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!

Talks & Discussions

  1. Events
  2. Talks & Discussions

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

Portland Book Festival

Portland Art Museum 1219 SW Park Ave, Portland, OR, United States

The largest book festival in the Pacific Northwest returns Saturday, November 9, 2019 to the Portland Art Museum and neighboring venues. When:November 9 Cost:$15 Join Literary Arts for the annual Portland Book Festival, presented by Bank of America, returning on November 9, 2019. This one-day event features local and national authors presenting onstage events, pop-up readings, and workshops. Enjoy activities for readers of all ages, an extensive book fair, local food trucks, entry to the Portland Art Museum, and more. Gather with your community and celebrate our shared passion for books. Purchase your advance pass now. Adult passes are $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Paid admissions includes a $5 book voucher redeemable at the book fair. Admission is free to youth ages 17 and younger and students…

Continue readingPortland Book Festival
$15 – $20

All Our Trials: A book talk with Emily Thuma

Dismantle, Change, Build Center 14 NE Killingsworth St, Portland, OR, United States

We are excited to have Emily Thuma, author of All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence to join us for a book talk in conversation with local community anti-violence activists. Please join us from 6-8pm at the Dismantle, Change, Build, Center for an engaging conversation, light refreshments, and an opportunity to meet and build with Portland community invested in anti-violence work and transformative justice. Books will be available for purchase. More about the book and author: During the 1970s, grassroots women activists in and outside of prisons forged a radical politics against gender violence and incarceration. Emily L. Thuma traces the making of this anti-carceral feminism at the intersections of struggles for racial and economic justice, prisoners, and psychiatric patients…

Continue readingAll Our Trials: A book talk with Emily Thuma
Free

How to Connect Young Readers to Real Authors

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

Please join Annie Bloom's Books for this special event with local children’s book authors Dawn Prochovnic, Elizabeth Rusch, Hannah Holt, and Carmen Bernier-Grand. Connecting personally with an author can spark a lifelong interest in reading, writing, the arts -- and even science. Prochovnic, Rusch, Holt, and Bernier-Grand will cover the many ways students can connect with authors including web-based resources, classroom-based resources, educational YouTube videos, and good old fashioned fan letters, and they’ll discuss tips for attracting authors to school and community events. Meet these four local authors, get signed copies of their latest books, and learn about a variety of educational and enrichment resources available to support teachers, librarians, and parents of young readers. Dawn Prochovnic is the author of Where Does a Cowgirl…

Continue readingHow to Connect Young Readers to Real Authors
Free

Cyrus Farivar at Northwest Academy

Northwest Academy 1130 SW Main Street, Portland, OR, United States

Until recently, most of our personal activities were easy to keep private, and unearthing the details required at least some effort on the part of those seeking our information. Today, however, with the advent of social media and surveillance technologies, along with the movement of many aspects of our lives into the digital realm, our data has become more widely available and more public. Between emails, web browsing, phone calls, CCTV cameras, social media posts, and online transactions, we can be tracked by private companies as well as our government. But, how much of this tracking is even legal? Cyrus Farivar has written a great book, called Habeas Data, that examines 10 pivotal legal cases that have shaped our current rights related to privacy and…

Continue readingCyrus Farivar at Northwest Academy
Free

John U. Bacon “Overtime” Book Tour

Broadway Grill and Brewery 1700 NE Broadway Street, Portland, OR, United States

John U. Bacon, bestselling author and Michigan alumnus, is coming to Portland! Join us in welcoming him on his book tour for Overtime: Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College Football. John will be giving a talk about the book and answering questions, as well as signing copies. Admission includes a copy of the book. More on Overtime: For the past year, John U. Bacon has received rare access to Jim Harbaugh’s University of Michigan football team: coaches, players, and staffers, in closed-door meetings, locker rooms, meals, and classes. Overtime captures this storied program at the crossroads, as the sport’s winningest team battles to reclaim its former glory. But what if the price of success today comes at the cost of…

