with cancer. Although cleared of the accusation, Thomas is forced to resign from a job he loves during a potentially life-changing family drama. Davison's novel explores the discrepancy between the progressive ideals and persistent negative stereotypes among the privileged regarding social status, race, and…

Free