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SUNNOV 1
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
SpiritsLearning & Tech

Rare Scotch Whisky Tasting Experience - Portland

Would you like to experience the finest expression of Scotch whisky produced today? Would you like to expand your knowledge of Scotch and the many styles and flavours that make up quality whisky? Do you love smoky whisky?!

Join The Scotch Malt Whisky Society for a rare single malt Scotch whisky tasting experience at The Scotch Lodge! Attendees will be among the first to taste six (6) unique single malts from our upcoming November Peated Outturn in a seated, guided tasting format designed to expand your knowledge and appreciation for Scotch whisky.

Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society is the world’s largest whisky club of whisky lovers. More than just a club, the Society is known for offering the finest expression of Scotch whisky produced today. It acquires exceptional whisky casks from distilleries across Scotland and beyond. Each cask is then bottled and offered exclusively to its community of members through the Society’s online shop smwsa.com.

While Society whisky is available for purchase by members only, this event is open to anyone eager to taste and learn in the company of fellow whisky lovers. Members enjoy a reduced price for admission and all attendees who order tickets before 2pm PT on October 15th will get the early bird special pricing.

SlĂ inte Mhath!

MONNOV 2
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Author TalksTalks & Lectures

Anthea Kreston with Ling Ling Huang

Broadway Books is thrilled to welcome Anthea Kreston with her debut memoir Crescendo: Chronicles of an Adventurous Violinist (Paul Dry Books, 2026). She will be joined in conversation with Ling Ling Huang, author of Natural Beauty and Immaculate Conception.

When American violinist Anthea Kreston, called “An Indomitable Spirit” by Yo-Yo Ma, is selected as the fourth member of Germany’s Artemis Quartet, it is the culmination of decades of dedication. In Crescendo, her enchanting and deeply personal memoir, Kreston writes about growing up in a well-to-do but difficult family in Chicago, leaving home at age sixteen, studying at the ultracompetitive Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (Hilary Hahn was a classmate), then burning out and leaving it all behind for a commune in Oregon.

MONNOV 2
5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Talks & LecturesAuthor Talks

A Talk by Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath

Join an essential lecture by the acclaimed Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath. Jared Cooney Horvath (PhD, MEd) is a neuroscientist, educator, best-selling author and expert in the field of human learning. His new book, The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kid's Learning - And How to Help Them Thrive Again, pulls back the EdTech curtain and explains the research showing how digital tools in the classroom consistently undermine learning. It also explains how parents, teachers and schools can push back with purpose.

As a leading expert in learning and technology, Jared testified before the US Senate on EdTech and is an internationally sought-after speaker.

Sponsored by the Institute for Families and Technology and OR Unplugged.

Multi-day events

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SATNOV 7
7:30 PM · Doors 6:30 PM
All agesLive Podcasts & RadioVarietyStand-UpTalks & LecturesMusicAuthor Talks

Live Wire with Luke Burbank

Live Wire Radio is an independently produced radio show that artfully blends unpredictable conversation, live music, and original comedy featuring all types of cultural talent and creative minds, from emerging artists to established acts. Join host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello for a live recording of this popular radio show, heard nationwide by thousands of listeners every weekend.

With special guests TBA Fall 2026 Season Passes are now on sale! Click here to buy. Minors ok when accompanied by a parent or guardian. Review our venue FAQ here
THUNOV 5
7:30 PM – 10:00 PM
Advance ticket requiredAuthor TalksFilmTalks & Lectures

Film Screening & Author Talk with Jane Schoenbrun and SenLinYu

SOLD OUT
Author Talk & Film Screening with Jane Schoenbrun and SenLinYu at Hollywood Theatre

Parallel Worlds Bookshop and the Hollywood Theatre present a special author conversation with Jane Schoenbrun and SenLinYu, celebrating the release of Jane’s debut novel, Public Access Afterworld, followed by a screening of Schoenbrun’s acclaimed film I Saw the TV Glow.

When: November 5, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Where: Hollywood Theatre 4122 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR 97212
Tickets: $18 sold via Hollywood Theatre
Ticket price does not include a copy of the book. Preorder Here!

About Public Access Afterworld

A mysterious realm waits on the other side of our screens. A dark force draws victims into its static. An unlikely hero must save them, and herself, from an electric hell.

Spanning decades and realities, Public Access Afterworld follows an unforgettable ensemble of outcasts and obsessive television viewers whose lives become entangled with a surreal pirate network. At the center is Bethany Peters, a trans content moderator working the night shift at a sprawling tech corporation. When a young streamer begins appearing in her feed and calling out to Public Access Afterworld, Bethany is pulled into a conspiracy stretching across screens, timelines, and realities.

A mesmerizing collision of speculative fiction, horror, conspiracy, and queer transformation, Public Access Afterworld marks the literary debut of the celebrated filmmaker behind I Saw the TV Glow and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.

About Jane Schoenbrun

Jane Schoenbrun is an award-winning filmmaker and writer. Their films include I Saw the TV Glow and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Their newest film, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, starring Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder, releases in 2026. Public Access Afterworld is their first novel.

Event and Pre-Signing Information

Tickets for the screening and conversation are sold through the Hollywood Theatre. Copies of Public Access Afterworld will be available for purchase onsite from Parallel Worlds Bookshop.

Jane Schoenbrun and SenLinYu will not be signing books. Pre-ordered books or books purchased at event will be pre-signed.

Still photography is permitted. Audio and video recording are not permitted unless approved in advance.

Pre-Order Books Here
  1. Public Access Afterworld by Jane Schoenbrun - Signed Edition
    (Pub Date: October 27, 2026)
    A mysterious realm on the other side of our screens. A dark force that draws victims into its static. The unlikely hero called to save them and herself from this electric hell. Public Access Afterworld is the profound, binge-all-night, headrush of a novel by the celebrated filmmaker of I Saw the TV Glow and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

  2. Alchemised by Senlinyu Signed Edition (Out Now)

  3. Alchemised by Senlinyu 3 Volume Deluxe Boxset(Pub Date: October 13)
    In this riveting dark fantasy debut, a woman with missing memories fights to survive a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy—and the man tasked with unearthing the deepest secrets of her past.

