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!

Columbia Writers Series: Sloane Crosley

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Sloane Crosley is a fiercely funny author and essayist whose humor is lively and genuine. She is a relentless comedic force who the New York Times called, “an incisive observer of human nature.” Sloane Crosley is the author of The New York Times bestselling essay collections, I Was Told There’d Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number. The former was a finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor, and was described as “perfectly, relentlessly funny” by David Sedaris. Her debut novel, The Clasp, was a national bestseller, a New York Times editor’s choice, and it has been optioned for film by Universal Pictures. Sloane’s most recent book of essays, Look Alive Out There, was met with high praise. Steve Martin said of…

Free

Susan DeFreitas with Lidia Yuknavitch, Michelle Ruiz Keil, David D. Levine, Leni Zumas & Curtis C. Chen

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Named for the anarchist utopia in Ursula K. Le Guin’s science fiction classic, The Dispossessed, Dispatches From Anarres (Forest Avenue Press) embodies the anarchic spirit of Le Guin’s hometown of Portland, Oregon, while paying tribute to her enduring vision. In stories that range from fantasy to sci-fi to realism, some of Portland's most vital voices have come together to celebrate Le Guin’s lasting legacy and influence on that most subversive of human faculties: the imagination. Editor Susan DeFreitas (Hot Season) will be joined by contributors Lidia Yuknavitch (Verge), Michelle Ruiz Keil (Summer in the City of Roses), David D. Levine (Arabella of Mars trilogy), Leni Zumas (Red Clocks), and Curtis C. Chen (the Kangaroo series). Register for the Zoom event  /  Buy the Book

Free

Casey Michel in Conversation With Alexander S. Vindman (Lt. Col., U.S. Army, Ret.)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

For years, one country has acted as the greatest offshore haven in the world, attracting hundreds of billions of dollars in illicit finance tied directly to corrupt regimes, extremist networks, and the worst the world has to offer. But it hasn’t been the sand-splattered Caribbean islands, or even traditional financial secrecy havens like Switzerland or Panama, that have come to dominate the offshoring world. Instead, the country profiting the most also happens to be the one that still claims to be the moral leader of the free world, and the one that claims to be leading the fight against the crooked and the corrupt: the USA. Casey Michel’s American Kleptocracy (St. Martin’s) examines just how the United States’ implosion into a center of global offshoring…

Free

Stand Up Smut : An Erotic Open Mic (now on zoom!)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Stand Up Smut is an open mic that welcomes all kinds of adult material. We celebrate your creative erotic imagination! Saucy stories? Electric erotica? Poetry that gets you wet? We want your sacred smut! Share your creations (participants get in FREE - sign up in advance!) or be an aroused, engaged audience. One of the best parts of SUS is becoming part of a creative erotic community! We are now online, on zoom, and you can log in from all over the world! (While we had hoped to return to an in-person version, delta is keeping us virtual for now) You are welcome to attend with your cameras on or off (we like seeing your face, but you are always at choice!) Our agreements are…

$5

Sandor Ellix Katz in Conversation With Liz Crain

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

For the past two decades, James Beard Award winner, fermentation expert, and bestselling author Sandor Ellix Katz has traveled the world, both teaching and learning about the many fascinating and delicious techniques for fermenting foods. Wherever he's gone, he has gleaned valuable insights into the cultures and traditions of local and Indigenous peoples, whether they make familiar ferments like sauerkraut or less common preparations like natto and koji. In his latest book, Sandor Katz's Fermentation Journeys (Chelsea Green), Katz takes readers along with him to revisit these special places, people, and foods. Katz’s new cookbook reminds us that the magical power of fermentation belongs to everyone, everywhere. Perfect for adventurous foodies, armchair travelers, and fermentation fanatics who have followed Katz's work through the years —…

Free

James S. A. Corey in Conversation With Ann Leckie / Ticketed Event

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The biggest science fiction series of the decade comes to an incredible conclusion in Leviathan Falls (Orbit), the ninth and final novel in James S. A. Corey’s Hugo Award-winning space opera series, The Expanse. The Laconian Empire has fallen, setting the 1,300 solar systems free from the rule of Winston Duarte. But the ancient enemy that killed the gate builders is awake, and the war against our universe has begun again. In the dead system of Adro, Elvi Okoye leads a desperate scientific mission to understand what the gate builders were and what destroyed them, even if it means compromising herself and the half-alien children who bear the weight of her investigation. Through the wide-flung systems of humanity, Colonel Aliana Tanaka hunts for Duarte’s missing…

$30

Fonda Lee in Conversation With Sarah Gailey

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In Fonda Lee’s Jade Legacy (Orbit), the page-turning conclusion to the Green Bone Saga, the Kaul siblings battle rival clans for honor and control over an East Asia-inspired fantasy metropolis. Jade, the mysterious and magical substance once exclusive to the Green Bone warriors of Kekon, is now coveted throughout the world. Everyone wants access to the supernatural abilities it provides, from traditional forces such as governments, mercenaries, and criminal kingpins, to modern players, including doctors, athletes, and movie studios. As the struggle over the control of jade grows ever larger and more deadly, the Kaul family, and the ancient ways of the Kekonese Green Bones, will never be the same. Battered by war and tragedy, the Kauls are plagued by resentments and old wounds as…

Free

Fonograf Editions Five-Year Anniversary

Oregon Contemporary (formerly DISJECTA) 8371 N Interstate Avenue, Portland, OR, United States

(image by Adie Bovee) Celebration & Fundraiser With performances by Eileen Myles, Samuel Ace, Allison Cobb, Brandi Katherine Herrera, and Sara Jaffe and Auctioning print and analog delights from our friends: milkweed editions, Canarium Books, Fence, Albina Music Trust, Poetry Foundation, and many more.

Free

Neal Stephenson in Conversation With Lev Grossman

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Neal Stephenson's sweeping, prescient new novel transports readers to a near-future world in which the greenhouse effect has inexorably resulted in a whirling-dervish troposphere of superstorms, rising sea levels, global flooding, merciless heat waves, and virulent, deadly pandemics. One man — visionary billionaire restaurant chain magnate T. R. Schmidt, Ph.D. — has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as "elemental." But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied? Ranging from the Texas heartland to the Dutch royal palace in the Hague, from the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas to the sunbaked Chihuahuan Desert, Termination Shock (William Morrow) brings together a disparate group of…

Free

Book Release Party: Thomas Lucky Richards

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

I will be reading from my newest book, Thirst for Beginners: poems, prose, and quizzes. My special musical guests will be Larry Yes!

Free