A resource for the PDX literary community. Produced by Old Pal.
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!
The PSU Program in Creative Writing is pleased to host an remote event with writer and performer JJJJJerome Ellis. This event is cosponsored by the departments of Black Studies and Speech and Hearing at Portland State. JJJJJerome Ellis is an artist and stutterer from Tidewater, Virginia. His website is jjjjjerome.com. Please register for the event at https://pdx.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_At2scnYfRe-yhzt9f1SWHg.
This event is part of our 39th season of Portland Arts & Lectures. Subscriptions for the five-part lecture series are on sale now. All lectures will be held in person at The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in downtown Portland, OR. For more information on the season, please see our FAQs or reach out to us at la@literary-arts.org. Patrick Radden Keefe Patrick Radden Keefe is an award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of four books including the New York Times bestsellers Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, which was awarded the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction and was a finalist for the FT Business Book of the Year, and Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory…
Ninety-nine percent of all businesses in the US are small businesses. From freelance publishing services (marketing, design, editing, etc.) to independent publishers and bookstores, entrepreneurs and the businesses they start are the heart of the publishing industry. In this panel of book publishing entrepreneurs, the presenters will discuss how they forged their own paths, built book businesses on their own terms, acquired capital, developed business plans, and overcame entrepreneurial challenges. FMH 204
Celebrate the release of The Butter House, a new book from Lambda award-winning author Sarah Gerard. The Butter House follows a woman who moves to Florida and becomes a caretaker for a feral cat colony. Publishers Weekly says, "With precise and lush details, Gerard captures a sense of life's fragility amid new possibilities." Hosted by Portland-based publisher, Conium Press, this event will feature an author discussion between Sarah Gerard and James R. Gapinski. Paperback and limited-edition hardcover copies will be available, and there will be a book signing after the event. Keys Lounge is a 21+ venue with a full food and drink menu, including vegan, vegetarian, and gluten free options. Learn more about this event on the Conium Press website or find this event on Facebook.
Let’s read, reflect and learn together. Everybody Reads is a community-wide project that promotes shared reading and discussion around a single book. About the book Ruth Ozeki’s award-winning novel A Tale for the Time Being tells the story of two strangers whose lives become connected across time and an ocean. Ruth is a novelist living on an island off the coast of British Columbia. While beachcombing, she comes upon a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed ashore, detritus from a tsunami in Japan. Inside, she discovers the diary of 16-year-old Nao Yasutani of Tokyo. Ruth becomes absorbed by the drama of Nao’s life and her unknown fate. In Tokyo, Nao is the target of her classmates’ bullying, and she struggles with a pervasive sense of loneliness. Increasingly,…
In his first book, broadcaster Ari Shapiro — the beloved host of NPR's All Things Considered — takes us around the globe to reveal the stories behind narratives that are sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking, but always poignant. He details his time traveling on Air Force One with President Obama, or following the path of Syrian refugees fleeing war, or learning from those fighting for social justice both at home and abroad. As the self-reinforcing bubbles we live in become more impenetrable, Shapiro keeps seeking ways to help people listen to one another; to find connection and commonality with those who may seem different; to remind us that, before religion, or nationality, or politics, we are all human. Shapiro's stirring memoir-in-essays, The Best Strangers in the…
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…
Please join La Casa Latina and the Chicano/Latino Studies for an afternoon talk with Dr. Isabel Millán Author and illustrator of the queer bilingual children’s picture book Chabelita’s Heart/El corazón de Chabelita Wednesday, April 26 1:00 - 2:30 pm La Casa Latina SMSU 228 More about Dr. Millán Find the book here.
We think Marcy Cottrell Houle is a wonder. With each of her books she brings such clarity and useful information to us all. So we are exceptionally happy to have her in the store to present her latest book: Forest Park: Exploring Portland's Natural Sanctuary, a gorgeously illustrated book published by Oregon State University Press. Situated in the rugged hills west of downtown Portland, Forest Park is the nation's premier urban natural sanctuary. It supports essential habitat for hundreds of native plants and animals, including species at risk, and is one of the largest city parks in the world, offering miles of outstanding hiking trails within minutes of downtown. Forest Park showcases this treasure in a new light, offering a compendium of the most up-to-date…
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.…