SATNOV 7
10:30 AM – 11:15 AM
Author TalksTalks & LecturesKids & Family

Spooky Stories: Annie Barrows & Daniel Nayeri

Sticking together through thick and thin, sisters Lucy and Frida decide it is time to explore what lays beyond the family farm after catching glimpses of a two fanged monster wreaking havoc at night in Daniel Nayeri’s newest graphic novel The Bizarre Bazaar: Down a Dark Path. In Ghost Guild: The Lost Threeby Annie Barrows we meet Genie, Fenella, and Tillotson Maconochie as they begin their journey as ghosts. Without a copy of Ghostology the Maconochie siblings are led astray and find themselves trapped by a notorious swindler. Joined by moderator Shana Targosz both authors come together to discuss their beautifully illustrated new works about family and unexpected journeys.

About The Lost Three:

A wickedly entertaining supernatural story about three siblings finding their way in the world as ghosts from the bestselling author of the Ivy and Bean series, Annie Barrows.

Everyone at the Ghost Guild knows how the afterlife is supposed to work. But something is amiss with the case of three siblings – Genie, Fenella, and Tillotson Maconochie – who are beginning their journey as ghosts in a highly irregular way. They haven’t even been issued their copy of the Ghostology, which would have helped them know how to stay out of trouble. It’s no wonder that they fall prey to the infamous swindler Serena Aster, and end up trapped in her mansion to do her evil bidding for eternity. When they discover that a young orphan is trapped with them, their desire to break free and find their greater ghostly purpose takes on new urgency.

In this page-turning, beautifully illustrated yarn, perfect for fans of A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science readers will discover that at the end of their lives, the Maconochie siblings’ remarkable story is only just beginning.

About The Bizarre Bazaar: Down a Dark Path (A Graphic Novel):

Enter the Bizarre Bazaar, a phantasmagorical graphic novel series sure to enchant or entrap its curious customers! In this spine-tingling mystery, there’s evil lurking in the shadows just outside the Buford family farm!

Lucy and Frida Buford have never stepped foot outside their family farm in the Carolina Inner Banks. It’s the dead of July, and in the midst of yet another boring summer making jam for the family business, the girls are clamoring to be taken to the elusive town they’ve never been allowed to visit. Their father has always said that the outside world is a dangerous place, but danger is closer to home than they even know.

There’s something in the nearby woods uprooting trees, scaring fish from the water, and scratching at Lucy’s window in the middle of the night. Lucy can’t shake the feeling that there’s a monster out and about—one with two pointy fangs who only comes out at night.

It’s up to these two sisters to discover what this monster wants. But the further they stray from home, the weirder things become. What’s really going on beyond the Buford family farm?

Uncover the bizarre (and more!) in this sinister graphic novel series sure to bring chills and thrills!

WEDNOV 4
6:30 PM
ReadingsAuthor TalksPerforming Arts

Davide De Pierro

Alberta Rose Theatre3000 Northeast Alberta Street

Inspired by Davide De Pierro’s newly released novel The Letters I Never Sent, his live show blends personal storytelling, humor, and audience conversation. Throughout the night, De Pierro will deliver a monologue and read selections from the book, followed by an open Q&A with the audience. Limited meet-and-greet opportunities will also be available for those who purchase in advance. Davide is a New Jersey native that has cultivated over 3M followers on TikTok and 2.7M followers on Instagram and has been earning millions of views online. Known for his commentary on relationships, finances, and those relatable moments that capture the human experience, Davide is excited to be expanding into a fresh medium.

THUNOV 5
10:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Live Podcasts & RadioVarietyStand-UpMuseumsPoetryAuthor TalksHip-HopTalks & Lectures

Free First Thursday with Live Wire Radio

Overview

Portland Art Museum invites the community to join a Free First Thursday event, offering free admission to the museum for all, plus a Live Wire event as part of the Literary Arts Portland Book Festival. Visitors can take in the afternoon gallery pop-ups, the evening show, or both!

Free First Thursday + Museum pop-ups

4:30 – 6 p.m. — Free, pre-show, pop-up performances will take place throughout the Museum’s galleries. Performers are poet and rapper Dessa, bestselling children’s author Mac Barnett, Pulitzer Prize Finalist Ed Park, and Portland comedian Mx. Dahlia Belle.

Free First Thursday tickets can be reserved online one week in advance and are also available at the door.

tickets for free first thursday Live Wire Evening Recording

7 p.m. — Enjoy a fully seated, ticketed Live Wire taping hosted by Luke Burbank with announcer Elena Passarello, featuring a blend of interviews, comedy, and music performed live for the audience, then edited into an episode for broadcast to over 200 public radio stations nationwide. Performers are poet and rapper Dessa, bestselling children’s author Mac Barnett, Pulitzer Prize Finalist Ed Park, and Portland comedian Mx. Dahlia Belle. Doors will open at 6:30pm.

GA Tickets are $15. Preferred Seating is $40. Discounts available to Portland Book Festival passholders.

tickets for 7pm Live Wire recording Performers

Dessa is a singer, rapper, and writer who fell in love with language as a toddler—and just never got over it. Now, she works in fields that traffic in words: she’s recorded rap bangers as part of the fiercely independent Doomtree collective, released a live album with the Grammy-winning Minnesota Orchestra; contributed to The New York Times and National Geographic Traveler; delivered a TED Talk on the intersection of romance and neuroscience that’s notched more than 4 million views; hosted 2 seasons of behavioral science podcast Deeply Human (BBC/American Public Media); and published a memoir recounting most of the above called My Own Devices (Penguin Random House).

Mac Barnett, the 2025–2026 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, is a New York Times bestselling author of stories for children. Mac’s books have won many prizes, including two Caldecott Honors, three New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Book Awards, three E. B. White Read Aloud Awards and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, as well as several international prizes. He lives in Oakland, California. His latest book, illustrated by X. Fang, is Tom Nancy: The Sheep Who Swapped Brains with a Boy. From two of the most exciting picture book makers today comes a hilarious trickster tale and Freaky Friday switcheroo story: a sneaky, cheeky sheep named Tom Nancy has a brain swap proposal for an innocent farm boy named Felix that will change both of their lives forever. Laugh-out-loud, subversive, and totally unexpected.

