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!

Pre-Show Discussion: Emily Rapp Black in Conversation with Vanessa Severo

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us online for this conversation between Emily Rapp Black, The New York Times bestselling author of Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg, and Vanessa Severo, actor/playwright of Frida ... A Self Portrait. Both artists will discuss how the life, art, and disabilities of Frida Kahlo have impacted their work. This event will be streamed online at YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch. About Emily Rapp Black Emily Rapp Black is the author of Poster Child: A Memoir (BloomsburyUSA) and The Still Point of the Turning World (Penguin Press), a New York Times bestseller and an Editor’s Pick. A former Fulbright scholar, she was educated at Harvard University, Trinity College-Dublin, Saint Olaf College, and the University of Texas-Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow. A Guggenheim Fellow, she has received awards and fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Jentel…

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

Kate Gray Poetry Reading

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Kate Gray's poetry reading will be livestreamed on November 10, 2021 on the Ledding Library YouTube Channel. Kate Gray's passion stems from writing, teaching, leading salons, and volunteering. For Every Girl: New & Selected Poems was published by Widow & Orphan House in 2019. Her first full-length book of poems, Another Sunset We Survive (Cedar House Books, 2007) was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and followed chapbooks, Bone-Knowing (2006), winner of the Gertrude Press Poetry Prize and Where She Goes (2000), winner of the Blue Light Chapbook Prize. Kate’s first novel, Carry the Sky, (Forest Avenue, 2014) stares at bullying without blinking. Her poetry and essays have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. In her novel-in-progress, she narrates, in Sylvia Plath’s voice, what led to The Bell Jar and her suicide attempt in 1953. Over the years she’s been awarded…

Free

Broadway Books: Virtual Holiday Book Chat

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

We continue our Indies First Celebration by hosting our annual Holiday Book Chat (virtually) from 5:30 to 6:30 pm on Monday, November 29th. While we're crestfallen that the relentless virus is preventing us from hosting you all in person with wine, goodies, and other beverages, we invite you to grab your favorite beverage and plunk yourself down in front of your computer (notebook at the ready) and join us as Kim and Sally talk as fast as they possibly can about all of the delightful possibilities for holiday gift giving. If you can't make the event in live time, you will be able to watch it at your leisure on our YouTube channel. Kim's Book List  Sally's Book List If you missed the event you can…

Free

Christopher Howell Poetry Reading

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Christopher Howell's poetry reading will be livestreamed on December 8, 2021 on the Ledding Library YouTube Channel. (link is external) Born in Portland, Oregon, Christopher Howell attended Pacific Lutheran University from 1963 to ’66. After service as a military journalist during the Viet Nam war, he received graduate degrees from Portland State University and the University of Massachusetts. He is author of twelve collections of poems, most recently The Grief of a Happy Life (U. Washington Press, 2019), Love’s Last Number and Gaze (both from Milkweed Editions), and Dreamless and Possible: Poems New and Selected (UW Press, 2010). He has received the Washington State Governor’s Award, the Washington State Book Award, two fellowships from National Endowment for the Arts, two from the Artist Trust, and a number of…

Free

Tiel Aisha Ansari Poetry Reading

Ledding Library of Milwaukie 10660 SE 21st Avenue, Milwaukie, OR, United States

The 16th season of the Milwaukie Poetry Series continues on November 9 at 6pm with a live reading at the library by poet Tiel Aisha Ansari. Seating limited to 50. The reading will also be livestreamed on the Ledding Library (link is external) YouTube Channel (link is external). You can register with Tom Hogan at  (link sends e-mail)tomhogan2@comcast.net (link sends e-mail). Tiel Aisha Ansari is a Sufi warrior poet. Her work has been featured by Fault Lines Poetry, Windfall, KBOO and an Everyman’s Library anthology, among others. Her collections include Knocking from Inside, High-Voltage Lines, Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare’s Stable, The Day of My First Driving Lesson, and Dervish Lions (forthcoming from Fernwood Books). She works as a data analyst for the Portland Public School district and is president emerita of the Oregon Poetry Association. She hosts the…

Free

Constellation #1

Tin House 2617 NW Thurman Street, Portland, OR, United States

Please join us for Constellation #1, a free community reading at Tin House Books, featuring poet Armin Tolentino, novelist Juhea Kim, and writer/artist Annika Hansteen-Izora. Location: Tin House Books, 2617 NW Thurman St, Portland, OR 97210 (Enter through the double doors on 26th) Armin Tolentino (he/him) earned his MFA at Rutgers University in Newark and is the author of WE MEANT TO BRING IT HOME ALIVE (Alternating Current Press, 2019). His poetry has appeared in Hyphen Magazine, Arsenic Lobster, The Raven Chronicles, and elsewhere. Originally from Lincoln Park, New Jersey, he now lives in Vancouver, Washington. He's an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship recipient, Clark County's Poet Laureate, and an avid (albeit usually unsuccessful) fisherman. He hopes one day to earn a Guiness Record for World's Loudest Clap.…

Free

Constellation #4 (April 20th): Genevieve DeGuzman, Jaye Nasir, Christopher Rose

Tin House 2617 NW Thurman Street, Portland, OR, United States

After another packed house in March, Constellation returns on April 20th with an all-local lineup. As always, doors open at 6:45 and the reading starts around 7:15. Meet this month's readers: Genevieve DeGuzman (she/her) is a Philippine-born poet, speculative writer, and lover of all things robot, chimera, and alien. As a poet, Genevieve won the Atticus Review contest, was a finalist for the Michelle Boisseau Prize selected by Traci Brimhall, and earned Best New Poets nominations. Most recently, her chapbook “Machine Learning” was a semi-finalist for the Black River Chapbook Competition by Black Lawrence Press. She was named a 2022 Oregon Literary Fellow and has earned fellowships from Cuttyhunk Island Writers’ Residency and Vermont Studio Center. In a former life, she worked in international development…

Free

The Milwaukie Poetry Series: Donna Henderson

Ledding Library of Milwaukie 10660 SE 21st Avenue, Milwaukie, OR, United States

Join us for the 17th Season of The Milwaukie Poetry Series every second Wednesday of the month, September 2023 - July 2024, at 6 p.m. in the Ledding Library Community Room. The reading will also be livestreamed on the Ledding Library YouTube channel. September 13, 2023 Richard Lehnert October 11, 2023 Michele Glazer November 8, 2023 Amy Miller December 13, 2023 Sherri Levine January 10, 2024 John Daniel February 14, 2024 Anatoly Molotkov March 13, 2024 Annie Lighthart April 10, 2024 Donna Henderson May 8, 2024 Eleanor Berry June 12, 2024 Amelia Diaz Ettinger July 10, 2023 Armin Tolentino For additional information please contact the Series Coordinator Tom Hogan at 503.819.8367 or tomhogan2@comcast.net (link sends e-mail)

Free

Constellation #14 (4/11): Kiesling, Patel, Wong

Tin House 2617 NW Thurman Street, Portland, OR, United States

After an amazing and special BIPOC Adoptee showcase at the Armory in March, we're back to our regularly scheduled programming at Tin House/Bishop&Wilde (NW 26th and Thurman)! On Thursday April 11th, we're excited to host local luminaries Lydia Kiesling and Ami Patel and welcome Jane Wong who is traveling from Seattle to be with us.  Lydia Kiesling (she/her) is a novelist and culture writer. Her first novel, The Golden State, was a 2018 National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree and a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Her second novel, Mobility, a national bestseller, was named a best book of 2023 by Vulture, Time, and NPR, among others. It is a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Her essays and nonfiction have…

Free