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!

WITS Reading: Benson High School

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Writers in the Schools (WITS) has served public high school students with creative writing residencies in Portland, and more recently Gresham, since 1996. Published local writers collaborate with classroom teachers to lead an immersive semester-long workshop series designed to further class themes, curricula, and student interests. Each residency culminates with a public reading, ordinarily held in a local café or bookstore. With distance learning, we look forward to hosting our reading on Zoom and invite you to join us in celebrating these students and their work. This end-of-residency reading will feature students who worked with WITS writers Jessica Mehta and Laura Moulton. Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUscO6gpzkiGdXFU6TzwJaP6-DlLalsllHb After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Jessica (Tyner)…

Free

WITS Reading: Madison High School

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Writers in the Schools (WITS) has served public high school students with creative writing residencies in Portland, and more recently Gresham, since 1996. Published local writers collaborate with classroom teachers to lead an immersive semester-long workshop series designed to further class themes, curricula, and student interests. Each residency culminates with a public reading, ordinarily held in a local café or bookstore. With distance learning, we look forward to hosting our reading on Zoom and invite you to join us in celebrating these students and their work. This end-of-residency reading will feature students who worked with WITS writers Alex Behr, Damien Miles-Paulson, and Bruce Poinsette. Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAudeuvqzwsHdU8y9B-SsKNHvBb2PamM132 After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.…

Free

Fiction Addiction Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

TO ATTEND: 1) Purchase the book club book to support our shop. If you already own the book you may purchase a gift certificate or sponsor a stack for $15 or $25 dollars depending on if the book club book is paperback or hardcover. 2) Email us after your purchase that you plan on attending and we'll provide the password. SIGN COPIES ON OUR WEBSITE WHILE SUPPLIES LAST! Join us for the January meeting of the Fiction Addiction Book Club on January 27th at 6:30pm. We will discuss Memorial by Bryan Washington. About the Book: A funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you're supposed to be, and the limits of love. Benson and Mike…

$15 – $25

2020/21 Portland Arts & Lectures: Madeline Miller

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Madeline Miller is the author of The Song of Achilles (2011) and Circe (2018). Writing in a genre Miller refers to as “mythological realism,” these titles reimagine ancient Greek myths for the modern reader. The Song of Achilles won the 2012 Orange Prize (now The Women’s Prize for Fiction), was a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, and was praised by acclaimed author Ann Patchett as “a book I could not put down.” Circe was a #1 New York Times bestseller and won the 2019 Indie Choice Award, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and was named on numerous Best Books of 2018 lists. Miller grew up in New York City and Philadelphia. She attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA…

$90 – $355

Gabrielle Glaser in Conversation With Anna Griffin

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

During the Baby Boom in 1960s America, women were encouraged to stay home and raise large families, but sex and childbirth were taboo subjects. Premarital sex was common, but birth control was hard to get and abortion was illegal. In 1961, 16-year-old Margaret Erle fell in love and became pregnant. Her enraged family sent her to a maternity home, and after she gave birth, she wasn’t even allowed her to hold her own son. Social workers threatened her with jail until she signed away her parental rights. Her son vanished, his whereabouts and new identity known only to an adoption agency that would never share the slightest detail about his fate. Claiming to be acting in the best interests of all, the adoption business was…

Free

Horror Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

TO ATTEND: 1) Purchase the book club book to support our shop. If you already own the book you may purchase a gift certificate or sponsor a stack for $15 or $25 dollars depending on if the book club book is paperback or hardcover. 2) Email us after your purchase that you plan on attending and we'll provide the password. The Books Around the Corner Horror Book Club is led by the owner/librarian, Stephanie Rose, and meets monthly on the fourth Thursday of every month at 6:30PM. We would like to extend an invitation to all of our horror loving customers . Our book discussions aim to bring people together to talk about books in a safe and inviting atmosphere. Come and enjoy a lively…

$15 – $25

Livestream Reading: Dana Haynes

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes back Portland author Dana Haynes for a livestream reading from his new thriller, Sirocco, the follow-up to St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kd-mpqTIiH9R4GMM8StOiJAhRmWykKj14 About Sirocco: A serial bomber is wreaking havoc throughout Europe. Former New York City cop Michael Finnigan and former Spanish assassin Katalin Fiero––the brains behind St. Nicholas Salvage & Wrecking, a covert bounty-hunting operation based in Cyprus––may be the only ones who can stop the carnage. The partners have a reputation for tracking down the worst of the worst in international crime, all while staying firmly under the radar. But as they draw ever closer to the bombers, and as the terrorism sweeps up Katalin's own family, Finnigan and Fiero have to decide if they can continue…

Free

Portland Arts & Lectures 2020/21 Season

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Literary Arts is pleased to announce the author line-up for the 2020/21 Season of Portland Arts & Lectures. Subscriptions start at just $90 for the series. Subscribe today! At this time, all lectures through the end of the 2020/21 season are scheduled to take place online through a virtual platform. Please contact our Box Office at la@literary-arts.org, if you have questions. OCTOBER 13, 2020, 6 p.m. Pacific Helen Macdonald is a writer, poet, illustrator, naturalist, and historian of science. Her best-selling memoir H is for Hawk won the Samuel Johnson Prize and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her forthcoming essay collection, Vesper Flights, explores the human relationship to the natural world. JANUARY 28, 2021, 6 p.m. Pacific Madeline Miller is the author of The Song of Achilles (2011) and Circe (2018).…

$90 – $355

Deadline: Special Award Nominations Due

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

As part of the Oregon Book Awards, Literary Arts offers three awards that recognize significant contributions to Oregon’s literary culture: The Charles Erskine Scott Wood Distinguished Writer Award is presented to an Oregon author in recognition of an enduring, substantial literary career. Past recipients include George Hitchcock, Ken Kesey, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Barry Lopez. The Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award is presented to a person or organization in recognition of significant contributions that have enriched Oregon’s literary community. Past recipients include José González, Kim Stafford, Barbara LaMorticella, David Milholland, Marlene Howard, and John Laursen. The Walt Morey Young Readers Literary Legacy Award is presented to a person or organization in recognition of significant contributions that have enriched Oregon’s young readers. Past recipients…

Free

Submission Deadline: The Gravity of the Thing: Winter 2021

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Our Winter 2021 reading period is open from December 1st to January 31st. We accept defamiliarized works in the following general categories: Short: tell us a story in 3,000 words or less; we are interested in fiction, creative nonfiction, self-contained excerpts, and genre-bending forms. Flash: a fiction, creative nonfiction, or genre-bending story under 500 words. Poetry: share one or more poems, prose poems, or multimedia works for a combined count of 500 words or less. Six Words: a story in six words; you may share up to five stories per submission, but only one will be chosen. Baring the Device: essays about literary defamiliarization—or defamiliarized essays about craft, storytelling, or publishing—for our Baring the Device column; click here to learn more. The Gravity of the Thing publishes work on a rolling basis throughout its quarterly reading periods. A majority of submissions…

Free