Ed Park is the author of the novels Personal Days and Same Bed Different Dreams. He is a founding editor of The Believer, and has worked in newspapers, book publishing, and academia. His writing appears in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. Profound, wily, and beautifully wrought, his new book Three Tenses: A Transmission from the Nineties is a meeting of memory and myth, confession and obfuscation, coalescing to offer a singular picture of creativity in action.

The princess of Portland comedy, best known for her breakout performance on the popular Netflix special Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda, Mx. Dahlia Belle has been compared to a Swiss Army knife—different tools to extract sharpness, softness, vulnerability, hope, and wicked wit. She’s been declared one of “11 Trans Comedians
 Funnier Than Dave Chappelle” by Out Magazine, repeatedly featured on NPR, and has written for Cosmopolitan Magazine, The Guardian, The Stranger, and Portland Mercury. Her live performances have included NW Black Comedy Festival, Upper Left Comedy Festival, SF Sketchfest, and an awkward conversation with John Waters and Piers Morgan. In the upcoming live taping of her comedy special Affirmed at Polaris Hall on November 22nd, Mx. Dahlia Belle delivers 60 new minutes of stand-up to celebrate and affirm being human in the modern world through a combination of the wholesome and mundane, anecdotes about house cats, liscivious foibles of the LGBT community, and an unapologetic account of her personal journey with gender-affirming care, all delivered with her trademark free form wit.

About Free First Thursdays

Free First Thursdays at the Museum and PAM CUT’s Tomorrow Theater aligns with the revitalization of the long-standing Portland art galleries’ tradition of opening their doors for openings, receptions, and events on the first Thursday of each month. In recent months art and culture organizations have joined to bring back this popular activity, including the Pacific Northwest College of Art and the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education in the North Park Blocks.

Generous support provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program.

Learn more about other discounted and free opportunities.
FRINOV 6
5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Cultural HeritageDiningAuthor TalksLearning & TechHolidays & Seasonal

Chai Pani at Bollywood Theater: A Diwali Celebration

Bollywood Theater – Alberta2039 Northeast Alberta Street

Portland Book Festival welcomes Molly and Meherwan Irani, the husband-and-wife team behind Asheville’s nationally celebrated Chai Pani Restaurant Group. Their flagship restaurant, Chai Pani, was named Outstanding Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation in 2022.

This year, Molly and Meherwan each bring a new book to the table. Meherwan has written No. 1 Best Indian Cookbook in the World: At-Home Recipes from the Streets, Truck Stops, Villages, and Palaces of India. Molly’s Service Ready: A Story of Love, Restaurants, and the Power of Hospitality was published earlier this year. Together, the books offer two very different—and deeply connected—perspectives on food, restaurants, and hospitality.

In celebration of Diwali—the Hindu festival of lights, marked by food, gathering, and celebration—Molly and Meherwan will join their longtime friend Chef Troy MacLarty at Bollywood Theater on Alberta Street for a collaboration. Bollywood Theater will serve a special menu inspired by recipes from Meherwan’s book alongside its own Diwali-inspired menu. It’s a gathering of longtime friends, great food, and two books that reflect different sides of a shared life in restaurants.

Both books will be featured at Portland Book Festival, and Molly and Meherwan will be on hand at Bollywood to meet guests and sign copies.

MONNOV 2
5:00 PM – 9:00 PM
DiningSpiritsJazzCultural HeritageArts & Media

Hà VL at Annam – Three Year Anniversary Dinner

Annam (annamvlpdx)Map

Annam's 3-year anniversary dinner featuring a collaborative kitchen takeover with uncle Peter from @havl.noodles (HĂ  VL). The evening includes deep-cut Ă  la carte Việt food, cognac, live jazz by Brian's Blade (featuring @chochu_local members @cmlgsn, @Aidan.jacobs._, and grateful_marcus), and a custom jade jewelry pop-up by Le Petit Hoa. Menu to be announced closer to the date; available until sold out.

SATNOV 7
3:15 PM – 4:15 PM
Food & DrinkTalks & LecturesAuthor Talks

Happy Snacking, Don’t Die!: Alexis Nikole Nelson

Newmark Theatre1111 Southwest Broadway

Alexis Nikole Nelson, best known to millions of fans as Black Forager, invites you on an adventure to discover the delicious and wild foods hiding in plain sight. Alexis captivates people with her joyful enthusiasm and deep knowledge of foraging and inspires them to explore the bounty of their own backyards, parks, and trails, and now she does the same in her eagerly awaited first book.

Happy Snacking, Don’t Die! is a one-of-a-kind collection of recipes and foraging wisdom that teaches you how to turn common plants, flowers, and fungi into yummy, plant-based meals. This unique work is almost like two books in one—foraging plant guide and vegan cookbook—organized by season to guide you through a year of appetizing discoveries. In spring, you’ll learn to pickle Magnolia flowers and turn Japanese Knotweed into a refreshing granita. Summer is for frying up Milkweed Buds, making Juneberry Hand Pies, and crafting Rosewater Baklava. When fall arrives, you’ll be making savory mushroom dishes (a.k.a. chicken of the woods) like Maitake steak and bacon. And in winter, cozy up with Pine Shortbread Cookies and Oyster Mushroom Chowdah.

FRINOV 6
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
DiningCultural HeritageAuthor Talks

A forgotten collection of Italian cookbooks comes to life

The In Bocca books are a curious and beautiful collection of 20 Italian cookbooks, each devoted to a different region of Italy. Originally published in the 1970s, they’re filled with recipes, hand-drawn illustrations, folk art, and wonderfully wonky English translations, offering a glimpse into the food and character of Italy from region to region. Long out of print, they’ve become cult objects for collectors and lovers of Italian food.

