The full schedule for 2023 Portland Book Festival will be released by October 4! General Admission passes, Special Event ticket, and Umbrella passes are available now.
Enjoy a preview of the book market and discussions with publishers!
Enjoy live music from PDX Jazz during the Friday Night Book Market!
Award-winning author and illustrator Charise Mericle Harper creates a laugh-out-loud picture book about making something out of nothing and the power of imagination.
This is a special event at Portland Book Festival which requires an add-on ticket to attend. Viet Thanh Nguyen will be joined in conversation with Tommy Orange.
Dave Miller, host of OPB Radio's Think Out Loud, interviews award-winning New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast about her new graphic narrative, exploring the surreal nighttime world inside her mind-and untangling one of our most enduring human mysteries: dreams.
A conversation about plant-based cooking and eating with Aaron Adams, Liz Crain, and Hetty Lui McKinnon. Moderated by Gregory Gourdet.
An American Master returns: Tim O'Brien delivers his first new novel in two decades, a brilliant and rollicking odyssey, in which a bank robbery sparks “a satirical romp through a country plagued by deceit." Interviewed by Steph Opitz.
Kelly McWilliam debut novel explores cancel culture, anger, and grief, and challenges the romanticization of America’s racist past with humor and heart. Elizabeth Rusch tells the gripping inside story of the ongoing landmark federal climate change lawsuit. Moderated by Megan Savage.
Hosted by Write Around Portland. This class is intended for teens and pre-teens ages eleven and older. Attendees need a festival pass but no additional registration fee is required.
In this workshop, we’ll discover parallels between visual and written art, and use pieces in the museum collection to inspire poetry. Our activities will include practicing imagery, form, metaphor, and […]
In this workshop, we’ll learn how to build a fictional world and add texture to imaginary settings. Whether our story takes place on a modern-day Earth or on a planet […]
Breena Bard's graphic novel follows climate change through the eyes of one middle-school girl who’s eager to turn her anger into action. In Rosanne Parry's novel, exiled from his band, a young, wild horse must find his way across treacherous terrain to reunite with his family after being captured for the Pony Express. Moderated by Jonathan Hill.
Anis Mojgani's verses create the yearning for rebirth, thriving love—a love of self and tenderness in a sorrowful world. Charif Shanahan articulates the need we all share for real intimacy and connection, and proves, time and again, that the true cost of our separateness is the love that our survival requires. Moderated by Mindy Nettifee.
The long overdue story of the Shakurs, persistent fighters in the U.S. struggle for racial justice, and one of the most prominent, influential and fiercely creative families in recent history. Author Santi Elijah Holley will be interviewed by OPB reporter Prakruti Bhatt. Equal parts photo-rich lookbook, and cultural commentary, Mitchell S. Jackson's new book is the story of the extraordinary intersection of high fashion and basketball, from the league's inception to today, and celebrates the iconic style of NBA athletes. Jackson will be interviewed by OPB reporter Paul Marshall.
Stephanie Adams-Santos's incantatory long poem draws the reader into a dreamworld where the barrier between life and death grows porous, populated by ancestors and spirits. Megan Kamalei Kakimoto's debut story collection is a blazing, bodily, raucous journey through contemporary Hawaiian identity and womanhood. Moderated by Kayla Kumari Upadhyahya.
Salina Yoon's beloved Penguin is always ready for new adventures with new friends!
Carla Crujido pops-up for a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with her short story collection The Strange Beautiful.
A bilingual Spanish/English storytime led by Jessica Swartz Amezcua of Portland Early Learning Project!
Rebecca Clarren pops-up for a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with her book The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance.
Come play with Ploof! Meet a friendly cloud full of feelings in this interactive picture book.
Jazmina Barrera pops-up for a bilingual reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with her debut novel Cross-Stitch.
This pop-up creative writing workshop will take inspiration from the art and surroundings of the Portland Art Museum. Attendees need a festival pass but no additional registration fee is required.
Charity E. Yoro pops-up for a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with her poetry collection ten-cent flower & other territories.
Kendare Blake is back with the first installment of an epic duology starter that follows a young woman training to join a fabled order as she attempts to lead a hero to his critical first victory. Kayvion Lewis's debut novel is a cinematic heist thriller where a cutthroat competition brings together the world’s best thieves and one thief is playing for the highest stakes of all: her mother’s life. Moderated by Emily Suvada.
