24,000 READERS ENGAGED

From Literary Arts’ 2022/23 Annual Report

From the concert hall to the classroom, world-renowned authors engaged with our communities. Our season of events featured more than 150 authors in lectures, readings, and discussions. We were overjoyed to see our audiences back in the concert hall, at the festival stages, at the Literary Arts event space, and more.

Portland Arts & Lectures

Our season began in September 2022 with a Nobel laureate and ended in April 2023 with the US poet laureate. Thousands of subscribers and hundreds of high school students gathered in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall to hear from some of our greatest contemporary writers and thinkers: Abdulrazak Gurnah, Anthony Doerr, Lauren Groff, Patrick Radden Keefe, and Ada Limón. In addition to the lectures, authors engaged with readers and writers of all ages in sessions with professional writers and meetings with public high school students.

“Portland Literary Arts is a bright light. They are generous, organized, and forward-thinking. I wish every city had a literary arts organization with this much heart.“

— Ada Limón, 24th US Poet Laureate 

Click here for the 2023/24 season lineup.

The Archive Project

Our radio show and podcast The Archive Project broadcasts a wide range of Literary Arts programming, including recordings from Portland Arts & Lectures, Portland Book Festival, Everybody Reads, special events, and Verselandia! Our ninth season premiered in November 2022. Listen every Sunday at 7:00 p.m. on OPB radio, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Everybody Reads 2023

In partnership with Multnomah County Library and the Library Foundation, this year’s Everybody Reads program featured Ruth Ozeki and her novel A Tale for the Time Being. The library distributed over 17,000 paperback, ebook, and audio copies of the book as part of the program, and during her time in Portland, Ozeki met with students at Franklin and Parkrose high schools.

Portland Book Festival

On Saturday, November 5, 2022, Portland Book Festival, presented by Bank of America, returned to its full in-person size on the South Park Blocks. The festival featured more than 100 presenters in conversation about new books, from bestselling authors to exciting debuts. Presenters included  cross-genre superstar Kwame Alexander (The Door of No Return), actress and disability advocate Selma Blair (Mean Baby), modern romance novelist Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler), culinary activists Ghetto Gastro (Black Power Kitchen), former Oakland youth poet laureate Leila Mottley (Nightcrawling), mega-bestselling novelist Taylor Jenkins Reid (Carrie Soto Is Back), literary legend George Saunders (Liberation Day), Portland’s own Lidia Yuknavitch (Thrust), and many more. The day also featured food trucks, a book fair, and pop-up readings in the Portland Art Museum galleries.

Delve Readers Seminars

Delve participants read and discussed Vanity Fair, Remembrance of Things Past, White Teeth, Station Eleven, and many other books.  We also launched Delve for Writers, with a fall seminar on Joan Didion and Durga Chew-Bose.

“I have taken three seminars (two in-person and one virtual) and they have all been very different but equally excellent. Variety of group leaders keeps it interesting and I like meeting local writers, teachers, and enthusiasts in such an intimate and engaging setting.”

— Delve participant

Special Events

Literary Arts is honored to have hosted special events with many remarkable authors and organizations. Frequently, writers appearing in our special events were requested by our audience in surveys. In 2022/23, Literary Arts hosted Pop-Up Magazine: Love Stories, The Moth Mainstage in Portland, Amor Towles, Everybody Reads 2023 with Ruth Ozeki, and Tom Hanks in conversation with Jon Raymond. 

Committed to Equity

Read the full report below.

Click here for a PDF version of the report.