For the past three years, Cathy Whims and the Nostrana team have cooked their way through the entire collection, creating 19 dinners: one for each book. Now, for the Portland Book Festival, that journey comes to an end with Roma in Bocca the 20th book.

For this special finale, Cathy Whims is welcoming Italia in Bocca director Robert Serrini, an expert and passionate champion of these remarkable books. Robert will mingle with guests throughout the evening and document the dinner as part of a short film about Roma in Bocca. He also dreams of one day seeing the full collection published once again, bringing these quirky, art-filled books back into the hands of a new generation.

Whether you’ve followed the series from the beginning or are discovering these peculiar books for the first time, come take one last trip Italy in Bocca with us.

Cathy Whims recently published her own culinary book: The Italian Summer Kitchen: Recipes for La Dolce Vita. During this event her book will be available for purchase and signing.

Reservations required. Limited seating available. Paid reservations sold by Nostrana nostrana.com/romabook

SATNOV 7
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Author TalksTalks & Lectures

In the Shadows: Maggie Stiefvater & Isabel Cañas

PAM CUT // Whitsell AuditoriumMap

Young adult authors, Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves) and Isabel Cañas (The House of Gardenias) come together for a conversation on the hauntingly enchanted worlds in their latest releases. In the newest installment of the graphic novel iteration of The Raven Cycle, Stiefvater and adapter Sas Milledge bring the original text to life with rich illustrations and suspenseful panels. Like Stiefvater, Cañas expertly constructs a gothic world threatened by an unimaginable ancient power. Moderated by Alicia Tate, these authors discuss the mythical worlds they built and the characters that try to understand them.

About The Dream Thieves:

The second book in Maggie Stiefvater‘s #1 NYT bestselling series The Raven Cycle, now gorgeously illustrated as a graphic novel!

Ronan Lynch is made of secrets. His longest kept one? He can pull impossible things out of dreams. It’s a secret that’s nearly killed him more than once. Waking the corpse road should have led Blue and the Raven Boys straight to Glendower, the Whelsh king rumored to be sleeping beneath the mountains of Henrietta. But instead, the forest of Cabeswater has disappeared, energy hums and sputters beneath the town, and the Raven Boys’ search is at a dead end.

Ronan’s dreams may be the key to finding Glendower, but none of the Raven Boys are prepared for what will be unleashed in Ronan’s desperate attempt to finally control his power. Reimagined as a stunning full-color graphic novel adapted and illustrated by Sas Milledge, Dream Thieves blurs the line between reality and nightmare until they are one and the same.

About The Houses of Gardenias:

A debut gothic YA from the USA Today bestselling author of The Hacienda and The Possession of Alba DĂ­az Sixteen-year-old Minerva has endured hunger, violence, and unrest in a capital city inspired by colonial Mexico.

Determined to escape her father’s cruelty, she reinvents herself in a wealthy loyalist enclave, becoming lady’s maid to the formidable widow Encarnación del Valle.

For the first time, Minerva knows stability with regular meals, warm light powered by magical chispa, and a measure of protection. When a ruthless regime rises to power, the household withdraws to the del Valle family’s secluded estate, Casa de las Gardenias. There, amid resentful heirs and rigid social hierarchies, something far older than the nation’s turmoil waits in the shadows.

It’s a haunting, timely gothic novel that weaves Mexican history, class tension, and supernatural dread.

FRINOV 6
8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Talks & LecturesAuthor Talks

Imagining Freedom: Toni Morrison and the Revolutionary Work of Words

When Toni Morrison declares that she “can't wait for the ultimate liberation theory to imagine its practice and do its work,” she raises an issue at the heart of modern democratic life: What does freedom mean in the shadow of racial slavery and colonialism? While Morrison's literary achievements are widely celebrated, her contributions as a “revolutionary political thinker” remain underappreciated. Lawrie Balfour approaches Morrison’s political thought through her account of “word-work,” or the creative use of language, as a practice of freedom. First, Balfour considers Morrison’s defense of the necessity of writers to the flourishing of democracy and her reflections on the political implications of her own literary practice. Second, Balfour examines Morrison’s use of the language of “sovereignty” to convey what writers do, when they create worlds out of words. Third, she asks what Morrison might say about the part her novel Beloved played in the 2021 governor’s race in Virginia and concludes with some thoughts about the political urgency of Morrison’s word-work today.

Lawrie Balfour is James Hart Professor of Politics and a member of the American Studies faculty at the University of Virginia, where she offers courses on race, gender, democracy, and literature. She is the author of Toni Morrison: Imagining Freedom; Democracy’s Reconstruction: Thinking Politically with W. E. B. Du Bois; and The Evidence of Things Not Said: James Baldwin and the Promise of American Democracy. Lawrie’s current projects include a series of essays on reparations for slavery and a study of the Black feminist visions of the journal Freedomways (1961-1985).

Free and open to the public.

THUNOV 5
4:30 PM – 6:30 PM
💰 $15+Drop-inMuseumsPoetryAuthor TalksLive Podcasts & RadioVarietyStand-UpHip-Hop

Live Wire: Dessa, Mac Barnett, Ed Park, and Mx. Dahlia Belle

Portland Art Museum1219 Southwest Park Avenue

Live Wire joins forces with the Portland Art Museum for an afternoon of roving performances ahead of an evening recording of the program. The event coincides with PAM's monthly Free First Thursday and the Portland Book Festival's expanded programming. Performers will include poet and rapper Dessa, bestselling children’s author Mac Barnett, Pulitzer Prize Finalist Ed Park, and Portland comedian Mx. Dahlia Belle.

Free pop-up performances will take place throughout the Museum’s galleries, giving visitors a chance to catch live performances and storytelling while moving through the PAM spaces. Completely free through PAM’s Free First Thursday general admission. Also, enjoy a fully seated, ticketed Live Wire taping hosted by Luke Burbank with announcer Elena Passarello, featuring a blend of interviews, comedy, and music performed live for the audience, then edited into an episode for broadcast to over 200 public radio stations nationwide.

Visitors can take in the afternoon gallery pop-ups, the evening show, or both.

