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!

Matt Kracht

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

Guess what: bees are incredible. If you don't think so, you're wrong; but you're also in luck! Extreme bee enthusiast Matt Kracht — author of The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America and its sequel, The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World — is here to set the record straight with his helpful guidebook to all things bees. With lighthearted watercolor and ink drawings, humorous quips, lists, and musings, OMFG, BEES! (Chronicle) will show you just how important these esteemed bee-list celebrities really are. (Hint: We can't live without them.) Delving into various bee topics, from distinguishing between bees and not bees (very crucial), to exploring the absolute wonder that is bee behavior (they do a coded dance directing…

Free

Jake Bittle in Conversation With Monica Samayoa

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

When the subject of migration that will be caused by global climate change comes up in the media or in conversation, we often think of international refugees — those from foreign countries who will emigrate to the United States to escape disasters like rising shorelines and famine. What many people don’t realize though, is that climate migration is happening now — and within the borders of the United States. A human-centered narrative with national scope, Jake Bittle’s The Great Displacement (Simon & Schuster) is the first book to report on climate migration in the US. From half-drowned Louisiana to fire-scorched California, from the dried-up cotton fields of Arizona to the soaked watersheds of inland North Carolina, people are moving. In the last decade alone, the…

Free

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…

Free

Brent Weeks

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

Brent Weeks returns to the world of the Night Angel in Night Angel Nemesis (Orbit), following master assassin Kylar on a new adventure as the High King Logan Gyre calls on him to save his kingdom and the hope of peace. After the war that cost him so much, Kylar Stern is broken and alone. He's determined not to kill again, but an impending amnesty will pardon the one murderer he can't let walk free. He promises himself this is the last time. One last hit to tie up the loose ends of his old, lost life. But Kylar's best — and maybe only — friend, the High King Logan Gyre, needs him. To protect a fragile peace, Logan’s new kingdom, and the king’s twin…

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…

Free

Eli Francovich in Conversation With Erica Berry

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

The gray wolf has made an astonishing comeback in Washington. Nearly eradicated by the 1990s, conservationists and environmentalists have cheered its robust return to the state over the last two decades. But Washington ranchers are not so joyous. When wolves prey on livestock, ranchers view their livelihood as under attack. In The Return of Wolves (Timber Press), journalist Eli Francovich investigates how we might mend this divide while keeping wolf populations thriving. He finds an answer in the time-honored tradition of range riding and one passionate range rider, Daniel Curry, who has jumped directly into the fray by patrolling the rural Washington landscape on horseback. Curry engages directly with farmers, seeking to protect livestock from wolves while also protecting and proliferating wolf populations. In The…

Free

Max Miller in Conversation With Holly Erickson & Natalie Mortimer

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

What began as a passion project when Max Miller was furloughed during Covid-19 has become a viral YouTube sensation with a million followers amassed in just two years. The Tasting History with Max Miller channel has thrilled food enthusiasts and history buffs alike as Miller recreates a dish from the past, often using historical recipes from vintage texts, but updated for modern kitchens as he tells stories behind the cuisine and culture. From ancient Rome to Ming China to medieval Europe and beyond, Miller has collected the best-loved recipes from around the world and has shared them with his fans. Now, with beautiful photographs portraying the dishes and historical artwork throughout, Miller’s new cookbook, Tasting History (S&S/Simon Element) compiles over 60 dishes such as: Tuh’u:…

Free

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.…

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

Ram Shankar Siva Kumar & Hyrum Anderson

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

In Not With A Bug, But With A Sticker (Wiley), adversarial machine learning researchers Ram Shankar Siva Kumar and Hyrum Anderson deliver a riveting account of the most significant risk to artificial intelligence systems: cybersecurity threats. The authors take you on a sweeping tour — from inside secretive government organizations to academic workshops at ski chalets to Google’s cafeteria — recounting how major AI systems remain vulnerable to the exploits of bad actors of all stripes. Siva Kumar and Anderson outline the different ways any AI system — from Alexa to Tesla — can be manipulated by adversaries. Their book is aimed at a general audience, and, in playful language and anecdotes, attempts to answer a multitude of questions: How to subvert these AI systems?…

Free