Each month, Literary Arts staff will round up news, events, and more happening in Portland, and beyond. Let us know in the form below the blog if you have any events or news to share.
EVENTS
Rose City Comic Con
September 22–24 | In person at the Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Portland, OR | Buy badges
Rose City Comic Con returns to the Oregon Convention Center September 22-24! Don’t miss the RCCC Book Fair in partnership with Powell’s Books featuring Terry Brooks (The Sword of Shannara series), William Ritter (Jackaby series), Travis Baldree (Legends & Lattes), Lauren Beukes (The Shining Girls), N.E. Davenport (The Blood Gift), and many more!
2023 Visiting SAGE: The Future of Community, Featuring Keynote by David Brooks (Senior Advocates for Generational Equity)
Wednesday, September 27, at 6:00 p.m. | In person at First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park Ave, Portland
Celebrated writer and social commentator David Brooks will speak about America’s crisis of connection and the need to weave a new, inclusive social fabric at the 2023 Visiting SAGE. Brooks will spotlight how we can all help shift our culture to value deep relationships and community success over a narrow focus on personal achievement. At this special event, Brooks will also talk with several speakers from Weave: The Social Fabric Project, which he founded at the Aspen Institute in 2018. These grassroots leaders are showing what it means to weave community in our schools, our workplaces and in other parts of life. Brooks and our panelists will share stories and insights on how we can better know each other, trust each other, and break down barriers between us.
Consider This with Casey Parks (Oregon Humanities)
Wednesday, October 11, 2023, at 7:00 p.m. | In person at Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., Portland, OR, or online for free on YouTube | Tickets
Join us for a conversation about family, belonging, and gender with Oregon Book Award winner Casey Parks. A longtime reporter for the Oregonian, Parks now covers gender and family issues for the Washington Post, where she has written about abortion access, Texas’ investigation of parents of trans kids, and the long tail of the US military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. In her 2022 book, Diary of a Misfit, Parks relates her own story of coming out in a rural Louisiana town in 2002 and her efforts to uncover the story of Roy Hudgins, a small-town singer who, like Parks, didn’t conform to the expectations of his community. This conversation—the first in our 2023–2024 Consider This series about fear and belonging—will explore how attitudes about gender affect where people seem to fit in. We’ll also discuss where these attitudes come from and how they might change.
2023 Portland Fermentation Festival
Thursday, October 19, from 6:00–9:00 p.m. | In person at Ecotrust’s Irving Studio Suite on the ground floor, 721 NW 9th Ave, Portland, OR | All ages, open to the public, $15-$30 advance, $20-$35 cash at door (Children 12 and younger attend for free) | Tickets
Please join us for Portland’s annual, open-to-the-public, all-ages celebration of fermented food and drink. Bring kimchi, try kimchi. Bring miso, try miso. Come out for Portland’s fermented food and drink skill sharing, recipe sharing and tasting event of the year.
The Oliver Lecture, featuring Blaine Harden
Saturday, October 21, at 7:00 pm. | In person at First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park Ave, Portland | Tickets
The 2023 Oliver Lecture will feature Blaine Harden, author of Murder at the Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West. Harden’s book examines the 1847 killing of Protestant missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and 11 others, all white, at a mission station near Walla Walla by a small number of Cayuse Indians. This incident became infamously known as the Whitman Massacre. Murder at the Mission reveals the true history of the incident and its aftermath. First Congregational UCC invited Harden to present this story as a step towards reckoning with the role of Congregationalists in the taking of the Northwest from indigenous tribal people.
RESOURCES & OPPORTUNITIES FOR ARTISTS AND WRITERS
Oregon Book Award Submission Deadline
Deadline: September 8, 5:00 p.m.
The Oregon Book Awards program honors the state’s finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in the genres of poetry, fiction, graphic literature, drama, literary nonfiction, and literature for young readers. The finalists for the 2024 Oregon Book Awards will be announced in January 2024, and the winners will be announced at the Oregon Book Awards Ceremony in April 2024. Complete guidelines for the 2024 Oregon Book Awards are here, and guidelines for the award in Graphic Literature are here. Special Award nominations are here.
