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!

Delve Readers Seminar: Feminist Horror and Millennial Anxiety in South Korean Literature

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung  and Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park have just been translated into English from the original Korean by Anton Hur and have recently been shortlisted and longlisted (respectively) for the Booker Prize. Though very different from one another, by reading both we can get a taste of the exciting landscape that is modern Korean literature. Cursed Bunny is a short story collection that combines magic realism, horror and science fiction to address the real-life horrors of capitalism and patriarchy. Love in the Big City is a novel that captures the millennial loneliness and love affairs of a queer Seoulite. In addition to discussing the themes present in both texts, we will discuss translation and how it affects our understanding and interaction with the work.…

$130

Cecily Wong in Conversation With Kimberly King Parsons

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

Everybody’s heard of The Brightons. From rags to riches, sleepy Oregon to haute New York, they are the biracial Chinese American family that built Kaleidoscope, a glittering, ‘global bohemian’ shopping empire sourcing luxury goods from around the world. Statuesque, design savant, and family pet — eldest daughter Morgan Brighton is most celebrated of all. Yet despite her favored status, both within the family and in the press, nobody loves her more than Riley. Smart and nervy Riley Brighton — whose existence is forever eclipsed by her older sister’s presence. When a calamity dismantles the Brightons’ world, it is Riley who’s left with questions about her family that challenge her memory, identity, and loyalty. She sets off across the globe with an unlikely companion to seek…

Free

Starting the Story

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This 4 -week short fiction workshop will focus on generating new work and simply getting words down on a page.  We will read excerpts, share just-written work aloud, and sometimes discuss assigned weekly readings together. We will investigate ways to unearth material together and share strategies for maintaining a regular writing practice. Participants will leave will many fragments and several starts for new work. Access Program We want our classes to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that our tuition structure can present obstacles for some people. Our Access Program offers class registrations at a reduced rate. The access program for writing classes covers 60% of the class tuition. Most writing classes have at least one access spot available. Please…

$200

Rick Emerson in Conversation With Chelsea Cain

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In 1971, Go Ask Alice reinvented the young adult genre with a blistering portrayal of sex, psychosis, and teenage self-destruction. The supposed diary of a middle-class addict, Go Ask Alice terrified adults and cemented LSD's fearsome reputation, fueling support for the War on Drugs. Five million copies later, Go Ask Alice remains a divisive bestseller, outraging censors and earning new fans, all of them drawn by the book's mythic premise: A Real Diary, by Anonymous. But Alice was only the beginning. In 1979, another diary rattled the culture, setting the stage for a national meltdown. The posthumous memoir of an alleged teenage Satanist, Jay's Journal merged with a frightening new crisis — adolescent suicide — to create a literal witch hunt, shattering countless lives and…

Free

Jess Walter

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

From the author of Beautiful Ruins and The Cold Millions comes a stunning collection about those moments when everything changes — for the better, for the worse, for the outrageous — as a diverse cast of characters bounces from Italy to Idaho, questioning their roles in life and finding inspiration in the unlikeliest places. We all live like we’re famous now, curating our social media presences, performing our identities, withholding those parts of ourselves we don’t want others to see. In The Angel of Rome: And Other Stories (Harper), the riveting new collection of stories from Jess Walter, a teenage girl tries to live up to the image of her beautiful, missing mother. An elderly couple confronts the fiction writer eavesdropping on their conversation. A…

Free

Trivia Night

Rose City Book Pub 1329 NE Fremont, Portland, OR, United States

Trivia is conducted hybrid online and in person. Join us at the bar or join us through Zoom. This is one of our most popular events. Come early to make sure you get a table, and come early so that you can order food and drinks and get settled in time. It is also important to come up with a clever team name. If you come as a single person or a pair and are looking to make new friends, let us know and we will place you with welcoming regulars, or we might place you with other new folks. Trivia night is a great way to make new friends, and they will be sure to be good people since Publiners are quality folks. The…

Free

Alyson Noël in Conversation With Tracy Wolff

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

My life goes completely sideways the moment I meet the mysterious Braxton. Sure, he’s ridiculously hot, but he’s also the reason I’ve been kicked out of school and recruited into Gray Wolf Academy — a remote island school completely off the grid. I never should have trusted a face so perfect. But the reality of why Gray Wolf wanted me is what truly blows my mind. It’s a school for time travelers. Tripping, they call it. This place is filled with elaborate costumes and rare artifacts, where every move is strategic and the halls are filled with shadows and secrets. Here, what you see isn’t always what it appears. Including Braxton. Because even though there’s an energy connecting us together, the more secrets he keeps…

Free

Daniel Nieh

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

Victor Li is a man without a past. To his new employer, Mark, he’s just an anonymous hired hand to help with the dirty work. Together, they break into storage units that contain the possessions of the recently deported, pocketing whatever is worth selling. Only Victor and his sister, Jules, know that he’s a wanted man. Amid the backpacks and suitcases, Victor makes the find of a lifetime: a gem rare and valuable enough to change his fortunes in an instant. But selling it on the sly? Nearly impossible. Thankfully, its former owner, a woman named Song Fei, also left a book of cryptic notes — including the name of a gemstone dealer in Mexico City. When Victor and Mark cross the southern border, they…

Free

Write Around Portland: Bi-Monthly BIPOC Online Writing Workshop

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

"I love being witnessed, and I absolutely love witnessing the words of everyone else in the group. It’s our own kind of magic." —BIPOC Online Workshop Participant For people who identify as Black, Indigenous or People of Color (BIPOC). 2nd & 4th Friday of every month from 4 to 5:30 pm (Pacific Time), Free. Workshops are held via Zoom. Pre-registration is required. Registration opens the 1st of the month every month and closes when filled or at 12noon the day before the workshop. Pre-register for our 2nd Friday workshop here. Pre-register for our 4th Friday workshop here.  Click here for more workshop details. 

Free

Books & Prints by Ian van Coller

Passages Bookshop 1801 NW Upshur, Suite 660, Portland, OR, United States

Passages Bookshop is excited to announce our summer exhibition •••• BOOKS & PRINTS BY IAN VAN COLLER •••• July 8 – August 20, 2022 Covid precautions: Proof of vaccination and masks required ================================================ For the past decade, Ian van Coller has traveled the globe in pursuit of images that communicate the realities of climate change and deep time. He has photographed disappearing glaciers, endangered and threatened birds, the oldest trees on earth, and the oldest ice yet discovered, traveling to Iceland, the Faroe Islands, the Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda, the cloud forest of Colombia, Svalbard in the high Norwegian Arctic, and Glacier, Great Basin, and Rocky Mountain National Parks in the Western United States. He has accompanied climate scientists on expeditions to remote glaciers on…

Free