An exciting mixture of action and non action, this choose-your-own-adventure-style story allows readers to take on the mantle of a teuthologist looking for a giant squid in its natural habitat.
This pop-up reading features contributors to the mixed-genre anthology Cascadia Field Guide.
Stories of magic and adventure from imagined worlds, featuring Arnée Flores and Donna Barba Higuera. Moderated by Michelle Ruiz Keil.
Picture book and middle grade illustrators face off in a live drawing competition. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry with laughter, you’ll cheer as Cátia Chien, Charise Mericle Harper, Pedro Martín, Nikkolas Smith, and Zachary Sterling face off at the drawing easel. Host Jonathan Hill
Singalong with Emily Arrow!
Shilo Niziolek pops-up for a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with her memoir, Fever.
Cutis Sittenfeld, author of the New York Times bestseller Romantic Comedy, in which a comedy writer thinks she’s sworn off love, until a dreamy pop star flips the script on all her assumptions, interviewed by Eden Dawn.
The new book by Debra Magpie Earling is a devastatingly beautiful novel that challenges prevailing historical narratives of Sacajewea. In his new novel, Justin Torres mines lost histories—personal and collective. Moderated by Stacy D. Flood.
Taking as inspiration his mother’s own Red Cross service, Luis Alberto Urrea's new novel is an overlooked story of women’s heroism in World War II. Alice Winn has written a haunting, virtuosic debut novel about two young men who fall in love during World War I. Moderated by OPB's Geoff Norcross.
When a father goes missing, his family’s desperate search leads them to question everything they know about him and one another a thrilling page-turner, a deeply moving portrait of a family in crisis from Angie Kim. From Edan Lepucki comes an enthralling saga about family secrets that grow more powerful with time, set against the magical, dangerous landscape of California. Moderated by Neal Thompson.
Cat Bohannon, a researcher and author with a Ph.D. from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition, will be interviewed by Sarah Rothenfluch about her new book, a myth-busting, eye-opening landmark account of how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about what the female body is, how it came to be, and how this evolution still shapes all our lives today.
In this workshop, we’ll learn journalistic storytelling techniques and explore how they can be used to cover social justice stories. Utilizing examples from local and national news, students will practice […]
A moving story starring the Questioneers' teacher that's all about kindness, learning to face your fears, and the profound difference that one brilliant educator can make in a child’s life.
Zaji Cox pops-up for a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with her memoir-in-essays collection Plums for Months.
This pop-up creative writing workshop will take inspiration from the art and surroundings of the Portland Art Museum. Attendees need a festival pass but no additional registration fee is required.
This is a special event at Portland Book Festival which requires an add-on ticket to attend. From the #1 best-selling author, the story of FTX’s spectacular collapse and the enigmatic founder at its center. Interviewed by Andrew Proctor.
Elisa Gonzalez dramatizes the mind in motion as it grapples with something more than an event: she writes of a whole life, to transcendent effect. Jae Nichelle taps into her experiences of growing up in the South as a queer Black woman to courageously confront the effects of a forced religion and the inherent dangers of living life in a female body. Marisa Siegel moderates.
Hosted by Write Around Portland. This class is intended for teens and pre-teens ages eleven and older. Attendees need a festival pass but no additional registration fee is required.
Tim Lane pops-up for a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with his thriller, The Neighbors We Want.
New York Times bestselling author Joanna Ho creates a meaningful and diverse picture book about how names define us and with critically acclaimed illustrator, Cátia Chien comes a moving, powerful picture book about the life and work of activist and artist, Ai Weiwei.
Joshua James Amberson pops-up for a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with his collection Staring Contest: Essays About Eyes.
In this queer YA psychological thriller from Jennifer Dugan, the sole surviving counselors of a summer camp massacre search to uncover the truth of what happened that fateful night, but what they find out might just get them killed. In Courtney Gould's supernatural thriller, two sisters travel to an isolated Arizona town to investigate its connection to their mother’s death, but uncover more than they bargained for. Moderated by Jenn Chávez of OPB.
An inspiring picture book by Nikkolas Smith about how children can combine art and activism in their daily lives.
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya pops-up for a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with her novelette Helen House.
Jewell Parker Rhodes's version of Treasure Island is like none you’ve never seen—one that takes the reader through little-known Black history, and under the city of Manhattan itself. Nisi Shawl has written wonderful middle-grade fantasy debut about Black families, family history, family curses ... and a really marvelous pair of spectacles. Moderated by Vera Ahiyya.