Job Opening: Marketing Manager
Oregon State University Press invites applications for a full-time Marketing Manager. The Marketing Manager plays a central role in promoting OSU Press, its authors, and its scholarly and trade publishing program. The Marketing Manager works with internal and external partners and Press staff to generate awareness of and enthusiasm for the Press’s publications; amplifies the Press’s public profile and impact; develops and executes concrete marketing and publicity plans; reviews sales results and other financial information to evaluate the Press’s performance; and builds relationships with authors, media, and the book community. Please see the detailed job description at https://jobs.oregonstate.edu/postings/142697. This is a professional faculty position, with an anticipated salary $58,000-$75,000. On-site or hybrid remote work preferred; fully remote possible depending on the candidate.
Creative (Writing) Drop-In Sessions (with Haldane King, MFA)
Every Wednesday, from 5:00–6:00 p.m.
In person at the Vintage Conference Room. Vida Coworking Space, 401 NE 19th Avenue Suite #200, Portland, OR and online via Google Meet
Email HaldaneKing@gmail.com to sign up
Haldane King is an author and facilitator currently working with the Why There Are Words Literary Organization. He has an MFA in Writing & Consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies. The Creative (Writing) Drop-in is open to everyone and all forms of creative expression, with an emphasis on the written form.
WNDB IS SEEKING 2024 MENTORS
Are you a traditionally published author or illustrator? WNDB mentors are paid a stipend of $1,000 and work one-on-one with an unpublished writer or illustrator for the entire year (January-December 2024). Mentors must be traditionally published with three or more forthcoming/published books in their category, either: Illustration, Picture Book, Middle Grade, or Young Adult. If you are interested in serving as a mentor, please email mentor@diversebooks.org with the subject line ‘2024 WNDB Mentor,’ with your name, your publication history, and the genre you are seeking to mentor.
FOR KIDS/ TEENS
Kids Story & Art Class at Awake Coffee & Art!
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 10:00 a.m. | In person at Awake Coffee & Art, 7325 SE Milwalkie Ave, Portland, OR | Costs $8
Bring your little ones Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at 10:00 a.m. for a storybook reading and art session!
We’ll have a hands-on art project after the reading. It could be water-color painting, making and playing with play dough, or another creative project to engage the young artists’ talents! All materials included!
Bubbles + Books Story Time at Hammer + Jacks
Fridays at 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. | In person at the Rec room at Hammer + Jacks, 406 SE Foster Road, Portland, OR | Recommended donation $5+ per child
Join us every Friday morning for weekly story time! Movement, music, reading, and BUBBLES! Storytime runs about 25-30 minutes and includes an opening song + dance followed by alternating stories, sing-alongs, and movement breaks! There are also bubbles! The event closes with a goodbye song and final dance for those wanting a little extra movement before departure! This is a great mid-morning activity for parents and children that squeezes in a lot of fun and reading! This event’s best for babies and preschoolers, but older siblings are welcome too. 😊 Shakers are provided; you’re welcome to bring your own items for music and movement! Recommended donation is $5+ per child. No family will be turned away for lack of donation.
IN THE NEWS
Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani Is Rewriting the Role (Portland Monthly)
Take a moment to read Portland Monthly’s incredible profile on Anis Mojgani, Oregon poet laureate. We’re so grateful and honored to work with him on our Board of Directors and as the host of our youth poetry slam championship, Verselandia!
Creation Story (The New Yorker)
2022 Portland Book Festival author Tayi Tibble has a poem in The New Yorker. We’ll announce our 2023 authors September 12.
The Divine Comedy of Roman Emperors’ Last Words (The New Yorker)
2023/24 Portland Arts & Lectures author Mary Beard writs on how “In the end, godlike aspirations often met with all too human final moments.” Get tickets for the 23/24 season of Portland Arts & Lectures now!
On Killing Charles Dickens (The New Yorker)
2023/24 Portland Arts & Lectures author Zadie Smith did everything she “could to avoid writing my historical novel. When I finally started The Fraud, one principle was clear: no Dickens.” Get tickets for the 23/24 season of Portland Arts & Lectures now!
RECOMMENDED READING
Barbie vs. Oppenheimer: 16 Books with Big Boppenheimer Energy (Powells Books)
Pickathon 2023 Reading List (Broadway Books)
WATCH: Ursula K. Le Guin on Her Illegal Abortion in 1950 (Literary Hub)
Community News Submissions
Let us know if you have any events, news to share, or opportunities for writers for the In the Community blog and we will consider adding it to the next blog post!
