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!

Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power

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

In Waking the Witch (Gallery), podcast host and practicing witch Pam Grossman explores the cultural and historical impact of the world’s most magical icon. From the idea of the femme fatale in league with the devil to the bewitching pop culture archetypes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Harry Potter; from the spooky ladies in fairy tales and horror films to the rise of feminist covens and contemporary witchcraft, witches reflect the power and potential of women. Waking the Witch is a whip-smart and illuminating exploration of the world’s fascination with witches.

Free

Lawrence Shainberg

Powell's Books on Hawthorne 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR, United States

“Inexplicably good karma” – to this, Pushcart Prize-winning author Lawrence Shainberg attributes a life filled with relationships with legendary writers and renowned Buddhist teachers. In Four Men Shaking (Shambhala), he weaves together the narratives of three of those relationships: his literary friendships with Samuel Beckett and Norman Mailer, and his teacher-student relationship with the Japanese Zen master Kyudo Nakagawa Roshi. In Shainberg’s lifelong pursuit of both writing and Zen practice, each of these men represents an important aspect of his experience.

Free

Timothy Egan

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

In his new book, The Worst Hard Time author Timothy Egan traces an ancient pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome, exploring the past and future of Christianity. Moved by his mother’s death and his Irish Catholic family’s complicated history with the Church, Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers to force a reckoning with his own beliefs. A thrilling journey, a family story, and a revealing history, Egan’s A Pilgrimage to Eternity (Viking) looks for our future in its search for God.

Free

Reading: Dorice Horenstein: Moments of the Heart

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

Annie Bloom's welcomes Portland author Dorice Horenstein to read from her book Moments of the Heart. There are many paths to Jewish ideals, and Moments of the Heart takes readers by the hand in a non-intimidating way to explore Jewish thoughts, choose a kinder life, and be empowered. Our heart has a tremendous influence on how we view life, how we act, and how we build relationships. Just as the heart has four chambers, Moments of the Heart lays out four different types of relationships: with oneself, with others, with the Creator, and once-in-a-life time moments that define people. Each chamber contains several entries introducing topics that stem from Jewish thought and practice that inspire readers to live their best lives, utilizing Hebrew knowledge, wisdom,…

Free

Transcending: Trans Buddhist Voices

Two Rivers Bookstore 8836 N Lombard Street, Portland, OR, United States

Join Michaela McCormick (she/her) and Sasha Strong (they/them) as they read from their chapters in the new anthology, Transcending.

Free

Delve Readers Seminars: William James: Inventing an American Philosophy

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The philosophy of William James (1842–1910) has had world-wide influence, and yet it is in many ways an essentially American view of the nature and humanity. James was a psychologist by training. This study led him to develop his unique view of human experience, out of which grew his profound concept of the nature of knowledge and reality as the way in which we act in the world and experience life. In this seminar, we will discuss a few of James’s most important essays in general philosophy, ethics, psychology, and religion in order to grasp the force of his simple but revolutionary ideas. The Will to Believe by William James Essays in Radical Empiricism by William James Delve Access Program We want Delve seminars to…

$220

Rob Bell in Conversation with the band Joseph

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In his profound and deeply personal new book, New York Times bestselling author Rob Bell explores the endless dynamic questions and connections that have shaped his life to provide powerful insight into understanding your purpose and place in the world. Our home is a universe of endless dynamic connections that never stop inviting us to participate in the great mysterious love at the heart of it all. Everything Is Spiritual (St. Martin’s Essentials) is a brief history of how these ideas about creation, love, and connection shaped the author — and can shape every one of us. In his new book, Bell explores the concept that what people really want, more than anything, is to understand their purpose here — so much so that it…

Free

John Mark Comer in Conversation With Tyler Staton

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Pastor John Mark Comer, the bestselling author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, wants you to know that whether you want to be or not, you are at war. Not with foreign assailants or domestic terrorists. No, this is the sort of war you experience deep in your mind and body. It’s a war with the forces that seek to wreak havoc in your hearts and homes through subtle deceptions. For two millennia, apprentices of Jesus have been at war with three fierce and consistent adversaries of the soul: the world, the flesh, and the devil. To this day, they feed us deceptive ideas that appeal to disordered desires that harm our spiritual and relational well-being. In his new book, Live No Lies (WaterBrook), Comer…

Free

Premise Course: What makes humans the same and different? King’s Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

(Learn about Premise classes here: https://www.premiseinstitute.com/premisefaq) Depending on how we identify (race, gender identity, socioeconomic class, etc.), the events of the past year, if not the past five hundred years, have unearthed the ways systems of oppression impact all of us quite differently. Those differences have deepened divides and made connecting authentically more challenging—particularly across lines of racial difference. Some of us are afraid to say the wrong thing or don’t know how to approach conversations about race, while others are tired of doing the emotional labor of educating people about racism. The teachings of Buddhism and the work of Buddhist practitioner Ruth King offer us tools to heal and transform the interactions we have across racial differences. Through understanding the two truths that govern…

$150

Curtis White

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

In Transcendent (Melville House), celebrated cultural critic Curtis White asks what Buddhism will look like in the future. Do we want a secular Buddhism that looks like corporations and neuroscience? Or do we want a Buddhism that still provides refuge from the debased world of money and things? Transcendence is not about magic realms where spirits fly about; the world is, as Shunryu Suzuki put it, its own magic. We only need to reclaim it and reclaim our humanity while we’re at it. The problem White suggests is a culture that recognizes only "things," capitalist things and science things, and aggressively denies the idea that the world of things has a beyond. We're told by science ideologues like the New Atheists that we live in…

Free