Nicole Chung pops-up for a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with the YA adoptee anthology When We Become Ours and her memoir A Living Remedy.
Andy and Terry live in a 156-story treehouse. (It used to be a 143-story treehouse, but they added 13 more levels.) It has a wishing well, a super-stinky stuff level, a bouldering alley (it’s just like bowling, except you use boulders instead of balls), an enigma engine, a TV quiz show level hosted by Quizzy the quizzical robot, and the amazing mind-reading sandwich-making machine that knows exactly what sort of sandwich you want and makes it for you.
Picture book and middle grade illustrators face off in a live drawing competition. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry with laughter, you’ll cheer as Breena Bard, Ben Clanton, Jim Di Bartolo, Shawn Harris, Andy Chou Musser, and Salina Yoon face off at the drawing easel. Host and emcee Aron Nels Steinke.
This pop-up creative writing workshop will take inspiration from the art and surroundings of the Portland Art Museum. Attendees need a festival pass but no additional registration fee is required.
A debut novel of female friendship and coming-of-age from Mexico City to London and Paris from Jazmina Barrera. Michelle Wildgen's novel is an intoxicating escape into the cutthroat world of wine and the complicated terrain of women’s friendship. Moderated by Fiona McCann.
Mary Rechner pops-up for a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with her short story collection Marrying Friends.
Erica Berry blends science, history, and cultural criticism in a years-long journey to understand our myths about wolves, and track one legendary wolf, OR-7, from the Wallowa Mountains of Oregon. A fascinating tour of creatures from the surface to the deepest ocean floor, Sabrina Imbler invites us to envision wilder, grander, and more abundant possibilities for the way we live. Moderated by Elena Passarello.
Matilda Bickers pops-up with a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with the collection Working On It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex.
Tracy K. Smith shares a stunning personal manifesto on memory, family, and history that explores how we in America might—together—come to a new view of our shared past.
Join 2023 National Book Award–honored authors Paul Harding and Paisley Rekdal in a cross-genre conversation on how to bring historical voices to life, and how to translate US history for a contemporary literary landscape. Moderated by Anis Mojgani, Oregon’s current Poet Laureate. Presented in partnership with the National Book Foundation.
Safiya Sinclair's memoir is the the stunning story of her struggle to break free of her rigid Rastafarian upbringing, ruled by her father’s strict patriarchal views and repressive control of her childhood, to find her own voice as a woman and poet. Jane Wong's incandescent, exquisitely written memoir is about family, food, girlhood, resistance, and growing up in a Chinese American restaurant on the Jersey shore. Moderated by Alicia Jo Rabins.
In partnership with Incite: Queer Writers Read, Dean Backus, Trystan Angel Reese, & Karelia Stetz-Waters pop-up with a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries.
Victoria Adukwei Bulley is a black British poet making her thrilling American debut explores the importance of “quiet” in producing forms of community, resistance, and love. Braiding memoir, theory, and criticism in his debut work of nonfiction, award-winning poet Roger Reeves finds new meaning in silence, protest, fugitivity, freedom, and ecstasy. Moderated by John Freeman.
Brennan DeFrisco pops-up in the Portland Art Museum galleries with his poetry collection Honeysuckle & Nightshade.
The beloved, multi-award-winning duo of Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen tackle a perennial question.
This pop-up creative writing workshop will take inspiration from the art and surroundings of the Portland Art Museum. Attendees need a festival pass but no additional registration fee is required.
Students featured in the 2022–23 anthology present their work.
Hosted by Write Around Portland. This class is intended for teens and pre-teens ages eleven and older. Attendees need a festival pass but no additional registration fee is required.
Presented in partnership with BIPOC Reading Series, Brianna Renae & Eric Tran pop-up with a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries.
A remarkable work of memoir and investigative journalism focusing on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, written by Angela Sterritt, an award-winning Gitxsan journalist who survived life on the streets against all odds. Sterritt will be interviewed by Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe.
A conversation about the process of creating children’s books with authors Andrea Beaty, Amy Seto Forrester, Andy Griffiths, and Joanna Ho, with moderator Carrie Tillotson.
Matthew Zapruder pops-up with a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries with his memoir Story of a Poem.
