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!

Winter Poetry Festival

Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) 511 Northwest Broadway St, Portland, OR, United States

Portland’s second Winter Poetry Festival is a joyful gathering of poets and poetry lovers. Winter is a magical time where the beauty of language burns brightly in the darkness. The festival will feature a marketplace where you can support poets by buying from them directly, inspiring workshops for poets of all levels of experience, innovative performances and craft-talks from top-notch poets, a guest-screening from Seattle’s Cadence: Video Poetry Festival, and the “Poet’s Playground” an ephemeral pop-up of poetic challenges and collaborations. The Festival will be housed in the beautiful PNCA. ADA accessible. Centrally-located, near many major transit lines.

Free

PNCA Low-Residency MFA Program Summer 2020 Residency Classes & Readings Open to the Public

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

As part of the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing program, PNCA offers talks, discussions, and readings by acclaimed writers and artists, July 24th to August 3rd. Everything is free and open to the public. All events this summer are hosted via Zoom. The passwords for all faculty classes are 515000. CLASSES Saturday, July 25 10am: Unsafe is Not a Feeling: How Writing Contends with the Illusion of Safety Sara Jaffe https://pnca.zoom.us/j/98345715004?pwd=OVVOLysrZUh5S0hxS0d5QlBHUDZMUT09 2pm: Winter Poop, Spring Revivals, Summer Fires, and Fall Marigolds Alison C Rollins https://pnca.zoom.us/j/98224439656?pwd=TnNGWkJmQUZaTWlOOXFhZjlhUnJudz09 Sunday, July 26 10am: THE ART OF WEALTH (in life & in literature) Vi Khi Nao https://pnca.zoom.us/j/95075415254?pwd=YVd4ZVJON3YrZHIrdWF1MXN4WmkwZz09 Monday, July 27 10am: Outsider Ecopoetics Tyrone Williams https://pnca.zoom.us/j/95516376236?pwd=T1EycmFvM05STEJlN1JPZ3k3WVY3dz09 11am: Feminism / Queer Theory Shawna Liption and Sloane McNulty https://pnca.zoom.us/j/97573944766?pwd=Y0NZeEtETmxZdDFRczRrYU0wdEJLdz09 Tuesday, July 28…

Free

PNCA MFA January Residency Faculty Readings: Alison C. Rollins and Asiya Wadud

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Come enjoy readings from our esteemed faculty, Alison C. Rollins and Asiya Wadud, this evening at 6 p.m. PST. We’re hosting the event on Zoom (link in bio) and streaming live on PNCA’s Youtube Channel — all are welcome! See you soon!

Free

PNCA MFA Reading: Ocean Vuong in conversation with Dao Strom

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Mark your calendars!!! On Thursday, April 15th at 6:30 p.m., poet and novelist Ocean Vuong will read from his recent creative works. Following the reading, Vuong will be joined by faculty mentor and interdisciplinary artist Dao Strom for a conversation. This event will be co-hosted by PNCA’s MFA Low-Residency Creative Writing and MA Critical Studies programs and has been made possible by a generous grant from the Collins Foundation. Ocean Vuong is the author of The New York Times bestselling novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, from Penguin Press (2019) and forthcoming in 30 languages. A recipient of a 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Grant, Vuong is also the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10…

Free

Lecture with Eileen Isagon Skyers

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Eileen Isagon Skyers, an alumna of the MA in Critical Studies Program at PNCA, will share a talk covering her multifaceted practice and career in the arts. She will discuss our contemporary framework for viewing, making, and valuing art against a backdrop of rapidly shifting technology, and how that manifests in her own work and criticism about digital art and culture. Wednesday September 22 in PNCA’s Shipley-Collins Mediatheque and Livestreaming 6:30 pm Live Captioned PNCA LiveVideo on YouTube Eileen Isagon Skyers is an artist, writer, and curator based in New York City. Her work and research engages with identity, new media, and digital culture. She co-founded the New-York based gallery HOUSING, whose mission is to support artistic practices and aesthetic experiences that contour the limits…

Free

Graduate Lecture Series: Janice Lee

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies welcomes novelist Janice Lee to campus on Nov. 3rd, from 6:30-7:30 (PST), as part of the Graduate Lecture Series. Lee will read from her most recent novel, Imagine a Death (Texas Review Press). Following her most recent publications Reconsolidation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2015) and The Sky Isn’t Blue (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016), the writer’s seventh novel explores “the layered and complex fabric of how loss, abuse, trauma, and death have shaped their pasts, and how these pasts continue to haunt their present moments, a moment in which time seems to be running out,” according to Texas Review press. PNCA faculty Brandon Shimoda wrote that Imagine a Death “confirms Lee as the descendant of Béla Tarr, of moss that breathes,…

Free

PNCA Graduate Symposium 2021: Speculative Futures

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Hallie Ford School of Graduate studies (HFSGS) at PNCA is pleased to announce the 2021 Graduate Symposium theme: “Speculative Features.” This symposium will consider how contemporary artists render algorithmic harms visible and imagine speculative futures optimized for just outcomes. The two-day event will facilitate conversations on the ethical, environmental, political, social, and economic impacts of artificial intelligence and machine learning for artists, designers, makers, writers, researchers, and cultural workers. Featuring the work of Amelia Winger-Bearskin, an artist who innovates with technology to make a positive impact on her community and the environment, and Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, a scholar and curator exploring the intersections of algorithmic justice and visual art, Speculative Futures explores how artificial intelligence shapes political imaginaries of what is yet to come. SCHEDULE:…

Free

PNCA Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing Presents: An Evening with K-Ming Chang & LaTanya McQueen

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

Find more information about this event here and register in advance here PNCA Faculty LaTanya McQueen and Guest Artist K-Ming Chang read from their most recent prose works. Proof vaccination and mask-wearing are required. K-Ming Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She is the author of the New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice novel BESTIARY (One World/Random House, 2020), which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2021, her chapbook BONE HOUSE was published by Bull City Press. Her short story collection, GODS OF WANT, is forthcoming from One World, as well as a novel titled ORGAN MEATS. She lives in California. LaTanya…

Free

Hanif Abdurraqib, Kaveh Akbar, and Leslie Jamison

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

The Alano Club of Portland’s Artists in Recovery series and Literary Arts are thrilled to welcome Hanif Abdurraqib, Kaveh Akbar, and Leslie Jamison to Portland for a reading and conversation about the intersections of mental health and substance use recovery, creativity, and building community. The discussion will be moderated by Kasey Anderson. This event is free and open to the public but space is limited so reserving a ticket on Eventbrite is recommended. This event is sponsored by Third Eye Books, Tin House, and the Willamette University/PNCA Low Residency Creative Writing MFA Program. In-Person Event Note: This event meets in-person at Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington. Literary Arts will require proof of full COVID-19 vaccination, or a negative test result (within 72 hours) from a…

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