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!

Red State Revolt – Eric Blanc

Mother Foucault's Bookshop 523 SE Morrison St, Portland, OR, United States

Join Eric Blanc at 7 pm on May 8 — the day of Portland’s own teacher union walkout — as he reads from his timely new book Red State Revolt.  Educators across the country are rising up against low pay, privatization, and austerity. Former high school teacher Eric Blanc has been on the ground reporting on this historic upsurge for The Nation, Jacobin, and The Guardian. His new book Red State Revolt describes the inspiring story of the teachers’ strike wave and analyzes why it points the way forward for all working people. Join us for a discussion of the strikes — from West Virginia, to Washington, to Los Angeles — and their lessons for today’s struggles to defend our schools and public services for all. “Eric Blanc has…

Free

Standing Up Virtual Event

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Virtual Event with Ellen Bravo and Larry Miller and their book Standing Up. We welcome (virtually) Ellen Bravo and Larry Miller in conversation with moderator Margaret Butler, former director of Jobs with Justice and activist in the environmental justice movement. In Standing Up, Ellen Bravo and Larry Miller have taken inspiration from their five decades organizing for labor and social justice to craft a novel about the people who clean bloody hospital sheets, forge parts for sewer pipes, arrange flights, or process checks, all while caring for kids, holding relationships together, and wrestling with multiple forms of oppression. This book is about the people Imbolo Mbue calls “the deliberately unheard.” The ones we see every day but do not know their names, their joys or…

Free

Democratic Socialists of America: Abortion is Healthcare, Healthcare is a Human Right Protest/Rally

Lownsdale Square SW 4th Avenue and Main Street, Portland, OR, United States

‼️TODAY‼️ Roe v. Wade has been officially overturned by SCOTUS. Join us TODAY at 5:30pm in Lownsdale Square to rally against the decision.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ We’ve got a guest speaker lineup to talk about reproductive justice, its intersection with queer and trans healthcare, and the fight for labor solidarity!⁣ #AbortionIsHealthcare⁣ ⁣⁣ Read our full Portland DSA chapter statement here: bit.ly/3HOHHbw⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ ——⁣ ⁣ Image descriptions: ⁣⁣ ⁣ Slide 1 in red, black, and white shows Portland DSA logo and reads, “Abortion is Healthcare, Healthcare is a human right! Join us today in protest at Lownsdale Square at 5:30pm. ⁣⁣ ⁣ Slide 2 in red, black, and white reads, “Portland DSA condemns the Supreme Court’s decision. Join us at 5:30pm today in Lownsdale Square! We’ve invited a…

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