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!

Michelle Ruiz Keil in Conversation With Tehlor Kay Mejia

Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd, Beaverton, OR, United States

Seventeen-year-old Xochi's life changed when she became governess to precocious twelve-year-old Pallas, but the duo unintentionally summons a pair of ancient creatures determined to right the wrongs of Xochi's adolescence. All of Us With Wings (Soho Teen) is Michelle Ruiz Keil’s young adult fantasy debut about love, found family, and healing – an ode to post-punk San Francisco through the eyes of a Mexican American girl. Keil will be joined in conversation by Tehlor Kay Mejia, author of We Set the Dark on Fire.

Free

Reading: Laila Lalami: The Other Americans

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

Annie Bloom's welcomes Laila Lalami to read from her latest novel, The Other Americans. From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Moor’s Account, here is a timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant—at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture. Late one spring night, Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant living in California, is walking across a darkened intersection when he is killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui’s daughter Nora, a jazz composer who returns to the small town in the Mojave she thought she'd left for good; his widow, Maryam, who still pines…

Free

The Moth: StorySLAM: Danger

Holocene 1001 SE Morrison St, Portland, OR, United States

DANGER: Prepare a five-minute story about peril. Shaky ground, dark alleys, dare devils and over-protective mothers. Flirting with married co-workers, driving without a seat belt, hiking alone. Stories of courage, stupidity and other hazards of being human. This venue is 21+ *Tickets for this event are available one week before the show, at 12pm PT / 3pm ET. *Seating is not guaranteed and is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please be sure to arrive at least 10 minutes before the show. Admission is not guaranteed for late arrivals. All sales final. Media Sponsors: OPB and Literary Arts

$5 – $20

James Ellroy

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

It is January 1942. Torrential rainstorms hit L.A. A body is unearthed in Griffith Park. The cops rate it a routine dead-man job. They’re grievously wrong. It’s a summons to misalliance and all the spoils of a brand-new war. Elmer Jackson is a corrupt Vice cop. He’s a flesh peddler and a bagman for the L.A. Chief of Police. Hideo Ashida is a crime lab whiz, caught up in the maelstrom of the Japanese internment. Dudley Smith is a LAPD hardnose working Army Intelligence. He’s gone rogue and gone all-the-way Fascist. Joan Conville was born rogue. She’s a defrocked Navy lieutenant and a war profiteer to her core. They’ve signed on for the dead-man job. They’ve got a hot date with History. They will fight…

Free

Rachel DeWoskin in Conversation with Cheryl Strayed — THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT

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

This event is now sold out. You can call the store (503-284-1726) to be put on the wait list in case of cancellations. Please join us on Wednesday, June 19th, at 7 pm for a special ticketed event with Rachel DeWoskin in conversation with Cheryl Strayed, discussing DeWoskin's newly published novel Banshee. Tickets to the event are $16.95, which is the price of the paperback edition of Banshee, and each attendee will receive a copy of the book. Doors will open at 6 pm, and the reading will start at 7. Samantha Baxter, the novel's protagonist, has a full, sane life: creative job, lovely family, and all the trappings of middle-age happiness. But when she gets a cancer diagnosis that terrifies her, a lifetime of…

Free

Everything is Fine Series #10

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

A casual monthly reading to help you forget all that other shi*t. Now in its new home, 3rd Wednesdays at Mother Foucault's.

Free

Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life

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

For more than 5,000 years, “old” has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the moment that humans are living longer than ever, we’ve made old age into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, disparaged, neglected, and denied. Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson uses stories from her quarter century of caring for patients, and draws from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life to weave a vision of old age that’s neither nightmare nor utopian fantasy. In Elderhood (Bloomsbury), Aronson challenges not only the way we look at aging, but also the…

Free

Drop-In Help for Oregon Literary Fellowship Applications

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

If you have questions about the Oregon Literary Fellowship application process and would like to meet in person, please note the following dates for drop-in assistance at our office at 925 SW Washington. No prior appointment is required. Thursday, June 20, 2019: 3:00–5:00 p.m. Thursday, June 27, 2019: 3:00–5:00 p.m. Tuesday, July 2, 2019: 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Thursday, July 25, 2019: 12:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. To make an in-person appointment with Susan or Jessica outside of these hours, please email susan@literary-arts.org or call the office first.

Free

Nineteenth Century Chinese Women Workers in the Northwest: Chuimei Ho

Portland Chinatown Museum 127 NW Third Ave, Portland, OR, United States

Dr. Chuimei Ho is an Art Historian and Archeologist who has written extensively on the Chinese in SE and East Asia and North America. She is co-editor, with Dr. Bennet Bronson, of CINARC, the website of the Chinese Northwest American Research Committee, and co-author of Coming Home in Gold Brocade: Chinese in Early Northwest America (2015) and Three Chinese Temples in California: Marysville, Oroville, Weaverville (2016). *Dr. Ho’s lecture is part of our ongoing series of lectures and workshops about nineteenth century Chinese workers in Oregon and the Northwest.

$10 – $12

Mystery/Thriller Book Club

Books Around the Corner 40 NW 2nd Street, Gresham, OR, United States

The Books Around the Corner Mystery/Thrillers Book Club is led by the owner/librarian, Stephanie Rose, and meets monthly on the third Thursday of every month at 6PM. We would like to extend an invitation to all of our mystery and thriller loving customers (RSVP is not required). Our book discussions aim to bring people together to talk about books in a safe and inviting atmosphere. Our meetings are lovely and inclusive; we invite you to attend. Come and enjoy a lively discussion about the chosen book with other readers. Join us on June 20th for our next Books Around the Corner Mystery/Thrillers Book Club. We will discuss My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing. About the book: Dexter meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith in this wildly…

Free