SATNOV 7
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Author TalksTalks & LecturesCultural Heritage

Poetry and the Natural World: Victoria Chang & Beth Piatote

Poets Victoria Chang (Tree of Knowledge) and Beth Piatote (distant waters) sit down for a conversation on their recent publications andtheir evocative use of nature throughout their poems. Moderated by writer and editor Alyssa Ogi, this discussion promises a rumination on our shared home, oppressive efforts of erasure, and the art and language that we use to understand our world and ourselves.

About Tree of Knowledge:

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

A poet watches the limbs of a eucalyptus tree get sawed off: the image persists, refracting and recurring across poems of art, language, selfhood, memory, and loss.

Joan Mitchell said, When I talk about love, I mean loving a tree. When I talk about love, I mean loving where a tree used to be.

Men assess the eucalyptus tree growing on the poet’s street; a crane arrives. The sound of a chainsaw rings in the air and branches begin to fall. This tree-cutting haunts the poet and becomes the locus from which the rest of the collection spirals. It refracts across works by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Mitchell, and Hilma af Klint, whose painting series lends the collection its title and who becomes a model for engaging with the world. At the core of the collection, the long poem “Eureka” examines the violent 1885 expulsion of Chinese Americans from the eponymous California town. Roving, evocative, and intricate, Tree of Knowledge is rooted in Victoria Chang’s crystalline voice and generous, probing gaze, and by certain images —trees, a hanging figure, a branch, fingertips, a briefcase—that resurface like apparitions.

About distant water:

As a scholar of Native American literature and law, Beth Piatote focuses on the endangerment of Indigenous languages. As an activist, she moves against the current of English-language colonization, working to rescue and revitalize the language of her people. Language, she posits, is an expression of land, a means through which we can travel great distances.

distant water brings the reader into the language of our shared home, North America, revealing a sonic world and grammar governed by rivers, kinship, and ancestral knowledge. “In our homes and homelands,” she writes, “we share the language with the plants and animals and waters and rocks and sky.” Inventive and playful, these poems explore the sounds, structure, and wisdom of the Nez Perce language, illuminating its vitality and capacity to organize relationships to time and place. Braiding aural, linguistic, and spiritual ecologies, distant water conveys an understanding that to be in language is to be in place. To be at home.

SUNNOV 8
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
RSVP requiredBooksReadingsCultural HeritageDiningWineCocktailsSpiritsParties

Soju Party at Han Oak

Closing out the Portland Book Festival with a special edition Soju Party, celebrating Korean food, drinking culture, and Irene Yoo’s James Beard Award-winning cookbook, Soju Party: How to Drink (and Eat!) Like a Korean, as part of Portland Book Festival’s “living cookbook” weekend.

Expect Han Oak favorites and anju-inspired bites with specialty soju + wine cocktails with CHO Wines, and plenty of reasons to raise a glass. Irene will be there celebrating the book, with copies available for purchase throughout the evening. Come eat, drink, and learn to party like a Korean. Everyone’s invited.

Not a ticketed event, though reservations are required. Seating Times: 6:00 pm, 6:30pm, and 7:00pm Seating Times: 6:00pm, 6:30pm and 7:00pm Reserve here

About the author:

Irene Yoo is a Korean American food writer, recipe developer, chef and co-owner of Brooklyn’s Orion Bar, whose work explores Korean food, drinking traditions, and the culture of gathering around the table.

SATNOV 7
3:00 PM – 7:00 PM
CiderSpiritsWine Tastings

6th Annual Sip & Shop In Historic Downtown Hillsboro

6th Annual Sip & Shop Historic Downtown Hillsboro

Saturday, Nov. 7 | 3–7pm

Experience the vibrancy of Historic Downtown Hillsboro during the holidays. We have your passport to retail therapy at over a dozen merchants, to meet and greet up to 14 wineries and more perks in Downtown as we launch the 6th Annual Sip & Shop November 7th 2026 3:00PM - 7:00PM.

What’s Pouring This Year

Sip, stroll & shop your way between 2nd and 4th Avenue and Washington to Lincoln, discovering wine, cider, and zero-proof tastings all along Main Street and beyond.

Score while you shop! Select merchants are offering bonus prizes during your visit.

Win big! Collect just 7 passport stamps to enter the raffle drawings for themed gift baskets valued between $30–$75 — no purchase required.

Hands-free shopping. Our Wine Concierge Service will whisk your purchases off to designated pickup spots so you can keep sipping and shopping worry-free.

> Tickets

  • Snag your Sip & Shop Passport tickets by Nov. 1 for the early-bird rate of $22, or bundle up — 4 for $74 (just $18.50 each!).
  • After Nov. 1, tickets are $25, so don’t wait!

> Your passport includes:

  • Complimentary tastings
  • Reusable shopping bag filled with merchant swag + promos
  • A logo wine glass *(while supplies last)*
  • Dining guide to deals at local restaurants and food carts
  • Use the ticket link to grab yours today and join the fun!

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Cheers for a Cause

Beneficiary: Proceeds from this year's event support the Family Peace Center of Washington County

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Check-In Locations

  • > LaHaie's at 277 E Main Street
  • > Colours Art at 270 E Main Street

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Participating Merchants:

Artful Garden | Belladonna | Bowies Bargains | Catherine Bede Gallery | Colours Art |Dee's Divine Finds | Gimre's Shoes | LaHaie's | Le'Stuff Antique Mall (Co-Sponsor) |Merrill Gardens |Piccolo Mondo | Rock It Resell | Snider's Antique Mall | 3 Goats Vineyard | Willow & Ash | Urban River Spirits

Pouring Partners:

Chris James Cellars | DAnu Wines | Dion Vineyards | Flipturn Cellars | Helvetia Winery | La Randonnée | Résolu Cellars (Co-Sponsor) | Parra Wine Co | Patton Valley Wines | Scotch Church Road Vineyard | 3 Goats Vineyard | 2 Towns Cider | Bull Run Cider | Urban River Spirits

Shout Out to our Community Sponsors: Le'Stuff, Lithtex Printing

> Refund Policy - Stuff happens! Ticket cancellations before Nov. 4 are eligible for a refund.

