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!

In-Store Reading: Steven Mayfield: Delphic Oracle, U.S.A.

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

Annie Bloom's welcomes back Portland author Steven Mayfield for the in-store launch of his new novel, Delphic Oracle, U.S.A. Masks are required for this event. We keep a supply of masks near our front door for anyone who needs one. Signed and personalized copies are available for pre-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 Delphic Oracle, U.S.A.: It is 1925 when a love affair between enchantress Maggie Westinghouse and con man July Pennybaker upends the small town of Miagrammesto Station, tumbles it about, and sets it back down as Delphic Oracle, Nebraska. Will their love fulfill its destiny? The narrator of this wry, entertaining…

Free

Livestream Reading: Rachel King: Bratwurst Haven

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes back Portland author Rachel King for the online launch of her new linked story collection, Bratwurst Haven. Rachel will be in conversation with Rajia Hassib, author of the novel A Pure Heart. Watch the video recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76hd2ncvG2M Signed and personalized copies of Bratwurst Haven are available for order! Please, please, please include the name for personalization in the order notes; or indicate "signed only." About Bratwurst Haven: Linked stories trace the vocational and emotional bargains made by workers at a Colorado sausage factory. It’s almost a decade after the Great Recession, and in Colorado, St. Anthony Sausage has not recovered. Neither have its employees: a laid-off railway engineer, an exiled computer whiz, a young woman estranged from her infant daughter, an…

Free

Katherine Dunn Tribute Event with Naomi Huffman & Lydia Kiesling

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

Toad (MCD) is a previously unpublished novel of the reflections of a deeply scarred and reclusive woman, from cult icon Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love. Sally Gunnar has been in love, has been mad, has been an agent of destruction, has been spurned; and now she has retreated from the world. She lives in isolation in her small house, where her only companions are a vase of goldfish, a garden toad, and the door-to-door salesman who sells her cleaning supplies once a month. From her comfortable perch, she broods over her deepest regrets: her wayward, weed-hazy college days; her blighted romance with a scornful poet; a tragically comic accident involving a paper cutter; a suicide attempt; and her decision to ultimately relinquish a conventional…

Free

Where We Call Home: Josephine Woolington & Kristin Thiel in Conversation

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

In partnership with Ooligan Press. Join us in celebration of the launch of Where We Call Home: Lands, Seas, and Skies of the Pacific Northwest, an essay collection by Josephine Woolington. This conversation with Josephine Woolington and Kristin Thiel, coeditor of Fire & Water: Stories from the Anthropocene, will be followed by a Q&A and book signing. You can pre-order Where We Call Home: Lands, Seas, and Skies of the Pacific Northwest here. Josephine Woolington Josephine Woolington is a writer, musician and educator. She previously worked at several newspapers in Oregon, where her work was read by both regional and national audiences via The Associated Press. During her time at The Register-Guard in Eugene, she received an award for best education coverage from the Oregon…

Free

Emme Lund in Conversation with Stacy Brewster

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

We are thrilled to be hosting Emme Lund for the launch of the paperback edition of her novel The Boy with a Bird in His Chest. Emme will be in conversation with Stacy Brewster, who is the author of the story collection What We Pick Up.

Free

First Friday with The Lunas (Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, and Angelo Luna)

Birdhouse Books 1001 Main Street, Vancouver, WA, United States

It’s a family affair: Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, and Angelo Luna will be joining us for the return of our First Friday Poetry Series! Christopher Luna, co-host of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic and co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver, will be launching his new poetry collection, VORACITY, from Lightship Press, and will be joined by his wife Toni Lumbrazo Luna, co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver and local poetry powerhouse, and his son Angelo Luna, who co-authored the father-son poetry collection EXCHANGING WISDOM. 7pm Friday, January 6 Birdhouse Books 1001 Main Street Basement Vancouver, WA 98660 Voracity, featuring poetry and collages by Christopher Luna, is now available from Lightship Press or the author: https://www.lightshippress.com/books/p/voracity-by-christopher-luna Voracity by Christopher Luna $18.00 "Brutally honest confessional poetry, Christopher Luna's…

Free

Gemma Whalen in Conversation with Rene Denfeld

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

We are excited to host Gemma Whelan for the launch of her second novel, Painting Through the Dark. Gemma will be in conversation with Portland author Rene Denfeld, the author of several books, including The Enchanted, The Child Finder, The Butterfly Girl, and the forthcoming (May 2023) Fire and Water. Gemma's new novel tells the story of feisty 21-year-old Ashling O'Leary, who flees the emotional shackles of her family in Ireland and the convent where she was training to be a nun. She arrives in San Francisco in 1982 with a backpack, a judo outfit, her artist's portfolio, a three-month visa, and a determination to find a way to speak up about the abuse of girls and women in Catholic Ireland. As she becomes embroiled…

Free

Reading: Lisa Kentgen: The Practice of Belonging

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

Annie Bloom's welcomes local author Lisa Kentgen for the in-store launch of her new book, The Practice of Belonging: Six Lessons from Vibrant Communities to Combat Loneliness, Foster Diversity, and Cultivate Caring Relationships. Signed and personalized copies 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 The Practice of Belonging: An inspirational guide to the 6 core qualities of healthy communities, for anyone looking to build community as a source of connection and a vehicle for social change. After two years meeting with different communities in the US, psychologist Lisa Kentgen identified 6 key traits of vibrant, healthy communities that we can all…

Free

Chelsea Bieker: Book Launch for Paperback of Heartbroke

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

Please join us to celebrate the launch of the paperback edition of Heartbroke, with the author Chelsea Bieker in conversation with fellow author Genevieve Hudson. Heartbroke is a defining book of Californian stories where everyone is seeking or sabotaging love. United by the stark and sprawling landscapes of California's Central Valley, the characters in these stories boil with reckless desire. A woman steals a baby from a shelter in an attempt to recoup her own lost motherhood. A phone-sex operator sees divine opportunity when a lavender-eyed cowboy walks into her life. A mother and a son selling dream catchers along a highway that leads to a toxic beach manifest two young documentary filmmakers into their realm. And two teenage girls play a dangerous online game…

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…

Free