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!

downtown

  1. Events
  2. downtown

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

Jeff Boyd in Conversation With Dave Depper

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

Julian Strickland is seemingly the lone Black man in the hipster dreamland of Portland, Oregon. To his friends, he’s the coolest member of the scene: the soulful drummer from Chicago in an indie rock band that’s just about to break through. But to himself, he’s a sheltered Christian homeschool kid who used to write book reports on Leviticus. A virgin until the night of his marriage, divorced at 24, he’s still in disarray two years later — pretending to fit in, wondering if any of his relationships are real, estranged from his family, and struggling to reconcile his relationship with God. Then he meets Ida Blair, a Black painter at the start of a promising career. They begin a tentative relationship, and Ida seems to…

Continue readingJeff Boyd in Conversation With Dave Depper
Free

Chabelita’s Heart Book Talk with Dr. Isabel Millán

PSU - Smith Memorial Student Union 1825 SW Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

Please join La Casa Latina and the Chicano/Latino Studies for an afternoon talk with Dr. Isabel Millán Author and illustrator of the queer bilingual children’s picture book Chabelita’s Heart/El corazón de Chabelita Wednesday, April 26 1:00 - 2:30 pm La Casa Latina SMSU 228 More about Dr. Millán Find the book here.

Free

Abby Lawlor in Conversation With Vanessa Veselka

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

Rules to Win By: Participation and Power in Union Negotiations (Oxford) is a book for anyone who wants to understand how to build the power required to effectively challenge and reverse income inequality and attacks on democracy. Drawing insights from recent hard-won unionization and contract negotiation fights, Abby Lawlor (and co-author Jane McAlevey) uses lessons from some of the toughest fights today — preparing a durable, all-out strike in a union-hostile environment — to provide a master class in participatory social change, indispensable both within and beyond the workplaces where we spend half of our waking lives. In an era of polarization, big lies, and massive legislative setbacks, changemakers in every arena need to learn the skills and lessons honed in pitched battles against experienced…

Continue readingAbby Lawlor in Conversation With Vanessa Veselka
Free

Verselandia! 2023

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall 1037 SW Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

Youth Poetry Slam Championship Celebrate Portland’s youth poets during Literary Arts’ annual Verselandia! Youth Poetry Slam Championship. Cheer on students from Portland and East Multnomah County public high schools competing for poetic glory at this energetic and inspiring event. Support provided by: To support this event as a sponsor, please contact Lydah DeBin at lydah@literary-arts.org or call 503-989-7110.  

$10 – $70

Anastacia-Reneé in Conversation With Jamila Osman

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

Anastacia-Reneé’s Side Notes from the Archivist (Amistad Press) is a preservation of Black culture viewed through a feminist lens. The Archivist leads readers through poems that epitomize youthful renditions of a Black girl coming of age in Philadelphia’s pre-funk ’80s; episodic adventures of “the Black Girl” whose life is depicted through the white gaze; and selections of verse evincing affection for self and testimony to the magnificence within Black femme culture at-large. Every poem in Side Notes elevates and honestly illustrates the buoyancy of Blackness and the calamity of Black lives on earth. In her uniquely embracing and experimental style, Anastacia-Reneé documents these truths as celebrations of diverse subjects, from Solid Gold to halal hotdogs; as homages and reflections on iconic images, from Marsha P.…

Continue readingAnastacia-Reneé in Conversation With Jamila Osman
Free

Endi Bogue Hartigan & Flávia Rocha in Conversation

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

Join us in celebration of the launch of oh orchid o’clock (Omnidawn Publishing, 2023) by Endi Bogue Hartigan who will introduce her new collection. She will be joined by Brazilian poet Flávia Rocha, who will read from her most recent book Exosfera. Enjoy an evening of lyric investigations into space, time, our time, and orchids, followed by a short discussion and Q&A. This collection speaks the language of the clock as a living instrument, exposing the sensory impacts of our obsession with time. In oh orchid o’clock, lyrics wind through histories like a nervous system through a body. The poems speak to how we let our days become over-clocked, over-transactional, and over-weaponed. With an instrumental sensibility, Endi Bogue Hartigan investigates what it is to be…

Continue readingEndi Bogue Hartigan & Flávia Rocha in Conversation
Free

Kids’ Storytime

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

Join us every Saturday for kids' storytime. Today we're reading All the Ways to Be Smart by Davina Bell. Buy the Book

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. Proof of Covid-19 vaccine or a negative PCR test is required for admittance. Please see our Covid-19 guidelines for in-person events at Literary Arts. Hosted by Julia Gaskill. Julia Gaskill Julia Gaskill is a professional daydreamer hailing from Portland, Oregon. Her poetry examines the tightrope we sometimes walk of feeling our voices censored and also being unabashedly ourselves. Her poems touch on everyday…

Continue readingSlamlandia
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. Proof of Covid-19 vaccine or a negative PCR test is required for admittance. Please see our Covid-19 guidelines for in-person events at Literary Arts. Hosted by Julia Gaskill. Julia Gaskill Julia Gaskill is a professional daydreamer hailing from Portland, Oregon. Her poetry examines the tightrope we sometimes walk of feeling our voices censored and also being unabashedly ourselves. Her poems touch on everyday…

Continue readingSlamlandia
Free

graft union reading + open mic #3

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

a monthly event for sharing creative writing, food, drink, and community featuring student writers from PDX academic institutions and beyond! highlighting students + alumni from PSU, UoP, PCC, PNCA, Lewis & Clark University, Reed College + local writers 7-9 pm, Friday, August 16th doors 6:30 @ Literary Arts 925 sw Washington hello! we’re excited to announce our third event (and last of the summer) on Friday, August 16th, 7pm at @literaryarts in Downtown Portland. We hope to see you there + here your words >> use links in bio to sign up as a reader or to get involved in future events >> DM us with any questions, comments, or to get on our ethereal mailing list xo GU

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