Questions? Contact:

> Sandie Nelson, Le'Stuff Antique Mall 503-860-3663

> Kathleen Floistad, Cedar Street Antiques/ Le'Stuff Antique Mall 503-780-0785

>Kathie Nelson, Résolu Cellars 503-803-9270

WEDNOV 11
7:00 PM
DocumentariesAuthor TalksLGBTQ+Talks & Lectures

A Queer Guide to Saving American Democracy

PAM CUT's Tomorrow Theater3530 Southeast Division Street

Join a special evening with trailblazing drag artist, activist, and political candidate Marti Cummings and Portland-based constitutional law professor and author Robin Maril. Before the film, Marti and Robin will sit down for a live conversation about queer representation, civic engagement, and the power of showing up for your community. The conversation will be moderated by Kyndall Mason of Basic Rights Oregon.

Following the conversation, stick around for Queen of New York, the acclaimed documentary following Marti Cummings’ groundbreaking 2020 campaign to become one of the first openly nonbinary members of the New York City Council. This evening also celebrates the launch of Robin Maril’s new book, A Queer Guide to Saving American Democracy. Copies will be available for purchase on site.

ON SCREEN: Queen of New York

2023. Directed by Emma Fidel. Runtime: 1 hour 20 minutes.

Welcome to a different kind of drag race. As NYC emerges from the chaos of 2020, Marti Cummings (they/them), an audacious and big-hearted drag queen, goes all out in a historic bid to become a City Councilperson. It’s one of the most hotly contested Council races in years, and Marti’s strongest competitor is Shaun Abreu, a tenants’ lawyer with deep roots in the district’s Latinx community. As these first-timers race to do the most good for their Upper Manhattan neighbors, they offer very different visions for Democratic politics — one in a suit and tie, the other in combat boots and floral print. As this immersive documentary reveals, Marti’s passion inspires queer activists and allies to change the political system. Their campaign becomes a community of its own, especially for Marti’s non-binary peers who have never before seen themselves represented.

WEDNOV 11
7:00 PM
Talks & LecturesAuthor Talks

Ray Warren Symposium Keynote Speaker: Ijeoma Oluo

Fowler Student Center615 S Palatine Hill Rd

Please join us at the 23rd Annual Ray Warren Symposium on Race and Ethnic Studies for “Creating Collective Liberation: How to Come Together in Frightening and Isolating Times to Create Real Community and Lasting Change,” a keynote presentation by Ijeoma Oluo.

Ijeoma Oluo is a Seattle-based writer, speaker, and internet yeller whose books include Be a Revolution and the NYT bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race.

No registration is required. ASL interpretation will be provided. Free and open to the public.

After the talk, please join us for a reception and book signing in the Beth Miller Lounge. Books by the keynote speaker will be available for purchase.

SATNOV 7
6:00 PM – 8:30 PM
21+DiningWineCocktailsSpirits

Wagyu, Whiskey, And Wine - Morton's Portland

Standard Ticket | 6:30 PM | $169 per guest

A five-course dinner paired with exceptional wines and handcrafted whiskey cocktails.

Premium Ticket | 6:00 PM | $218 per guest

Join us for the full five-course dinner, plus:

  • Exclusive pre-party Wagyu Tartare tasting at 6:00 PM
  • Pairing: Sea Smoke, ‘Sea Spray,’ Blanc de Noirs, Sta. Rita Hills
  • Limited-edition Morton’s and Westholme commemorative two-piece gift set.

Limited spots available. Reserve early.

-------------------------------

-FIRST COURSE-

Wagyu Bone Marrow Crostini
Grilled Baguette, Goat Cheese, Wild Mushrooms

Pairing | 'Blue Sky'
High West Double Rye, High West Bourbon, Sweet Vermouth, Charred Rosemary

-SECOND COURSE-

Candied Wagyu Bacon
Butter Lettuce, Spiced Walnut, Red Radish, Mustard Vinaigrette

Pairing | Sea Smoke, Chardonnay, Sta. Rita Hills

-THIRD COURSE-

Braised Wagyu Short Rib
Parsnips, Butternut Squash, Crispy Leeks

Pairing | Lingua Franca, ‘AVNI,’ Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley

-FOURTH COURSE-

Sliced Wagyu Strip
Whipped Yukon Golds, Roasted Asparagus, Fig Demi

Pairing | Double Diamond, Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville

-FIFTH COURSE-

Hazelnut Chocolate Tart
Biscoff Crumbs, Frangelico Cream, Sea Salt

Pairing | 'Golden Hour'
High West Bourbon, High West Double Rye, Hazelnut, Chocolate, Mocha Foam, 24K Gold Leaf

MUST BE 21 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER. REFUNDS NOT PERMITTED.

'Blue Sky' cocktail (left). Sliced Wagyu Strip, paired with Double Diamond, Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville (center). Hazelnut Chocolate Tart paired with 'Golden Hour' cocktail (right)

Premium Ticket holders receive an exclusive Morton’s and Westholme branded commemorative two-piece gift set.

Premium Ticket holders join us at 6:00 PM for a Wagyu Tartare tasting, paired with Sea Smoke, 'Sea Spray,' Blanc de Noirs, Sta. Rita Hills

THUNOV 5
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
ReadingsAuthor TalksTalks & Lectures

Columbia Writers Series Reading: Ed Park

Join the Columbia Writers Series for a reading and conversation with the novelist, journalist, and editor Ed Park. Park is the author of the novels Same Bed Different Dreams and Personal Days, and the short story collection An Oral History of Atlantis (2025). He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN Hemingway Award, and other honors, and has won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and Asian Pacific American Award for Literature. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, and many other places. He is a founding editor of The Believer and was executive editor at Penguin Press. He teaches creative writing at Princeton.

THUNOV 12
7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Advance ticket requiredCocktailsSpiritsLearning & Tech

Classics Night- Tequila & Mescal

Come learn about classic cocktails featuring Mescal and Tequila! Plus special food pairings with each cocktail.

