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!

Steven Hyden in Conversation With Chuck Klosterman

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Ever since Pearl Jam first blasted onto the Seattle grunge scene three decades ago with their debut album, Ten, they have sold over 85 million albums, performed for hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, and have even been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation (Hachette), music critic and journalist Steven Hyden celebrates the life, career, and music of this legendary group, widely considered to be one of the greatest American rock bands of all time. Long Road is structured like a mix tape, using 18 different Pearl Jam classics as starting points for telling a mix of personal and universal stories. Each chapter tells the tale of this great…

Free

Liz Prato in Conversation with Aaron Gilbreath

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

We are thrilled to welcome back Liz Prato, in conversation with Aaron Gilbreath, to discuss her new book Kids in America: A Gen X Reckoning. In this revealing and provocative essay collection, Prato reveals a generation deeply affected by terrorism, racial inequality, rape culture, and mental illness, in an era when none of these issues were openly discussed. Part memoir, part journlistic exploration, Kids in America illuminates a generation often written off as cynical, sarcastic slackers, showing that its impact on culture and society is undeniable. Prato herself is a GenXer, growing up in Denver in the '70s and '80s, so the issues she explores here are issues of her generation, and a lot of the book is about coming to terms with things they…

Free

Hiron Ennes in Conversation With Sara A. Mueller

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

Hiron Ennes surreal and horrifying debut, Leech (Tordotcom) combines parasitic body horror with gothic family drama in a post-post-apocalyptic masterpiece — defying our understanding of identity, heredity, and bodily autonomy. In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies. For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed. In the frozen north, the Institute's body will…

Free

Jonathan Hill in Conversation With Breena Bard

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

Drawing on the experiences of his Vietnamese American family and his love of ’80s sci-fi shows, award-winning creator Jonathan Hill crafts a funny, insightful graphic novel about the immigrant experience and the perils of middle school. Threatened with diminishing resources, Booger Lizk’t and his family flee their lizard community deep below Earth’s crust to survive above among humans. The Lizk’t family of Elberon now passes as the Tomkins family of Eagle Valley. “Tommy Tomkins” wears a human face to school but can’t seem to fit in no matter how he looks. The basketball team becomes a pipe dream when bullies label him a bug eater, and only Dung Tran, an immigrant from Vietnam and fellow outsider, sees Tommy for who he is inside, which is…

Free

Notes & Motes: The Vlatkovich Trio Plus One

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

Rose City Book Pub is more than thrilled to host Notes and Motes: Improvised Jazz with Surreal Poetry on August 29th at 7:30 pm. Swing on by to catch some freeform tunes and listen to some poetry with an edge. Notes and Motes: The Vlatkovich Trio Plus One Michael Vlatkovich – trombone Chris Lee – percussion Shao Way Wu – bass Casey Bush – poetry Michael Vlatkovich has produced over 20 CDs as band leader and composer. He has collaborated with musicians, poets, and conceptual artists. He is an emotionally charged performer expressing raw power and beauty in a minimally structured format. He has worked with many poets including Lisa Gill, Dottie Grossman, Anna Holmer, Chuck Britt, Bill Roper and Mark Weber. Vlatkovich holds duel…

Free

Queer PDXpression: Open Mic Spoken Word Poetry

Santé Bar 411 NW Park Ave, Portland, OR, United States

Hey Babes Come Grab a Open chair a open beer and an open mind we will be at Santé bar this Thursday September, 29th Sign ups at 7:30 show at 8ish ASL interpreter available upon request. A Dynamic Space for words and visual art to Live, be, and own Queer identity

Free – $5

Renée Watson

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

In Ways to Share Joy (Bloomsbury), Renée Watson — award-winning author of Piecing Me Together — continues her charming Ramona-esque series starring spirited Ryan Hart and her loving family. Ryan Hart is caught in the middle. She has an older brother and a baby sister, and she’s in a friendship tug-of-war with KiKi and Amanda who are both vying to be her best best friend. With all that’s going on, Ryan still finds a way to see the bright side of things. But it’s terribly hard to be cheery when her brother, Ray, pulls a prank and ruins her latest baking project. And who can think about being kind to a classmate who is relentless with his teasing? Ryan is determined not to let anything…

Free

Storytime and Cupcake Decorating

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

Join us Saturday, October 1st at 2pm in celebrating International Music Day with an extra special reading of Chari Smith's The Piano and a cupcake decorating party! Ticket includes a cupcake, all the decorations one could need and a lovely spot to listen to Chari's reading. All ticket holders must have an adult to supervise them throughout the duration of the event. Buy tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-piano-reading-cupcake-decorating-party-tickets-400971094337?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=escb

Free

Julian Aguon in Conversation With Karen Russell

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

Part memoir, part manifesto, Chamorro climate activist and human rights lawyer Julian Aguon’s No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies (Astra House) is a coming-of-age story and a call for justice — for everyone, but in particular, for Indigenous peoples. In bracing poetry and compelling prose, Aguon weaves together stories from his childhood in the villages of Guam with searing political commentary about matters ranging from nuclear weapons to global warming. Undertaking the work of bearing witness, wrestling with the most pressing questions of the modern day, and reckoning with the challenge of truth-telling in an era of rampant obfuscation, he culls from his own life experiences — from losing his father to pancreatic cancer to working for Mother Teresa to an edifying chance encounter with Sherman…

Free

LC English Fall ’22 Reading Series: Audrey Gutierrez

Lewis & Clark - Frank Manor House 0615 SW Palatine Hill Road, Portland, OR, United States

We are delighted to kickoff our LC English Fall ’22 Reading Series by showcasing work by Visiting Instructor and LC alumna Audrey Gutierrez! Audrey Gutierrez is a Cuban-American writer from Lafayette, Louisiana. She earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a finalist of the 2022 PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship and of the Mary Blodgett Fiction Prize from the University of Iowa. In summer of 2022, Audrey was an Alaska State Parks Artist-in-Residence. Audrey has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa and English language in Baeza, Spain. Currently, she is finalizing her gothic novel, The Fractures of Nos Castillo, about five sisters living on the edge of Cuba during the Revolution, as well as working on a collection of horror and…

Free