Each week, Literary Arts staff will round up news, events, and more happening in the literary community. Let us know if you have any events or book news to share.
Pop-Up Readings at Portland Art Museum
Follow us on Instagram to view this year’s #PDXBookFest pop-up readings! The readings are a partnership between the Portland Book Festival and the Portland Art Museum where Festival authors are thematically paired with artworks in the Museum. A celebration of creatives, the pop-ups highlight the intersections of visual art and the written word.
Visit our Virtual Vendor Fair
Support independent publishers, authors, and other literary creators by visiting our virtual marketplace!
Purchase your Festival books from one of our great independent book store partners: Annie Bloom’s, Broadway, Grean Bean, and Powell’s.
VIRTUAL FESTIVALS
East Portland Arts and Literary Festival 2020
November 11-20 | Free and online
Bay Area Book Fest
Ongoing | Free and online
Portland Book Festival X Bay Area Book Fest: Power of Protest: Lessons from Hong Kong
November 15 | 5:00 p.m. PST
Miami Book Fair
November 15—22 | Free and online
Miami Book Fair x Portland Book Festival: Lisa Hanawalt & Adrian Tomine
November 15 | 1:00–2:00 p.m. PST
Miami Book Fair x Portland Book Festival: Marcus Samuelsson and Dawn Davis
November 21 | 12:00–1:00 p.m. PST
Texas Book Festival
October 31–November 15
Wisconsin Book Festival
Check out their free, year-round programming
Wordplay (The Loft)
Wordplay 2020 is over, but you can still access all of our virtual events on the schedule page! Wordplay 2021 will be happening in early May.
Catalan National Poetry Festival
Online
The National Poetry Festival of Sant Cugat celebrated its 20th anniversary with a programme conceived of as a hybrid between poetic virtuality and the face-to-face warmth of poets. The festival stayed true to its commitment to the best Catalan poetry of the moment with authors from all over the region. Watch the videos (subtitled in English) here.
Black Mountain Institute
Black Mountain Institute, in addition to partnering with Portland Book Festival on West X Midwest with Claudia Rankine and Jericho Brown; and Black Talk, Black Feeling with Danielle Evans, Bethany C. Morrow, and Khadijah Queen, will be running virtual programming all year long.
RESOURCES & OPPORTUNITIES FOR WRITERS
2021 Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes
Deadline: November 30
The 2021 Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes will be awarded to three print publications and two online publications.
Tualatin Valley Creates Arts and Culture Leadership Incubator Program
Deadline: December 1
Open to artists and cultural advocates residing in Washington County, OR. The Incubator Program is free to apply to and participate in, and those who complete the program will receive a $500 stipend to advance their work. Applicants should have a passion for building creative projects that incorporate social activism. TVC’s unique Leadership Incubator program bridges a critical opportunity gap in Washington County, where residents have less access to arts and culture services and experiences compared to other urban areas around the state.
Authors League Fund
The Authors League Fund provides assistance in times of emergency, when a writer is struggling to afford necessities. Recipients of Authors League Fund assistance must be career writers with a substantial body of work.
Dramatist’s League Foundation
DGF provides emergency financial assistance to individual playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists in dire need of funds due to severe hardship or unexpected illness.
FOR KIDS/TEENS
Northwest Children’s Theater presents:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: An Original Adaptation
November 12—December 6 | Ages 8 & up | Online | Tickets start at $20
In partnership with Anita Menon
Journey through a wooded Fairyland where the powers of magic, mischief, and love rule. Artistic Director Sarah Jane Hardy and award-winning choreographer Anita Menon of the Anjali School of Dance join forces to bring this abridged version of Shakespeare’s comedy to life in a brand new way, blending classic English literature with Indian dance and culture, and featuring an all-youth cast.
The Youth Passion Project
The Youth Passion Project creates a space where high school students can share their passions with others by offering free, online courses taught by high schoolers to encourage younger students to expand and supplement their learning. Classes range from Songwriting to Introduction to Coding in Java.
#PDXBOOKFEST AUTHORS IN THE NEWS
Best Fiction of 2020 (Powell’s Books)
Featuring Brit Bennett, Rumaan Alam, Madeline Miller, C Pam Zhang, Kawai Strong Washburn, Raven Leilani, Chelsea Bieker, and former Writers in the Schools specialist Joanna Rose.
Jonathan Hill on KBOO (KBOO Words and Pictures)
Jonathan Hill sat down during the 2020 Portland Book Festival for a quarantined conversation with S.W. Conser about visual storytelling, cultural representation, adventure and tragedy, and the give-and-take of sharing your knowledge with the next generation.
Raven Leilani Captures the Complexities of Relationships (shondaland)
In her much-anticipated debut novel,”Luster”, Leilani brings us a coming-of-age tale that explores the dark and light sides of love and lust.
Vanessa Veselka Writes the Reality of Poverty in America (Portland Monthly)
The Portland writer talks ambition, trauma, and her new book The Great Offshore Grounds.
Q&A With Bryan Washington, Author of November’s #1 Indie Next List Pick (American Booksellers Association)
FILM
Ursula K. Le Guin and the Movies (NWFC)
Mondays, Nov. 9th, 16th, and 23rd, 6:00-7:30 p.m. PST
This interactive, three-session Zoom course explores expressions of the late Portland author Ursula K. Le Guin’s work in the medium of film and television, looking at successful collaborations with filmmakers as well as now-infamous misrepresentations of her magical archipelago, Earthsea.
The course’s overarching theme reckons with the opportunities and challenges of representing Le Guin’s — and any writer’s — imaginative worlds onscreen. Filmmaker Arwen Curry, director/producer of the 2018 feature documentary Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin (2018), is the course instructor. Each class will include never-seen original interview footage with Le Guin.
Use code partner2020 to receive a $20 tuition discount