Spots must be reserved online prior to event and space is limited, so dont wait!

Ever feel like there's just too much to learn about liquor? Or maybe you just wanna try some tasty cocktails and eat some yummy snacks

Well in any case, we got you covered. This will be the first in a series of nights where we will highlight a certain liquor or region known for their liquor.

This time we'll be looking at Mexico, specifically Mescal an Mexican Whiskey (I think we've all had enough tequila)

This will be a ticketed event, so make sure to get your spot before they're all gone!

SATNOV 7
10:00 AM – 11:00 PM
Author TalksTalks & Lectures

Wildwood: Colin Meloy & Carson Ellis

Wildwood is the first book in the New York Times best-selling fantasy series full of magic, wonder, and danger from Colin Meloy, lead singer of the highly celebrated band the Decemberists, and Carson Ellis, the award-winning illustrator of Du Iz Tak and Home. Soon to be a major motion picture from LAIKA, the studio behind Coraline. Look for it on October 23, 2026! Moderated by Andrew Proctor.

About Wildwood:


Prue McKeel’s life is ordinary. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where it rains a lot. She has a mother and a father and a baby brother. Ordinary. At least until her brother is abducted by a flock of crows. And then things get really weird.

You see, on every map of Portland there is a big splotch of green in the center of the city labeled “I.W.” This stands for “Impassable Wilderness.” No one’s ever gone in — or at least returned to tell of it.

And this is where the crows take her brother.

So begins an adventure that will take Prue and her friend Curtis deep into the Impassable Wilderness. There they uncover a secret world in the midst of violent upheaval, a world full of warring creatures, peaceable mystics and powerful figures with the darkest intentions. And what begins as a rescue mission becomes something much bigger as the two friends find themselves entwined in a struggle for the very freedom of this wilderness.

A wilderness the locals call Wildwood.

WILDWOOD is a spellbinding tale full of wonder, danger, and magic that juxtaposes the thrill of a secret world and modern city life. Original and fresh yet steeped in classic fantasy, this is a novel that could have only come from the imagination of Colin Meloy, celebrated for his inventive and fantastic storytelling as the lead singer of the Decemberists. With dozens of intricate and beautiful illustrations by award-winning artist Carson Ellis, WILDWOOD is truly a new classic for the twenty-first century.

THUNOV 5
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Talks & LecturesPoetryAuthor Talks

Brian Doyle Celebration and Book Release

Join Mary Miller Doyle and friends for a presentation of Wonder Is a Lovely Place to Be: 365 Days of Wit, Wisdom, and Irrepressible Imagination by Brian Doyle and Mary Miller Doyle. Drawing from both beloved and previously unpublished Brian Doyle works, this collection of essays, poems and sketches invites readers to notice holiness woven through ordinary, everyday moments.

Mary Miller Doyle and John and Cindy McPhee will read passages from Wonder is a Lovely Place to Be and retired Lake Oswego Public Library director Bill Baars will host. We'll also be serving apple and marionberry pie, Brian's favorite flavors.

Brian Doyle (1956-2017) was the author of many books, including the novels Mink River and The Plover; The Grail, his account of a year in a pinot noir vineyard in Oregon; and The Wet Engine, a memoir about his infant son’s heart surgery and the young doctor who saved his life. He edited Portland Magazine at the University of Portland.

This program is supported by the Friends of the Lake Oswego Public Library. Participation is free, and no registration is required. Please note, seating is limited due to the size of the space. Seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.A livestream will be available.

Lake Oswego Public Library is located at 706 Fourth Street, Lake Oswego. For more information, contact Alicia Yokoyama at 503-534-4228 or [email protected]

(link sends e-mail)

WEDNOV 4
7:00 PM
ReadingsAuthor TalksPerforming ArtsTalks & Lectures

Literary Show and Tell with Constellation Reading Series

Oregon Humanities and Constellation Reading Series are teaming up to ask Portland writers the question: What’s the book that made you say, Books are for me?

The idea comes from the Works Cited section of Oregon Humanities magazine, where authors reflect on the foundational texts that shaped their lives. On Wednesday, November 4, we’re bringing that idea to the new PALS (Portland Arts & Literary Society) Building for an evening of literary show-and-tell.

We'll hear from Aleksandr Chernousov, Lydia Kiesling, Tim Lane, Jae Nichelle, Christopher Rose, and Eric Tran about the books that shaped them, and they'll also share passages from their work. Then we’ll open the mic to you.

Join us

Bring the book that started your literary origin story! It could be a children’s book, a comic, a classic—all books count. During our lightning round open mic, you’ll have 60 seconds to share your book and why it matters. If you’d rather just listen, that’s welcome too, just pull up a seat and enjoy the evening.

Up Up Books will be open especially for the event, and the readers’ books will be for sale.

Come celebrate the reading life with us! This event is part of the Portland Book Festival's Cover to Cover series.

SATNOV 7
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Author TalksTalks & Lectures

Villa Coco: Andrew Sean Greer

Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less, showcases his wit, sophistication, and deep knowledge of focaccia in this tale of a young man who takes an unspecified job with a charismatic elderly Baronessa at her crumbling villa in the Tuscan hills. Interviewed by Lucy Feldman (TIME).

Limited guaranteed seat tickets with book included available; most of the theatre will be first-come first-served with a PBF GA pass. About Villa Coco:

An aspiring archivist determined to begin a “serious” life after an undistinguished undergraduate career takes up residence in the Italian countryside. Here, he becomes the all-purpose assistant to the Baronessa, known to her friends as Coco, a defiantly youthful and naturally flamboyant woman of ninety-two. Amid a chaotic and colorful milieu of gin-swilling princesses, incomprehensible handymen, roaming boarhunters, nuns, and other local wildlife, our young man does his best to catalog the villa’s extensive collection of art and antiques—although he notices that things seem to go missing from right under his nose.

