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!

Daniel O’Malley in Conversation With Charlaine Harris

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

September, 1940: Three women of the Checquy, the secret organization tasked with protecting Britain from supernatural threats, stand in the sky above London and see German aircraft approach. Forbidden by law to interfere, all they can do is watch as their city is bombed. Until Pamela, the most sensible of them, breaks all the rules and brings down a Nazi bomber with her bare hands. The three resolve to tell no one about it, but they soon learn that a crew member is missing from the downed bomber. Charred corpses are discovered in nearby houses and it becomes apparent that the women have unwittingly unleashed a monster. Through a city torn by the Blitz, the friends must hunt the enemy before he kills again. Their…

Free

Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This workshop is virtual, PST Register here Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms In this 6-week class, we will experiment with short form creative writing. Our focus—whether it’s flash fiction, lyric essay, prose poetry, or hybrid—will be on the art of compression. Each week, participants will be given a writing exercise, a short reading, and two workshop submissions from their peers. Class time will include workshop as well as discussion of readings and craft. Our workshop will be guided by observations, questions, and possibilities. We will be thinking less about how to “fix” a piece of writing and more about what we see, our curiosities, and how to recognize hidden opportunities. Each participant will receive feedback from the instructor and from the other participants.…

$80 – $200

Caitlin Starling in Conversation With Madeleine Roux

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

Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town. Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man — one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning,…

Free

The Anatomy of a Wave — A Generative Retreat at the Oregon Coast — Oct 21-24

The Corporeal Writing Center 510 SW 3rd Ave #101, Portland, OR, United States

The Anatomy of a Wave w/ Lidia Yuknavitch & the Corporeal Writing Squad October 21st-24th, at The Salishan Coastal Lodge near Lincoln City, OR ***SOLD OUT*** — please fill out the form below to add yourself to the waitlist In this creative retreat we will explore the motion and space of waves as a means of creating deeper, more rhythmic, and sustainable writing practice, both in terms of present-tense projects as well as the longevity of your writing practice over time. Put simply, we can learn a great deal about writing from the motion of ocean waves. The movement of water can teach us about some kindred motions: the motion of the imagination and the subconscious, the motion of language, the motion of storytelling. In…

Free

Kundiman Reading Salon

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

Kundiman creates a space where Asian Americans can explore, through art, the unique challenges that face the new and ever changing diaspora. We see the arts as a tool of empowerment, of education and liberation, of addressing proactively the legacy we will leave for our future. In partnership with Literary Arts, Kundiman brings you a reading salon for BIPOC writers. The theme is “Burden, Bliss, and Balance.” Hosts Jennifer Perrine and Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito will lead writing exercises and a community discussion based on the theme. Writers may then sign up to share in an open mic. This event is open to everyone, but only people identifying as Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color will be invited to read. Light snacks will be provided. If…

Free

Raise Your Pen 2022

Oregon Contemporary (formerly DISJECTA) 8371 N Interstate Avenue, Portland, OR, United States

You’re invited to Raise Your Pen 2022, Write Around Portland’s signature fall fundraising event! After two years online, we’re thrilled to announce the return of everyone’s favorite literary bash! Please join us on October 21 for a magical night of poetry, inspiring stories, fun activities, delicious bites from Erica’s Soul Food, and a special appeal to support our one-of-a-kind literary programs.

Free – $60

Ekphrastic Creative Writing Lab

Carnation Contemporary and Well Well Projects 8371 N Interstate Ave #3, Portland

Ekphrastic Creative Writing Lab *This workshop meets in-person. Masks & Proof of Vaccination + Booster required **This workshop meets at Carnation Contemporary & Well Well Projects located at 8371 N Interstate Ave #3, Portland, OR 97217 Register here Instructor: Stephanie Victoire This 4-week writing lab series explores the further imagination, narrative and creation that awaits us within the consciousness of visual art. Students will experience how art communicates with its viewers and anticipates its reincarnation into multiple streams of language and ideas. Throughout the course of the workshops, students will learn how to transcend the messages, concepts and threads of thought they pull from the pieces in the gallery that speak to them, and respond creatively in any written form they wish. Each week there…

$100 – $200

HOCUS Live Reading: SPIRITS

Rose City Book Pub 1329 NE Fremont, Portland, OR, United States

Come for the live readings, stay for the hurdy gurdy music and arcane literary rituals! There will be stories and poems about spirits disembodied, spirits high and spirits low, and spirits distilled, as well as some magical activities to absolve you of all your literary sins.

Free

Open Mic Night & Chill

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

Save the Date!

Free

In-Store Reading: Sherry Fishman: Avraham and Mary

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

Annie Bloom's welcomes local author Sherry Fishman for an in-store reading from her new book, Avraham and Mary: A Historical Fiction of My Immigrant Grandparents. This in-store reading is first come, first served. Please be mindful of any store health policies that might be in effect on the night of the reading. Signed and personalized copies are available for order! Please, please, please include the name for personalization in the order notes; or indicate "signed only." About Avraham and Mary: A Historical Fiction of My Immigrant Grandparents: This is the story of my family, and a universal tale. It is a love story and a story of: persecutions and pogroms, a kidnapping, an encounter with Rasputin, crossing borders while hiding from officials, separations from loved…

Free