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!

Grief and The Holidays

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The holiday season isn't only cheer and carols. It can be hard too. Grief can be louder. Let's come together and write about it. Join us Wednesday December 8 at Noon Pacific. Any level of writing. Everybody welcome. It's for humans including writers and non writers. It's a free one day drop-in writing session. Limited spaces! Join the zoom room at noon Pacific https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84694083515?pwd=czFibEpBakFVQ0U2ck5uK3dXeUJNZz09 Meeting ID: 846 9408 3515 Passcode: eggnog Bring your laptop or pen. Your coffee too. Bring your friends! Invite them on this Facebook event :) We will include a brief meditation, prompts around the holidays and grief, time to write, and time to share. Who are we? We are a mom/daughter team who created Coffee and Grief during the beginning of…

Free

Shea Ernshaw in Conversation With Amanda Montell

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

From Shea Ernshaw, author of The Wicked Deep, comes a richly atmospheric adult debut following three residents of a secluded, seemingly peaceful commune as they investigate the disappearances of two outsiders. Travis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Hired by families as a last resort, he requires only a single object to find the person who has vanished. When he takes on the case of Maggie St. James — a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books — he’s led to a place many believed to be only a legend. Called Pastoral, this reclusive community was founded in the 1970s by like-minded people searching for a simpler way of life. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore and soon after Travis…

Free

Christopher Howell Poetry Reading

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Christopher Howell's poetry reading will be livestreamed on December 8, 2021 on the Ledding Library YouTube Channel. (link is external) Born in Portland, Oregon, Christopher Howell attended Pacific Lutheran University from 1963 to ’66. After service as a military journalist during the Viet Nam war, he received graduate degrees from Portland State University and the University of Massachusetts. He is author of twelve collections of poems, most recently The Grief of a Happy Life (U. Washington Press, 2019), Love’s Last Number and Gaze (both from Milkweed Editions), and Dreamless and Possible: Poems New and Selected (UW Press, 2010). He has received the Washington State Governor’s Award, the Washington State Book Award, two fellowships from National Endowment for the Arts, two from the Artist Trust, and a number of…

Free

One Page Wednesday: December

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Here is an opportunity to share or listen to one page of work in progress from talented writers from everywhere. Come with a single page of work and sign up to read – or come to listen and prepare to be inspired! December’s One Page Wednesday is hosted by Jessica Meza-Torres. The featured readers are Laura Moulton and Ben Hodgson Register here for One Page Wednesday Ben Hodgson was a computer technician in the air force and a cab driver for many years. He is currently on the board of Street Books, and works as a street librarian, speaker, and inventory specialist. Loaners, co-written with Laura Moulton, is his first book. Laura Moulton teaches in the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College and leads…

Free

Paul Levy in Conversation With Andrew Harvey

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In its Native American meaning, wetiko is an evil cannibalistic spirit that can take over people's minds, leading to selfishness, insatiable greed, and consumption as an end in itself, destructively turning our intrinsic creative genius against our own humanity. Revealing the presence of wetiko in our modern world behind every form of destruction our species is carrying out, both individual and collective, Paul Levy shows how this mind-virus is so embedded in our psyches that it is almost undetectable — and it is our blindness to it that gives wetiko its power. Yet, as Levy reveals in striking detail in his new book, Wetiko: Healing the Mind-Virus That Plagues Our World (Inner Traditions), by recognizing this highly contagious mind parasite, by seeing wetiko, we can…

Free

On The Metaphysics of Deep Gossip: Bagley Wright Lecture Series

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In this memoir and craft talk, Lisa Jarnot reflects on her entanglement in the New York poetry scene over twenty-five years. Beginning with the proposition that deep gossip and urban mindfulness are sacred practices, she explores the places where the New York School’s feminine, marvelous, and tough irreverence opens into a deeper mystery that is passed down as a liturgy of ecstatic connectedness. The Bagley Wright Lecture Series on Poetry supports contemporary poets as they explore in-depth their own thinking on poetry and poetics, and give a series of lectures resulting from these investigations. Lectures are delivered publicly in partnership with institutions and organizations nationwide. Find out more about past, present, and future lecturers, and explore the archive at www.bagleywrightlectures.org. Charlie Wright, Publisher of Wave…

Free

Writers’ Ball

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for our Writers' Ball at the Mansion online! Walk the red carpet, disappear into the library, or wander the gardens. Show your holiday creations in the craft room or shelves books with the librarians. We can’t wait to see you there! Zoom Link to Register: Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwudumrqjsrGdIESBGCyGJWbWXW-0xwk8CU After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Free

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Michael Shay & M.F. McAuliffe

Art At The Cave 108 E Evergreen Blvd, Vancouver, WA, United States

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Michael Shay and M. F. McAuliffe. Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, PRO-SCIENCE, ANTI-FASCIST, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004 7 pm Thursday, December 9 Art at the Cave 108 E Evergreen Blvd Vancouver, WA 98660 https://artatthecave.com/ $5 Suggested donation NOTE: Art at the Cave co-founder Kathi Rick has graciously offered to help us to continue to include our new friends from around the country in the open mic. Email katecrackernuts@comcast.net by no later than midnight on December 8 to indicate your interest in participating. In the subject line, let us know if you are "Reading" or "Just Listening." You will receive instructions for how to join the meeting. Zoom open mic readers are invited to…

Free

Rose City Holiday Book & Paper Fair

100 Southeast Alder Street, Portland,97214 100 Southeast Alder Street, Portland, OR, United States

Booksellers from the Pacific Northwest and beyond will be bringing their best rare and collectible books and ephemera. Find a wide array of rare and collectible books, ephemera, maps, prints, photographs and more. Interesting material in all fields at a variety of price points. The fair is happening just in time for the holiday season, so you will be sure to find gifts for all the booklovers on your list. VIP Preview - Friday evening, December 10 from 6-9 pm. Tickets $25 General Admission - Saturday, December 11 from 10 am-5 pm. Tickets $5 All staff and exhibitors at the book fair will be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and will wear a mask at all times unless they are in one of the designated break…

Free

The Work Poetry Workshop: Saturday Afternoon Edition

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us on December 11 from 11:30 am – 2:00 pm for The Work. The Work is a drop-in poetry writing workshop for beginners as well as more experienced writers. Poetry encourages empathy and compassion, and sparks the shifts in consciousness which can lead to healing, personal growth, and an interest in fighting for progressive social change. We will read and discuss poetry, write several new poems, and give each writer feedback on at least one of the drafts composed during the workshop. The cost for the workshop is a suggested donation of $20 to Christopher Luna’s PayPal account: christopherjluna@gmail.com “Suggested” means that we would like for you to join us regardless of whether or not you can afford it right now. No one will…

Free – $20