Continue readingJohn U. Bacon “Overtime” Book Tour
$10 – $25

Art & Power: Centering the Voices of Black Artists

Louiza 2808 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Portland, OR, United States

Black and African American communities have always created and contributed to thriving arts and culture landscapes. Despite racist laws and oppressive systems’ attempt to erase and co-opt these contributions, the resiliency, advocacy, and creativity of Black artists continues to challenge the paradigm. Black artists are bringing art to life across the region, redefining art spaces, creating new systems, and reimagining new futures. Join us for the last Art & Power of 2019 and listen, learn and reflect with local artists Bethlehem Daniel, Carlos the Rollerblader, Christine Miller, and Mic Crenshaw as they discuss their experience as Black artists in Portland’s arts ecosystem, with moderation by S. Renee Mitchell. We strive to host inclusive and accessible events that enable all individuals to engage fully. There will…

Continue readingArt & Power: Centering the Voices of Black Artists
Free

John Arcudi, From Hell’s Heart

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

To mark the occasion of the bicentennial of Herman Melville’s birth (August 1st, 1819), John Arcudi has brought together fifty-seven world renowned artists and their gorgeous, brand new illustrations for Moby Dick, Bartleby, Pierre, The Confidence Man, Typee, Billy Budd, and White Jacket, as well as excerpts from Melville’s letters. A short passage from Melville’s writing accompanies each illustration, giving context to the story. Artists include Matt Kish, Dave Malan, Hunt Emerson, Evan Cagle, Brahm Revel, Ryan Sook, and Cosimo Miorelli. John Arcudi is a Portland comic book writer, best known for his work on The Mask and B.P.R.D. and for his series Major Bummer; his most recent work, Rumble, is illustrated by David Rubin and published by Portland-based Image Comics. The son of a…

Continue readingJohn Arcudi, From Hell’s Heart
Free

Unsolicited Press Drop-In Submission Pitch

Elephants Delicatessen on Corbett 5221 SW Corbett Avenue, Portland, OR, United States

Unsolicited Press will hold an informal drop-in submissions period in which local writers can pitch their manuscripts to one of the editors on the team. The pitches should be 1-3 minutes in length and authors should bring with them a query letter to leave with the author (if the author wants to furnish a sample of the work, 10 pages max). Think of it like speed dating for books. Writers can identify the editor by looking for the table with a copy of Who Killed Buster Sparkle?

Free

7th Annual Portland Cookbook & Artisan Marketplace

The Heathman Hotel 1001 SW Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

Join your favorite local cookbook and culinary guidebook authors for a holiday book signing at Headwaters at The Heathman Hotel. (Hint, hint: a signed book makes a great holiday gift.) Authors will be on hand to sign and sell their latest and greatest titles as well as offer small bites and beverages for the crowd. Local makers will be selling their artisan treats and we'll have exciting raffle prizes. Free to attend! Before the marketplace, Join Portlanders John Becker and Megan Scott, authors of the new Joy of Cooking, in conversation with cookbook author and PCA President Diane Morgan. Morgan will lead a Q&A with Becker, the great-grandson of the original author, Irma Rombauer, and his wife, Megan Scott. Tickets for the Joy of Cooking author talk from 11-noon…

Continue reading7th Annual Portland Cookbook & Artisan Marketplace
Free

MUTANT COMICS X-POSITION AND TRUNK SHOW

Books with Pictures 1401 SE Division Street, Portland, OR, United States

X-Party! X-Music! X-Cake! X-Costumes! X-Travaganza! We’re feeling unprecedented levels of X-citement lately here at Books with Pictures, so we’re throwing an evening of X-treme frivoloty. Break out your Jubilee crossplay and come celebrate with us! In time for the release of the House of X/Powers of X hardcover, Eisner-winning critic Douglas Wolk will present a Quicksilver-speed history of all of the X-Men-related series and miniseries Marvel has published since 1963, and sing a song that names 150 of them. And we'll have sets of the best ones for sale!

Free
Click a category label below to view the calendar with only events in that specific category.