An out-of-this-world new middle-grade graphic novel about a genius scientist and her evil nemesis, created by author Laini Taylor and cartoonist Jim Di Bartolo. And in Jennifer Torres second novel in the Bad Princesses graphic novel series, princesses don’t break the rules, but they may rewrite them... Moderated by Emily Chenoweth.
Unfortunately, Kate Lebo had to cancel her festival appearance. This event will feature Crystal Ligori and Stacey Mei Yan Fong in conversation.
Two new books that are much more than simply cookbooks (although they are very good cookbooks) take us on a journey through the meaning of pie in America -- and how to make one. It's easy as pie, after all. Featuring Stacey Mei Yan Fong and Kate Lebo, and moderated by OPB's Crystal Ligori.
2023 National Book Award nominees Charif Shanahan and Justin Torres pop-up with a reading in the Portland Art Museum galleries. Shanahan will share his poetry collection, Trace Evidence, and Torres will share his novel, Blackouts.
Omar El Akkad interviews Naomi Alderman about her new novel, a dazzling tour de force where a handful of friends plot a daring heist to save the world from the tech giants whose greed threatens life as we know it.
From bestselling author Nicole Chung is a searing memoir of family, class and grief, and a daughter’s search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she’s lost. New Yorker cartoonist Navied Mahdavian's debut is a gorgeously illustrated and written graphic memoir about belonging, identity, and making a home in the remote American West. Moderated by Mat Johnson.
From South Korea to the American South, two multi-generational novels explore inheritance, grief, and family. E. J. Koh's debut novel is an elegantly wrought family saga of memory, trauma, and empathy, and a stunning testament to the consequences and fortunes of inheritance. From the best-selling author Ayana Mathis, a searing multi-generational new novel—set in the 1980s in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia and in the tiny town of Bonaparte, Alabama—about a mother fighting for her sanity and survival. Moderated by Chelsea Bieker.
Award-winning creators Mac Barnett and Shawn Harris are back with the second volume in the bestselling The First Cat in Space graphic novel series! Secret tales of woe, hilarious new characters, and dangerous plans of sabotage will keep readers delighted and laughing until the thrilling climax.
Oliver de la Paz eloquently invokes the perseverance and myth of the Filipino diaspora in America. Paisley Rekdal draws a powerful, necessary connection between the completion of the transcontinental railroad and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Moderated by Eric Tran.
In Jennifer Baker's searing indictment of the juvenile justice system, one teen in detention weighs what she is willing to endure for forgiveness. From Kim Johnson comes another thriller about a wrongly accused teen desperate to reclaim both his innocence and his first love. Moderated by Alicia Tate of Multnomah County Library.
Two thrilling new story collections from Kathleen Alcott and Vauhini Vara. Moderated by Kimberly King Parsons (Black Light).
Pedro Martín's unforgettable graphic memoir is about a Mexican-American boy’s family and their adventure-filled road trip to bring their abuelito back from Mexico to live with them. Zachary Sterling's graphic novel is about first-generation Filipino siblings who have to fine out if they can save the world and still work their family food truck. Moderated by Aron Nels Steinke.
Arya Shahi has written a bold novel-in-verse starring a Persian American teen navigating his first crush, his family’s post-9/11 dynamics, and the role of language in defining who we are. Jen St. Jude's debut from about queer first love and mental health at the end of the world-and the importance of saving yourself, no matter what tomorrow may hold. Moderated by Aiden Thomas.
Eoin Colfer, author of the acclaimed, mega-bestselling Artemis Fowl series, discusses his new novel with Heidi Schulz.
Dave Miller interviews Jonathan Lethem, about his new novel, a sweeping story of community, crime, and gentrification, tracing more than fifty years of life in one Brooklyn neighborhood.
A study of character studies. From Patrick deWitt comes the story of Bob Comet, a man who has lived his life through and for literature, unaware that his own experience is a poignant and affecting narrative in itself. Lydia Kiesling's new novel is a propulsive and challenging story about class, power, politics, and desire told through the life of one woman—her social milieu, her romances, her unarticulated wants. Moderated by Daniel Nieh.
Jane Hirshfield, the author of “some of the most important poetry in the world today”, and Major Jackson, an acclaimed poet and preeminent voice in contemporary literature. Moderated by Matthew Zapruder.
Celebrate the tenth and final installment of the boundary-pushing literary journal, which explores all the ways of coming to an end. Featuring editor John Freeman and contributors Omar El Akkad, Debra Gwartney, and Sasha LaPointe.
