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!

Julia Kaye in Conversation With Shena Wolf

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

My Life in Transition (Andrews McMeel) is the follow-up to the critically acclaimed autobiographical comics collection, Super Late Bloomer, documenting transgender artist Julia Kaye’s life post-transition. My Life in Transition is a story that’s not often told about trans lives: what happens beyond the early days of transition. Both deeply personal and widely relatable, this collection illustrates six months of Julia's life as an out trans woman — about the beauty and pain of love and heartbreak, struggling to find support from bio family and the importance of chosen family, moments of dysphoria and misgendering, learning to lean on friends in times of need, and finding peace in the fact that life keeps moving forward. After the nerve-wracking, anxiety-ridden early transition period has ended and…

Free

Attic Institute: WINTER Online: Fairytales, Myth, and Dystopia: A Fiction Workshop w Elinam Agbo | Feb 16 – Mar 16

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Snow White. The Round Table. Persephone and Hades. From hybrid prose to web comics and blockbusters, fairy tales and legends are constantly retold across mediums. Why do we continue to relate? How do they help us find meaning in uncertain times? What can we borrow from these forms to examine the past and future in light of climate change, migration, and capitalism? In this course, we will study writers like Helen Oyeyemi, Carmen Maria Machado, Sabrina Orah Mark, and Joy Williams. Then we will begin our own stories, inspired by existing lore. If you are drawn to cross-cultural myths, obscure tales, or the idea of Rapunzel on Mars, this is the class for you. Register for this workshop NOTE: To protect everyone during the COVID-19 pandemic,…

$215 – $242

Science Fiction Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

We will discuss Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots. About the Book: his debut is a hilariously sly indictment of our knee-jerk ideas of good and bad, asking pointed questions about the cost of "justice." Anna is a "Hench"--a data science temp who helps super villains operate at the cutting edge of evil. Anna rationalizes that being a cog in the villain machine isn't that different than being a cog in the corporate machine. When she becomes collateral damage and is badly injured during a superhero rescue, she (of course) gets laid off. Broke, angry and bedbound, she starts a website that calculates the human cost of the mayhem superheroes wreak upon the world. Once she gets into the weeds of the data, it's clear that…

$15 – $25

Nicole Perlroth in Conversation With John Markoff

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Zero day: a software bug that allows a hacker to break into your devices and move around undetected. One of the most coveted tools in a spy's arsenal, a zero day has the power to silently spy on your iPhone, dismantle the safety controls at a chemical plant, alter an election, and shut down the electric grid (just ask Ukraine). For decades, under cover of classification levels and non-disclosure agreements, the United States government became the world's dominant hoarder of zero days. U.S. government agents paid top dollar — first thousands, and later millions of dollars — to hackers willing to sell their lock-picking code and their silence. Then the United States lost control of its hoard and the market. Now those zero days are…

Free

Hybrid Writing Along The Seam

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Consider the sphinx: head of a woman, haunches of a lion, wings of a bird. A creature powerful and wise enough to guard the seam between the sacred and the secular, life and afterlife. Hybrid forms of writing possess a similar power, harnessing two or more established forms to create something new, unique, and potent. Hybrid forms are actually ancient, preceding all genres — genres are forms into which the hybrid was broken. When we reunite these forms, we welcome new, transformative forces into our work. In this course, we will consider various hybrid literary forms: lyric essay, poetic memoir, prose poetry, flash fiction, and visual/verbal hybrids. We’ll look, too, at forms meant for digital platforms that are especially relevant and exciting in our current…

$285

True Crime Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The True Crime Book Club is led by the true crime aficionado Rachel Newton Cumley. We would like to extend an invitation to all of our true crime enthusiasts. Our book discussions aim to bring people together to talk about books in a safe and inviting atmosphere. This month's pick is We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper. Dive into a "tour de force of investigative reporting" (Ron Chernow): a "searching, atmospheric and ultimately entrancing" (Patrick Radden Keefe) true crime narrative of an unsolved 1969 murder at Harvard and an "exhilarating and seductive" (Ariel Levy) narrative of obsession and love for a girl who dreamt of rising among men. You have to remember, he reminded me, that Harvard is older than the U.S. government.…

$15 – $25

Attic Institute: WINTER Online: So You Wanna Be a Writer Workshop w Wayne Gregory | Feb 18 – Mar 18

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” ~ E. L. Doctorow You have a thousand stories inside your head. You dabble on the page but rarely if ever finish anything, much less share with others. “Is my work good enough?” you wonder.  “Do I have something original and interesting to say? What makes me think I can be a writer?”  The biggest obstacle for emerging writers is not lack of time nor lack of skill nor lack of things to write about. It’s a lack of self-confidence. This workshop is designed for those who want to be writers, but are not sure they can be. …

$215 – $242

Page Turner Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

We will discuss The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins. A delicious twist on a Gothic classic, Rachel Hawkins's The Wife Upstairs pairs Southern charm with atmospheric domestic suspense, perfect for fans of B.A. Paris and Megan Miranda. Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates--a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name. But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estates' most mysterious resident. His wife, Bea, drowned in a boating…

$15 – $25

Slamlandia Digital Open Mic ft. Ryan J.

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month. This mic provides a creative, fun, and welcoming space for all literary communities in Portland. We encourage poets new and old to come share their work. We strive towards a safer space for poets to read their own poetry, witness others, and participate in community. Hosted by Julia Gaskill. Register in advance for this event If you have any questions, please contact slamlandia@gmail.com or jessica@literary-arts.org. Slamlandia is hosting another digital poetry open mic. This open mic - only poetry, no music please - will take place on February 18th. We'll be hosting this event with the help of Literary Arts. You can access our Zoom link in advance. Here is the link to…

Free

Telltale Presents: Pass It On

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Hey, champ! Thanks for checking out Telltale. We are (once again) a monthly curated storytelling event for people that like to get vulnerable and take no shit. We are into genuine connection, laughter, heartbreak, poignant moments, and community building. We are in our 4th season. Yeah, it’s going to be on zoom and not in person. Yeah, it’s not the same. But it’s better than nothing. And I said I’d do the show until the government stopped making me angry all the time....and....you see my point. At this unique version of Telltale, you can expect about 6-8 performers sharing something with you, in the way that feels right to them--so there will be a mix of comedy, stories, music, essays, and more. Your evening will…

Free