Thursday 6/12: Get ready for LitHop #2—a chance to jump from reading to reading catching any combination of 54 readings happening on North Portland’s Alberta Street. Hosts include Hawthorne Books, Unchaste Readers, Eraserhead Press, The IPRC, Publication Studio, and out-of-town host from Seattle, alice blue. Various locations, 7 p.m., free.
Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, hosted by Clark County Poet Laureate Christopher Luna, welcomes performance poet Emily Pittman Newberry as this month’s featured reader. Cover to Cover Books, 7 p.m., free.
Author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex Tizon reads from his memoir on race and sexuality among male Asian immigrants, Big Little Man (June 2014). Powell’s at Cedar Hills Crossing, 7 p.m., free.
Oregon Book Award-winner Willa Schneberg reads from her latest poetry collection, Rending the Garment (April 2014). Glyph, 7:30 p.m., free.
Friday 6/13: Kick off Portland Pride weekend at the Queer Lit Happy Hour, featuring Tom Spanbauer, Lidia Yuknavitch, Carter Sickels, A.M. O’Malley, Cathy Camper, Chloe Eudaly, and Michael Sage Ricci. Bridgeport Brewery Heritage Room, 5 p.m., free.
The Portland Review presents it’s Spring 2014 Issue Launch Party, featuring readings from local writers Robert Duncan Gray, Joanna Rose, Sophia Pfaff Shamilyev, Magdalen Powers, and Robert Lashley. Glyph, 5 p.m., free.
Eleven PDX Magazine hosts a cocktail and dance party to celebrate the launch of Volume 4. Live music and over a dozen visual artists join a very special reading by local poet Robert Duncan Gray. Holocene, 6 p.m., $7.
If Not For Kidnap poetry series welcomes writers Melissa Broder, Rauan Klassnik, and James Gendron for their latest reading. Ristretto Roasters, 7:30 p.m., free.
English/Canadian novelist Tom Rachman follows the journey of a young bookseller who travels the world to make sense of her past in his latest novel, The Rise & Fall of Great Powers (June 2014). Powell’s City of Books, 7:30 p.m., free.
Saturday 6/14: Novelist Tom Robbins turns to memoir in his latest book, Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life (May 2014). Powell’s at Cedar Hills Crossing, 2 p.m., free.
Join a literary costume party to celebrate the release of I, Slutbot (June 2014) by Mykle Hansen. Reading alongside Hansen are Dena Rash Guzman, Vince Kramer, and a special mystery robo-guest. Robot costume contest with prizes to follow reading. galleryHOMELAND, 7 p.m., free.
B. Frayn Masters and Mindy Nettifee host PDX Russian Roulette, a live storytelling event that welcomes locals and out-of-towners to tell true, spur of the moment, 5-minute stories based on a prompt selected by a spin of the wheel. Storytellers this round include Jessica Lee Williamson, Shannon Balcom, Emmett Montgomery, Nicole J. Georges, Sarah Mirk, Johanna Stein, Bill Hillmann, and Jay Flewelling. Disjecta, 7 p.m., $15 in advance, $18 at the door.
Sunday 6/15: A tight-knit circle of emerging poets initially joined together under Emily Kendal-Frey’s tutelage in a Marylhurst poetry course celebrate and read together. Poets include Braeden Dillenbeck, Nate Wilkerson, Leah Perlingieri, Robert Stearns, Arran Stokes, Katie Brimhill, Celeste Perez, Stacey Mills, and Darl Mottram. Glyph, 5 p.m., free.
The Ink Noise Review presents a double headliner night: Juleen Johnson and her guests Wendy Chin-Tanner, Grant Schwartz, and Amanda Cochran Helstrom are to be followed by Zoe Tambling and her guests Noland Bo Chaliha, Timmy Straw, and Kieran Hanaran. Jade Lounge, 7 p.m., free.
Monday 6/16: Heather Brittain Bergstrom reads from her debut novel, Steal the North (April 2014), an atmospheric family drama about love across faiths and cultures. Powell’s on Hawthorne, 7:30 p.m., free.
Join local writers as they celebrate Blumesday – an annual event that celebrates the work and inspiration left behind by 80s author Judy Blume. B. Frayn Masters, Arthur Bradford, Audrey Van Buskirk, Lesley Harper, Jimmy Radosta, Julianna Bright, and Amy Miller will share their most humorous, awkward, and insightful Judy Bume moments. Secret Society, 8 p.m., $10 in advance, $12 at the door.
Tuesday 6/17: Memoirist Jeanette Walls reads from her first novel, The Silver Star (June 2014). Powell’s at Cedar Hills Crossing, 7 p.m., free.
Maureen Geraghty, Leanne Gravel, and John Mayer read from their poetry recently published in Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach (May 2014). Broadway Books, 7 p.m., free.
Wednesday 6/18: Journalist Andy Hall writes about one of the deadliest climbing disasters of all time in Denali’s Howl (June 2014). Powell’s City of Books, 7:30 p.m., free.
