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!

Kim Johnson in Conversation with Black Cultural Library Advocates

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Kim Johnson's debut novel, This Is My America, has been described as a cross between The Hate U Give and Just Mercy. Join Carla Davis and Ebonee Bell, members of Multnomah County Library’s Black Cultural Library Advocates team, as they chat with Ms. Johnson about first novels, love triangles, and how teens and young adults can advance antiracism and social justice. More about the book: This Is My America tells the story of 17-year-old Tracy Beaumont, who is in a race against time to prove her imprisoned father's innocence and save him from death row. Then the unthinkable happens and the police accuse Tracy's talented older brother, Jamal, of a horrible crime. Register for event via Zoom: https://multco-us.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwrceyupzsuHtPs75wBd5COqAEidcutsXms

Free

Teen Author Q&A and Writing Workshop with Aiden Thomas

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Teens, join Aiden Thomas, author of Cemetery Boys, for a Q&A and scary story writing workshop. Register/join via Zoom: https://multco-us.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUpcu-urj8sHN28CgjrXNpTTRKtEj3s8uuJ Aiden Thomas is a YA author with an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. Originally from Oakland, California, they now make their home in Portland, OR. As a queer, trans Latinx, Aiden advocates strongly for diverse representation in all media. Aiden’s special talents include: quoting The Office, useless trivia, Jenga, finishing sentences with “is my FAVORITE”, and killing spiders. Aiden is notorious for not being able to guess the endings of books and movies, and organizes their bookshelves by color. Aiden's debut novel, CEMETERY BOYS, is a Dia de Muertos paranormal romance about Yadriel (a gay, trans brujo) who accidentally summons the wrong ghost…

Free

Supercosmic Power Through Small Presses

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

How much would you give to sit down with a traditionally published author and pick their brain about the ins and outs of working with a small press? How about two? Grab a notebook, a pen, and a magic lamp to harness some incredible insight from two of The Parliament House's most successful authors: Brianna Sugalski is an elf from the Hawaiian islands, obsessed with worldwide folklore and the late medieval ages. She is a reiki practitioner and flourishes in Fall weather, and is writing the sequel to Disenchanted as we speak. Jason Tanamor is the critically acclaimed author of the novels Anonymous and Drama Dolls. His writings have appeared in more than 250 publications. He's interviewed personalities such as Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Pete…

$47

A Discussion with Janet McAdams

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for a discussion with poet Janet McAdams.  She will discuss her anthologized poems published in New Poets of Native Nations. Her poem “The Collectors,” which is excerpted in the anthology, was published in its entirety at StorySouth, as was “Ghazal of Body.” More of her poetry can be found here. Janet McAdams’ chapbook, Seven Boxes for the Country After, was published by Kent State University Press in 2015. She is the author of two other poetry books, Feral and The Island of Lost Luggage, which won the American Book Award, and a novel Red Weather. With Geary Hobson and Kathryn Walkiewicz, she co-edited the anthology, The People Who Stayed: Southeastern Indian Writing after Removal(Oklahoma, 2010). She is the founding editor of the Earthworks…

Free

Marilynne Robinson: Jack

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Presented in partnership with the Black Mountain Institute, Literary Arts, and The Loft’s Wordplay, and Wisconsin Book Festival. Marilynne Robinson will appear live on Crowdcast, in conversation with novelist C Pam Zhang. Join us at: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/jack Marilynne Robinson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, returns to the world of Gilead with Jack, the latest novel in one of the great works of contemporary American fiction. Presented in partnership with the Black Mountain Institute, Literary Arts, and The Loft’s Wordplay, and Wisconsin Book Festival. Marilynne Robinson’s mythical world of Gilead, Iowa—the setting of her novels Gilead, Home, and Lila, and now Jack—and its beloved characters have illuminated and interrogated the complexities of American history, the power of our emotions, and the wonders of a sacred world. Jack is Robinson’s fourth novel in…

Free

A Conversation with Elena Passarello

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for a conversation with actor and non-fiction writer, Elena Passarello. Ms. Passarello will discuss writing and publishing creative non-fiction, and her essay, “Twinkle, Twinkle Vogel Staar, On Mozart’s Feathered Collaborator,” originally published in Virginia Quarterly Review. (Link here.) Elena Passarello is an actor, writer, and recipient of a 2015 Whiting Award. Her first collection Let Me Clear My Throat (Sarabande, 2012), won the gold medal for nonfiction at the 2013 Independent Publisher Awards and was a finalist for the 2014 Oregon Book Award. Her essays on performance, pop culture, and the natural world have been published in Oxford American, Slate, Creative Nonfiction, and The Iowa Review, among other publications, as well as in the 2015 anthologies Cat is Art Spelled Wrong and After…

Free

Former CIA Director John O. Brennan in Conversation With Rob Reiner Ticketed Event

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Undaunted: My Fight Against America's Enemies, at Home and Abroad (Celadon) is a powerful and revelatory memoir from former CIA Director John O. Brennan, spanning his more than 30 years in government. Friday, January 6, 2017: On that day, as always, John Brennan’s alarm clock was set to go off at 4:15 a.m. But nothing else about that day would be routine. That day marked his first and only security briefing with President-elect Donald Trump. And it was also the day Brennan said his final farewell to Owen Brennan, his father, the man who had taught him the lessons of goodness, integrity, and honor that had shaped the course of an unparalleled career serving his country from within the intelligence community. In his brutally honest…

$30

Liz Crain in Conversation With Marisa McClellan

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

At once a celebration of culinary diversity and a message of love via dumplings, food writer Liz Crain’s Dumplings Equal Love (Sasquatch) is a bright and innovative cookbook stuffed with traditional and not-so-traditional dumpling recipes — plus recipes for dough and sauces. Internationally, dumplings have always played the dual role of an inexpensive comfort food passed down through generations, and a ceremonial, celebratory festival treat. Whichever way you enjoy them, you can now make your own dumpling memories with Dumplings Equal Love. Rooted in deep cultural respect, steeped in curiosity, and fed by the traditions of families who hold these recipes dear, Crain adapts dumpling recipes from all over the world. Crain will be joined in conversation by Marisa McClellan, author of Food in Jars:…

Free

Applying for an Oregon Literary Fellowship: Your Questions Answered

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Questions about applying for an Oregon Literary Fellowship? Join us for a Zoom meeting and bring your questions. Pre-registration is required, but you can attend any time between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpdOChrTssE9zH-CA3iulLeWH8ahUf0PSq

Free

Carter Sickels and Megan Kruse: The Prettiest Star

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Carter Sickels in conversation with Megan Kruse, discussing Carter Sickels’ new novel, The Prettiest Star. Set in 1986, a year after Rock Hudson’s death brought the news of AIDS into living rooms and kitchens across America, Carter’s second novel shines light on an overlooked part of the epidemic, those men who returned to the rural communities and families who’d rejected them. The Prettiest Star was included in O Magazine’s list of “31 LGBTQ Books That’ll Change the Literary Landscape in 2020”, BookRiot’s “Most Anticipated LGBTQ Books of 2020”, Lambda Literary’s “Most Anticipated LGBTQ Books of May 2020” and Salon’s “Best and boldest new must-read books for May” Register in advance for this webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_wiQ_yrprSuqxxanQ-7xjEQ Carter Sickels is the author of The Pretties Star. He was…

Free