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!

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

Eve Fairbanks in Conversation With Kiese Laymon

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A dozen years in the making, The Inheritors (Simon & Schuster) weaves together the stories of three ordinary South Africans over five tumultuous decades in a sweeping and exquisite look at what really happens when a country resolves to end white supremacy. Dipuo grew up on the south side of a mine dump that segregated Johannesburg’s black townships from the white-only city. Some nights, she hiked to the top. To a South African teenager in the 1980s — even an anti-apartheid activist like Dipuo — the divide that separated her from the glittering lights on the other side appeared eternal. But in 1994, the world’s last explicit racial segregationist regime collapsed to make way for something unprecedented. With penetrating psychological insight, intimate reporting, and bewitching…

Continue readingEve Fairbanks in Conversation With Kiese Laymon
Free

Summer Series: Origami Summer Flowers & Creatures

IPRC (Independent Publishing Resource Center) 318 SE Main Street #175, Portland, OR, United States

Register here Instructor: Yuki Martin This workshop is in person: Masks / Proof of Vaccination Required Capacity: 8 Sliding scale $10-35 2 no-cost spots available; BIPOC & 2S prioritized Tuesday, 7/19 Part 1; 6:30 – 8pm Tuesday 7/26 Part 2; 6:30 – 8pm Join Yuki Martin for an origami workshop focusing on summery flowers and creatures. This is a two-part workshop, with the first workshop geared towards beginners, and the second workshop designed to build on the skills in the first workshop. The second workshop is recommended for individuals who have taken the first workshop and/or have prior experience.

$10 – $35

Lyndsie Bourgon in Conversation With Ed Jahn

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

There's a strong chance that chair you are sitting on was made from stolen lumber. In Tree Thieves (Little, Brown Spark), Lyndsie Bourgon takes us deep into the underbelly of the illegal timber market. As she traces three timber poaching cases, she introduces us to tree poachers, law enforcement, forensic wood specialists, the enigmatic residents of former logging communities, environmental activists, international timber cartels, and indigenous communities along the way. Old-growth trees are invaluable and irreplaceable for both humans and wildlife, and are the oldest living things on earth. But the morality of tree poaching is not as simple as we might think: stealing trees is a form of deeply rooted protest, and a side effect of environmental preservation and protection that doesn't include communities…

Continue readingLyndsie Bourgon in Conversation With Ed Jahn
Free

The Prose Poem

IPRC (Independent Publishing Resource Center) 318 SE Main Street #175, Portland, OR, United States

The Prose Poem: This workshop is in person: Masks + Proof of Vaccination Required Register here How can we create poems when we no longer rely upon (or when we free ourselves from) one of poetry’s most powerful tools: the line? In this class, we’ll dive into this question, drawing inspiration from a diverse array of writers as we investigate how to heighten language to create the intensity of a poem within the short space of a paragraph. We’ll also examine writing that defies conventional genre classification, straddling the lines between poetry, fiction and essay. Through in-class exercises, weekly prompts, and supportive discussion of one another’s work, we’ll immerse ourselves in our creative processes, generating our own prose poems and pieces of writing that push…

Continue readingThe Prose Poem
$65 – $185

Mikel Jollett

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

Hollywood Park (Celadon) is a remarkable memoir of a tumultuous life. Mikel Jollett, frontman for The Airborne Toxic Event, was born into one of the country’s most infamous cults, and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Yet, ultimately, his is a story of fierce love and family loyalty told in a raw, poetic voice that signals the emergence of a uniquely gifted writer. His story opens in an experimental commune in California, which later morphed into the Church of Synanon, one of the country’s most infamous and dangerous cults. Per the leader’s mandate, all children, including Jollett and his older brother, were separated from their parents when they were six months old, and handed over to the cult’s “School.” When…

Continue readingMikel Jollett
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…

Continue readingTrivia Night
Free

Vince A. Liaguno & Rena Mason in Conversation With Tananarive Due, Jennifer McMahon, Alma Katsu & Nathan Carson

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Other Terrors (William Morrow) is an anthology of original new horror stories edited by Bram Stoker Award winners Vince A. Liaguno and Rena Mason that showcases authors from underrepresented backgrounds telling terrifying tales of what it means to be, or merely to seem, “other.” Offering original new stories from some of the biggest names in horror, as well as some of the hottest up-and-coming talents, Other Terrors will provide the ultimate reading experience for horror fans who want to celebrate fear of “the other.” Be they of a different culture, a different background, a different sexual preference, a different belief system, or a different skin color, some people simply aren’t part of the dominant community — and are perceived as scary. Humans are almost instinctively…

Continue readingVince A. Liaguno & Rena Mason in Conversation With Tananarive Due, Jennifer McMahon, Alma Katsu & Nathan Carson
Free

July Poetry Practice Space

IPRC (Independent Publishing Resource Center) 318 SE Main Street #175, Portland, OR, United States

Join us monthly on zoom, on the third Thursday of the month for prompts and sharing. Register here, and we’ll send the zoom link on the day of the event. Poetry Practice Space is a monthly gathering for poets and writers. Writing materials, readings and prompts for generative writing will be provided. Come share a space to talk about your writing practice, and current writing projects, bemoan rejections, celebrate acceptances, share writing resources— and write together! Consider Poetry Practice Space the calisthenics for your poetics. Suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds Free for members

Free

Marilyn Milne & Linda Kirk

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

In the 1960s, Tillamook County, Oregon was at war with itself. As the regional dairy industry shifted from small local factories to larger consolidated factories, and as profit margins for milk and cheese collapsed, Tillamook farmers found themselves in a financial crisis that fueled multiple disputes. The ensuing Cheese War included lies and secrets, as well as spies, high emotion, a shoving match, and even a death threat. Sisters Marilyn Milne and Linda Kirk, children of the Cheese War, conducted years of research and have integrated it with tales of their experiences as farm kids living through the all-consuming fight. As Americans become ever more interested in food supply chains and ethical consumption, Cheese War (Oregon State) is the story of the very human factors…

Continue readingMarilyn Milne & Linda Kirk
Free

Conner Habib

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

An English teacher is gaslit by his charismatic high school bully in a tense story of deception, manipulation, and murder from Conner Habib, host of the Against Everyone with Conner Habib podcast. Single father Todd is relaxing at the beach with his son, Anthony, when he catches sight of a man approaching from the water’s edge. As the man draws closer, Todd recognizes him as Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly in their teenage years but now seems overjoyed to have “run into” his old friend. Jack suggests a meal to catch up. And can he spend the night? What follows is a fast-paced story of obsession and cunning. As Jack invades Todd’s life, pain and intimidation from the past unearth knife-edge suspense in the present.…

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