LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.

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Fariha Róisín

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

Growing up in Australia, Fariha Róisín, a Bangladeshi Muslim, struggled to fit in. In attempts to assimilate, she distanced herself from her South Asian heritage and identity. Years later, living in the United States, she realized that the customs, practices, and even food of her native culture that had once made her different — everything from ashwagandha to prayer — were now being homogenized and marketed for good health, often at a premium by white people to white people. In Who Is Wellness For? (Harper Wave), her thought-provoking new book — part memoir, part journalistic investigation — the acclaimed writer and poet (How to Cure a Ghost) explores the way in which the progressive health industry has appropriated and commodified global healing traditions. She reveals…

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Free

The Pointed Circle Release Reading

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

From The Pointed Circle's Instagram: Sorry for the radio silence, folks, but we have some exciting news! We will be releasing Issue XXXVIII of The Pointed Circle on Friday the 17th of June! If anyone is interested in hearing the writers read their work from the Issue, you will be able to watch our release party reading through zoom from 7-9pm on the same day. DM for Zoom details.

Free

Rose City Book & Paper Fair

DoubleTree Hotel 1000 NE Multonomah St, Portland, OR, United States

Announcing the in-person return of the annual Rose City Book & Paper Fair! June 17-18, 2022 1000 NE Multnomah Portland, Oregon Friday 2-8 pm & Saturday 10 am-5 pm Admission $5 Booksellers from the Pacific Northwest and beyond will be bringing their best rare and collectible books, ephemera, maps, prints, photographs and more. Click here for a list of our exhibitors. Mark your calendar and stay tuned for updates. Tickets on sale now at Eventbrite!

$5

Madeleine Trebenski in Conversation With Matthew Carroll

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

If you've ever expressed even the slightest bit of dissatisfaction with the current state of your life, you've inevitably gotten the response, "Have you tried meditation? Exercise? Joining a cult? Joining an exercise cult?" And a variety of other helpful suggestions. Madeleine Trebenski’s Do I Feel Better Yet?: Questionable Attempts at Self-Care and Existing in General (Chronicle Prism) explores these topics with intellectual essays like "I'm Moving to the Woods to Live in a Nightmare Shack" and instructional guides such as "Are You Hungry or Are You Just Horny?" If you learn anything from Trebenski’s book, it should be that a $72 artisanal hand-blown glass cup isn't going to change your life. Trebenski will be joined in conversation by Matthew Carroll, author of Can I…

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Free

Ruth Ozeki

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

One year after the death of his beloved musician father, 13-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house — a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous. At first, Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and…

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Free

In-Store Poetry Reading: Ann Farley and Beth Bonness

Annie Bloom's Books 7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes local poets Ann Farley and Beth Bonness for a reading from their new collections, both published by Portland's own The Poetry Box. (Vivienne Popperl was originally scheduled to participate, but is unable to attend.) This in-store reading is first come, first served. Seating is limited. Please be mindful of any store health policies that might be in effect on the night of the reading. About Tell Her Yes: A drop of rain slips from leaf to ground, perhaps to river and beyond. Like rain's journey, our lives twist and turn, hit dry stretches and unexpected turbulence, land on moments of beauty. Nurture and nature, with its solace and challenges, weaves through the poems in Tell Her Yes. Themes of love and parenthood,…

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Free

Joseph Han in Conversation With Gene Kwak

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Things are looking up for Mr. and Mrs. Cho. Their dream of franchising their Korean plate lunch restaurants across Hawaiʻi seems within reach after a visit from Guy Fieri boosts the profile of Cho’s Delicatessen. Their daughter, Grace, is busy finishing her senior year of college and working for her parents, while her older brother, Jacob, just moved to Seoul to teach English. But when a viral video shows Jacob trying — and failing — to cross the Korean demilitarized zone, nothing can protect the family from suspicion and the restaurant from waning sales. No one knows that Jacob has been possessed by the ghost of his lost grandfather, who feverishly wishes to cross the divide and find the family he left behind in the…

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Free

Leah Sottile in Conversation With Ryan Haas

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

Inspired by Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven and Jess Walter’s Every Knee Shall Bow, Leah Sottile’s When the Moon Turns to Blood (Twelve) explores modern-day survivalism and end-times extremism through the story of Lori Vallow and her husband, gravedigger turned doomsday novelist, Chad Daybell. When police in Rexburg, Idaho perform a wellness check on seven-year-old J.J. Vallow and his sister, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, both children are nowhere to be found. Their mother, Lori Vallow, gives a phony explanation, and when officers return the following day with a search warrant, she, too, is gone. As the police begin to close in, a larger web of mystery, murder, fanaticism, and deceit begins to unravel. Vallow’s case is sinuously complex. As investigators prod further, they find…

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Free

Dan Lambe

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

Timed to the organization's 150th anniversary, Dan Lambe’s Now Is the Time for Trees (Timber Press), written with Lorene Edwards Forkner, celebrates the Arbor Day Foundation’s important role in conservation and energizes readers to plant trees as a means of individual climate activism. Trees and forests are the number one nature-based solution for revers­ing the negative effects of a changing climate. If ever there was a time to be planting trees, that time is now. Inspired by a collective sense of urgency, a global movement to plant trees is gaining momentum. To move the needle, we need to act on a massive scale and plant millions of trees today to have a measurable and lasting impact on billions of lives tomorrow. In Now Is the…

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Free

Dan Pfeiffer

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

In Battling the Big Lie (Twelve), Pod Save America cohost Dan Pfeiffer dissects how the right-wing built a massive, billionaire-funded disinformation machine powerful enough to bend reality and nearly steal the 2020 election. From the perspective of someone who has spent decades on the front lines of politics and media, Pfeiffer lays out how the right-wing media apparatus works, where it came from, and what progressives can do to fight back against disinformation. Over a period of decades, the right-wing has built a massive media apparatus that is weaponizing misinformation and spreading conspiracy theories for political purposes. This “MAGA Megaphone” that is personified by Fox News and fueled by Facebook is waging war on the very idea of objective truth — and they are winning.…

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Free
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