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Louis Bayard in Conversation With Julia Claiborne Johnson

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Louis Bayard, author of The Pale Blue Eye and The Black Tower, is back with a brilliantly wrought, witty, and sensitive novel about the young Jacqueline Bouvier before she became that Jackie — and about a marriage that almost never happened. In the spring of 1951, debutante Jacqueline Bouvier, working as the Inquiring Photographer for the Washington Times-Herald, meets Jack Kennedy, a charming congressman from a notorious and powerful family, at a party in Washington, DC. Young, rebellious, eager to break free from her mother, Jackie is drawn to the elusive young politician, and soon she and Jack are bantering over secret dinner dates and short work phone calls. Jack, busy with House duties during the week and Senate campaigning on the weekend (as well…

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Free

2022 Tin House Summer Workshop Reading Series: Casey Plett, T Kira Madden, Nafissa Thompson-Spires

Reed College - Cerf Amphitheater 3203 Southeast Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, OR, United States

We are excited to once again be offering in-person readings as part of our 2022 Summer Workshop programming. Starting at 7:30 pm, these events will take place in Reed College’s Cerf Amphitheater and are free and open to the public. Faculty books will be available for purchase at the Reed Bookstore, with authors signing after the event. Masks are not required in the outdoor amphitheater. Casey Plett is the author of A Dream of a Woman, Little Fish, A Safe Girl to Love, the co-editor of Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy From Transgender Writers, and the Publisher at LittlePuss Press. She has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, the Winnipeg Free Press, and other publications. A winner of the Amazon First Novel Award, the…

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Free

Tiana Clark, Vanessa Friedman & Shayla Lawson in Conversation With Katherine Morgan

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In May 1962, Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl sent shockwaves through the United States, selling more than two million copies in three weeks. The future Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief’s book promoted the message that a woman’s needs, ambition, and success during her single years could actually take precedence over the search for a husband. While much of Brown’s advice is outdated and even offensive by today’s standards, her central message remains relevant. In their exceptional anthology, Sex and the Single Woman (Harper Perennial), editors Eliza Smith and Haley Swanson bring together insights from many of today’s leading feminist thinkers and writers to pay homage to Brown’s original work and reinterpret it for a new generation. These contributors provide a much-needed reckoning while addressing today’s…

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Free

CANCELLED Mat Johnson in Conversation With Cari Luna

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

We are sorry to report that this event has been cancelled. When sociologist Nalini Jackson joins the SS Delany for the first manned mission to Jupiter, all she wants is a career opportunity: the chance to conduct the first field study of group dynamics on long-haul cryoships. But what she discovers instead is an entire city encased in a bubble on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. Even more unexpected, Nalini and the rest of the crew soon find themselves joining its captive population. New Roanoke is a city riven by wealth inequality and governed by a feckless, predatory elite, its economy run on heedless consumption and income inequality. But in other ways it's different from the cities we already know: It’s covered by an enormous…

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Free

In-Store Reading: P. C. Cast: Into the Mist

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

Annie Bloom's welcomes local author P. C. Cast for an in-store reading from her new novel, Into the Mist. A few reminders if you are planning to attend the event: Masks are required, and must be worn at all times. Social distancing is also required, and any photographs or selfies will have to be taken from a distance. Everyone must remain masked while indoors, including for photographs. Our current capacity is for 40 attendees. Seating is also limited, and this reading is first-come, first-served. If we reach capacity, you are welcome to order a copy of Into the Mist here, to be signed after the event, and either picked-up or mailed to you. Out of respect for the author and other attendees, our events have…

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Free

2022 Tin House Summer Workshop Reading Series: Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Book Release for “The Man Who Could Move Clouds”

Reed College - Cerf Amphitheater 3203 Southeast Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, OR, United States

We are excited to once again be offering in-person readings as part of our 2022 Summer Workshop programming. Starting at 7:30 pm, these events will take place in Reed College’s Cerf Amphitheater and are free and open to the public. Faculty books will be available for purchase at the Reed Bookstore, with authors signing after the event. Masks are not required in the outdoor amphitheater. Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her first novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree was the silver medal winner in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and a New York Times editor's choice. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Buzzfeed, Nylon, and Guernica, among others. Rojas Contreras has received…

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Free

Paul Tremblay in Conversation With Stewart O’Nan

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The Pallbearers Club (William Morrow) is a cleverly voiced psychological thriller about an unforgettable — and unsettling — friendship, with blood-chilling twists, crackling wit, and a thrumming pulse in its veins — from Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and Survivor Song. What if the coolest girl you've ever met decided to be your friend? Art Barbara was so not cool. He was a 17-year-old high school loner in the late 1980s who listened to hair metal, had to wear a monstrous back-brace at night for his scoliosis, and started an extracurricular club for volunteer pallbearers at poorly attended funerals. But his new friend thought the Pallbearers Club was cool. And she brought along her Polaroid camera to take…

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Free

Matthew Dickman in Conversation With Chelsea Bieker

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

Guided by acclaimed poet Matthew Dickman’s signature “clarity and ability to engage” (David Kirby, New York Times), Husbandry (W. W. Norton) is a love song from a father to his children. Written after a separation and during overwhelming single-fatherhood in the early days of COVID-19 lockdowns, Husbandry refuses romantic notions of parenting and embraces all its mess, anguish, humor, fear, boredom, and warmth. Dickman composes these poems entirely in vivid couplets that animate the various domestic pairs of broken-up parents, two sons, love and grief. He explores the terrain of his children’s dreams and nightmares, the almost primal fears that spill into his own, and the residual impacts of his parents’ failures. Threading his anxieties with bright moments of beauty and gratitude, the volume delights…

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Free

Incite: Queer Writers Read – July

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

Incite: Queer Writers Read is a curated, bimonthly reading series for Queer writers. Incite’s hope is to create conversation, connection, and greater understanding both within the Queer community and with other communities. Hosted by Vinnie Kinsella and Jennifer Perrine. This event will take place in-person at Literary Arts’ downtown center. Please review our Covid-19 guidelines.  The theme for July is “Catching Fire.”  Nicky Nicholson-Klingerman A Northwestern University journalism graduate, Nicky has been published in various media forms and outlets, including the Buckman Journal, Fertile Ground Festival and the Oregon Children’s Theatre. Her work focuses on life as an mixed Black queer artist navigating a system not made for her. Tashon Phoenix Born in Tucson, Arizona, Tashon is a Black Queer Non-Binary Transmasc Creative and Spoken Word Artist.…

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Free

Elisa Albert in Conversation With Kimberly King Parsons

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

From an author whose writing has been praised as “blistering” (The New Yorker), “virtuosic” (The Washington Post), and “brilliant” (The New York Times) comes a provocative and entertaining novel about a woman who desperately wants a child but struggles to accept the use of assisted reproductive technology — a hilarious and ferocious send-up of feminism, fame, art, commerce, and autonomy. On the eve of her fourth album, singer-songwriter Aviva Rosner is plagued by infertility. The twist: as much as Aviva wants a child, she is wary of technological conception, and has poured her ambivalence into her music. As the album makes its way in the world, the shock of the response from fans and critics is at first exciting — and then invasive and strange.…

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