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!

Richard Brown in Conversation With Brian Benson

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This Is Not for You (Oregon State University) tells the story of activist and photographer Richard Brown, a Black Portlander who has spent decades working to bridge the divide between police and the Black community. Brown’s memoir (written with Brian Benson) brings readers with him into the streets with fellow activists, into squad cars with the rank-and-file, and to regular meetings with mayors and police chiefs. There are very few people doing the kind of work Brown has done. And that, as he sees it, is a big problem. This Is Not for You finds Brown approaching his 80th birthday and reflecting on his life. As he recalls his childhood in 1940s Harlem, his radicalization in the newly desegregated Air Force, and his decades of…

Free

Whitney Otto in Conversation With Lidia Yuknavitch

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In Art for the Ladylike (Mad Creek Books), Whitney Otto, author How to Make an American Quilt, limns the lives of eight pioneering women photographers — Sally Mann, Imogen Cunningham, Judy Dater, Ruth Orkin, Tina Modotti, Lee Miller, Madame Yvonne, and Grete Stern — to in turn excavate her own writer’s life. The result is an affecting exploration of what it means to be a woman, what it means to be an artist, and the perils and rewards of being both at once. In considering how feminism, career, and motherhood were entangled throughout her subjects’ lives as they tirelessly sought to render their visions and paved the way for others creating within the bounds of domesticity, Otto assesses her own struggles with balancing writing and…

Free

Whitney Otto, Art for the Ladylike

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

We are so thrilled to be (virtually) hosting Portland author Whitney Otto with her new book Art for the Ladylike, published by Mad Creek Books. In this inviting blend of biography and memoir, Otto examines her life in terms of the women artists who influenced her, asking, “Is there any social effect when a woman is explicit in her observing?” She limns the lives of eight pioneering women photographers—Sally Mann, Imogen Cunningham, Judy Dater, Ruth Orkin, Tina Modotti, Lee Miller, Madame Yvonne, and Grete Stern— to in turn excavate her own writer’s life. The result is an affecting exploration of what it means to be a woman, what it means to be an artist, and the perils and rewards of being both at once. In…

Free

Inheritance Workshop Series

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

To inherit means to derive characteristics, items, situations, or a predisposition from one’s ancestors. Often, the connotation of inheritance for people of color is generational and negative; there exists tangible disease, illness, trauma, and debt. As queer people of color we are all too familiar with these realities in our communities and in ourselves. The Inheritance Workshop Series seeks to redirect this concept of generational inheritance as a form of something beautiful and abundant; through past traditions, passions, cultures, and joys. Abundance exists loudly, more so than the negative. Let’s center the things we have accumulated and chosen to hold closely. This will be a free, three-part workshop series hosted virtually with 5-10 participants. It will consist of writing poetry, experimenting with photography, and then…

Free

Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matter Virtual Discussion

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

When you think “call and response,” you may think of protest chants like “Whose streets?” “Our streets!”— groups of voices joining together to form a powerful rallying cry. Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matter, published by Versify/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on August 17, is an essential history of Black Lives Matter centered on those voices, beginning with the movement's founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Author Veronica Chambers of The New York Times documents the pivotal moments that galvanized Black Lives Matter, featuring stories and quotes from the activists that built upon a vision to stand up for racial justice. Nearly 100 striking New York Times photographs accompany the text, setting Call and Response apart as a visual narrative of the…

Free

Uli Beutter Cohen in Conversation With Simmone Taitt & Daniel Vosovic

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

For the better part of a decade, Uli Beutter Cohen, the acclaimed creator of Subway Book Review, rode the subway through New York City’s underground to observe society through the lens of our most creative thinkers: the readers of books. Between the Lines (Simon & Schuster) is a timely collection of beloved and never-before-published stories that reflect who we are and where we are going. In over 170 interviews, Uli shares nuanced insights into our collective psyche and gives us an invaluable document of our challenges and our potential. Complete with original photography, and countless intriguing book recommendations, Between the Lines is an enthusiastic celebration of the ways stories invite us into each other’s lives, and a call to action for imagining a bold, empathetic…

Free

Tech Support Group

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This workshop will take place on zoom. Register here. In this four-part workshop meets peer support group, participants will gather to cultivate community and creative consciousness around the complex presence that smartphones have in our lives. Each meeting will include space for sharing, inquiring, exploring creative prompts and developing ideas for a cumulative collaborative Tech Support zine. The zine may include drawings, writings, poems, prompts, experiments, photos, etc which reflect the unique experiences participants have with their phones. Participants can expect weekly email offerings with questions, prompts and themes to support their processes, to be used if desired. About the facilitator: Erika Dedini (she/her) holds a Bachelor of Science in Art Practices from Portland State University. She has completed a two-year training program in mindful somatic therapy from Mindful…

Free

Submission Deadline: Old Pal: Issue 5

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Old Pal is open for submissions until April 30th, 2022! We publish poetry, fiction, critical non-fiction, audio, mixed-media, and various mediums of art. We encourage artists from all experience levels and communities to submit. Simultaneous submissions welcome, but please let us know if your submission is accepted elsewhere. Multiple genre submissions are also welcome (e.g., if you’d like to submit a combination of poems and art, or poems and a fiction piece, etc.). Contributors will be compensated upon publication. If interested, please send up to 15 pages of written work or 6 pieces of other media to submissions@oldpalmag.com.

Free

Submission Deadline: Pile Press: Summer Reading Issue

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Pile Press is open for submissions from May 1st - June 12th, 2022! We accept poetry, short fiction, CNF, comics, photography, art, and more. We publish women, non-binary and gender fluid creatives. More submission guidelines and details can be found here: https://pilepress.com/home-2/submit/ See also their call on Instagram here!

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