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

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Fonda Lee & Kate Elliott

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

A young woman forms a tempestuous bond with a gigantic and deadly bird of prey in Untethered Sky (Tordotcom), the epic new fantasy fable about the pursuit of obsession at all costs, written by World Fantasy Award–winning author Fonda Lee. Ester’s family was torn apart when a manticore killed her mother and baby brother, leaving her with nothing but her father’s painful silence and a single, overwhelming need to kill the monsters that took her family. Ester’s path leads her to join the King’s Royal Mews, where the giant rocs of legend are flown to hunt manticores by their brave and dedicated ruhkers. Paired with a fledgling roc named Zahra, Ester finds purpose and acclaim by devoting herself to a calling that demands absolute sacrifice…

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Free

Oregon Literary Fellowship Reading

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

A reading featuring the 2023 Oregon Literary Fellowship recipients.  

Free

National Poetry Month: FREE Movie Night! Slam featuring poet Saul Williams

The Headwaters Theatre 55 Northeast Farragut Street #9, Portland, OR, United States

April is National Poetry Month! Come enjoy a free movie and stay for the open mic! Tonight's film will be Slam (1998) featuring poet Saul Williams. A little about Slam and Saul Williams: Slam is a 1998 American independent drama film directed, co-written and co-produced by Marc Levin and starring and co-written by Saul Williams and Sonja Sohn. It tells the story of a young African-American man whose talent for poetry is hampered by his social background. Saul Stacey Williams (born February 29, 1972) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, musician, poet, writer, and actor. He is known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop, and for his lead roles in the 1998 independent film Slam and the 2013 jukebox musical Holler If…

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$10

Jenny Odell in Conversation With Chelsea Biondolillo

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

In How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell wrote about the importance of disconnecting from the “attention economy” to spend time in quiet contemplation. But what if you don’t have time to spend? In order to answer this seemingly simple question, Odell took a deep dive into the fundamental structure of our society and found that the clock we live by was built for profit, not people. This is why our lives, even in leisure, have come to seem like a series of moments to be bought, sold, and processed ever more efficiently. Odell shows us how our painful relationship to time is inextricably connected not only to persisting social inequities but to the climate crisis, existential dread, and a lethal fatalism. Inspired by pre-industrial cultures,…

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Free

Jessica Gigot and Ann Stinson

Broadway Books 1714 NE Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

It is always a joy to welcome authors from Oregon State University Press to the store, and tonight we have two of them! Please join us to hear Ann Stinson and Jessica Gigot discussing their most recent books, The Ground at My Feet and A Little Bit of Land, respectively. Ann Stinson grew up on her family’s tree farm in southwestern Washington state, on a ridge above the Cowlitz River. After building a life in New York and Portland, she returned home at the age of fifty, when her brother’s death from cancer left her manager and co-owner of three hundred acres planted in Douglas fir, western red cedar, and ponderosa pine. The Ground at My Feet is a memoir about loss and grief as…

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Free

Reading: Jessica E. Johnson and Kesha Ajose-Fisher

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

Annie Bloom's welcomes Portland writers Jessica E. Johnson and Kesha Ajose-Fisher for readings and conversation. Jessica E. Johnson's new poetry collection is Metabolics. Kesha Ajose-Fisher's short story collection, No God Like the Mother, is newly reissued by Portland's own Forest Avenue Press. Signed and personalized copies of both authors' books are available for order! Please, please, please include the name for personalization in the order notes; all orders without a name specified in the order notes will be signed only. About Metabolics: In this debut poetry collection, a single speaker tries to control her body and negotiate her time with digital devices, all the while navigating identities, impulses, and relationships that are often in tension. Metabolics, a book-length poem, borrows the movements of metabolic pathways…

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Free

Regan Penaluna

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

As a young woman growing up in small-town Iowa, Regan Penaluna daydreamed about the big questions: who are we and what is this strange world we find ourselves in? In college she fell in love with philosophy and chose to pursue it as an academician — the first step, she believed, toward becoming a self-determined person living a life of the mind. What Penaluna didn’t realize was that the Western philosophical canon taught in American universities, as well as the culture surrounding it, would slowly grind her down through its misogyny, its harassment, its devaluation of women and their intellect. Where were the women philosophers? One day, in an obscure monograph, Penaluna came across Damaris Cudworth Masham’s name. The daughter of philosopher Ralph Cudworth and…

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Free

Slamlandia

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month. This mic provides a creative, fun, and welcoming space for all literary communities in Portland. We encourage poets new and old to come share their work. We strive towards a safer space for poets to read their own poetry, witness others, and participate in community. This event takes place in-person. Please see our Covid-19 guidelines for in-person events at Literary Arts. Hosted by Julia Gaskill. **Slamlandia usually takes place the third Thursday of the month, but will be taking place the second Thursday in April due to some scheduling conflicts. We will resume to third Thursdays after this month. Thanks!** Julia Gaskill Julia Gaskill is a professional daydreamer hailing from Portland, Oregon. Her…

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Free

Angie Thomas in Conversation With Rosanne Parry

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

Superstar author Angie Thomas makes her middle grade debut with the launch of an inventive, hilarious, and suspenseful new contemporary fantasy trilogy inspired by African American history and folklore. It’s not easy being a Remarkable in the Unremarkable world. Some things are cool — like getting a pet hellhound for your twelfth birthday. Others, not so much — like not being trusted to learn magic because you might use it to take revenge on an annoying neighbor. All Nic Blake wants is to be a powerful Manifestor like her dad. But before she has a chance to convince him to teach her, a series of shocking revelations and terrifying events launch Nic and two friends on a hunt for a powerful magic tool she’s never…

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Free

Lisa Dodson in Conversation With Andrea Paluso

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

Many Americans take comfort and convenience for granted. We eat at nice restaurants, order groceries online, and hire nannies to care for kids. Getting Me Cheap (The New Press) is a riveting portrait of the lives of the low-wage workers — primarily women — who make this lifestyle possible. Sociologists Lisa Dodson and Amanda Freeman follow women in the food, health care, home care, and other low-wage industries as they struggle to balance mothering with bad jobs and without public aid. While these women tend to the needs of well-off families, their own children frequently step into premature adult roles, providing care for siblings and aging family members. Based on years of in-depth field work and hundreds of eye-opening interviews, Getting Me Cheap explores how…

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Free
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