Despite himself, he tumbles into an affair with a married man, complicating his future plans considerably. And when the Baronessa loses someone close to her, he becomes an unwitting accomplice in the acceleration of Coco’s great and final plan: to locate the love of her life and be reunited before it’s too late. Told with the signature wit, charm, and humanity that made Less an international phenomenon, Villa Coco is a dazzling, sun-soaked ode to life itself, a meditation on how seriously we ought to take ourselves, and a bawdy Mediterranean ballad about becoming who we’ve always wanted to be.

FRINOV 20
6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
Author TalksHistory Talks

Napoleon and His Marshals: Victory, Rivalry, Betrayal

Join acclaimed historian Lord Andrew Roberts for a fascinating look at the men who helped build — and ultimately unravel — Napoleon Bonaparte’s empire. In his new book, Napoleon and His Marshals, Roberts brings to life the extraordinary generals who served at Napoleon’s side, from the courageous Ney and flamboyant Murat to the tenacious MassĂ©na, iron-willed Davout, and meticulous Berthier.

In 1804, Napoleon created the Marshalate, the highest military honor of the French Empire, and over the next decade elevated 26 of his most accomplished generals to the rank. Roberts explores their personalities, ambitions, rivalries, and complex relationships with their emperor, revealing how Napoleon’s leadership both inspired fierce loyalty and fueled destructive competition among his marshals. Ultimately, only two of the 26 would ride beside him at Waterloo.

Drawing on years of scholarship on Napoleon and his era, Roberts offers a dramatic and richly detailed portrait of the men whose military brilliance helped create Napoleon’s extraordinary empire — and whose rivalries helped bring it down.

This event is a co-production with The Chartwell Society of Oregon, a chapter of the International Churchill Society.

THUNOV 5
7:00 PM – 9:30 PM · Doors 6:30 PM
MuseumsPoetryAuthor TalksLive Podcasts & RadioVarietyStand-UpHip-HopTalks & Lectures

Live Wire x Portland Art Museum: Dessa, Mac Barnett, Ed Park, and Mx. Dahlia Belle

Live Wire teams up with the Portland Art Museum during First Thursday and the Portland Book Festival. From 4:30 to 6 p.m., complimentary pop-up performances roam the museum galleries, no ticket needed. At 7 p.m., host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello lead a seated, ticketed taping with poet and rapper Dessa, children’s author Mac Barnett, Pulitzer Prize finalist Ed Park, and Portland comedian Mx. Dahlia Belle. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.. Portland Book Festival passholders get 10% off.

MONNOV 2
Hours not provided
+6 more
ReadingsAuthor TalksTalks & LecturesStreet Festivals

Portland Book Festival

PortlandMap
Portland Book Festival (formerly “Wordstock”) returns every November with an impressive (and extensive) lineup of local and national authors.
SATNOV 7
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Talks & LecturesAuthor Talks

Signals Across Vast Distances: Elizabeth Alexander

Newmark Theatre1111 Southwest Broadway

A call to courage and connection from prize-winning poet and champion of the arts and humanities Elizabeth Alexander. Interviewed by Mitchell S. Jackson. n this deeply personal book, Elizabeth Alexander gives us profound and galvanizing lessons from culture and life to move through challenging times. In close readings of visionary and beloved poets and writers—Muriel Rukeyser, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, and June Jordan, among others—Dr. Alexander meditates on how words and values can sustain and inspire, interweaving her voice with revelatory works of art by some of our most extraordinary visual artists, richly reproduced in the book’s pages.

Her stories of connection—as a daughter, wife, widow, and mother of two sons; reflecting at midlife on her younger days as an aspiring dancer; as a poet at President Obama’s inauguration on the dais alongside her father, a civil rights pioneer; urging radical welcome in our families, communities, and country—engage and move us. Her reflections on the public project of acknowledging historical truths, a focus of her leadership at the Mellon Foundation, model courageous action.

Throughout the book, Alexander poses questions, encouraging readers to recognize the abundant resources we carry within or can access: language, history, art, community, family, our bodies, our stories, and love itself. In luminous and powerful prose, Signals Across Vast Distances calls us to imagine possibilities, take courage, and—in Alexander’s closing words—lead with love.

THUNOV 5
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
History TalksAuthor TalksCultural Heritage

The Making of 1177 BC: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed

A talk by Glynnis Fawkes.

How does a cartoonist go about adapting a work of history, specifically Eric H. Cline’s 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed? In this talk Fawkes will describe the process of interpreting Cline’s text in comics, an exercise during which she repeatedly asked herself how she might tell this story visually. Through page compositions and dramatizations in which historical figures (such as Ramses III) speak, she imagined characters for whom we have no record offering commentary and opinions. To guide the narrative, she introduced two new young characters, Pel (of the Sea Peoples) and Shesha, (an Egyptian scribe) who ask the central question of the book: Why after three prosperous centuries did the civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age suddenly come to an end?

Glynnis Fawkes is the co-author with Eric H Cline and illustrator of 1177 BC: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed (Princeton University Press). She is also the author-illustrator of Charlotte BrontĂ« before Jane Eyre (Little, Brown)and Persephone’s Garden (Secret Acres), among other books, and her comics have appeared on the website of The New Yorker. She has worked as an archaeological illustrator around the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean and teaches at the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont.

Sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America and Reed's department of Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies. Free and open to the public.

FRINOV 6
10:00 AM – 7:00 PM
+2 dates
Craft FairsHolidays & SeasonalBooksSpirits

Portland Holiday Market

Join a festive holiday celebration at the 6th annual Portland Holiday Market. This event brings together the community to enjoy a delightful array of food, gifts and holiday spirit. Come get all your holiday shopping done in one weekend while getting your Santa photos and enjoying a fun family outing.

More than 100,000 square feet of display space is filled with hundreds of exhibitors. Food items, gifts, artwork, jewelry, home dĂ©cor, clothing, spirits, craft items, books, ornaments, leather goods, bath and body, and much more. This show features handcrafted, artisan and unique items you’ll never find in big-box stores.

SATNOV 7
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Author TalksTalks & Lectures

Never Say Die: Ke Huy Quan

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall1037 Southwest Broadway

In this stunning and compulsively readable memoir, the Oscar-winning star of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Goonies, and Everything Everywhere All at Once, Ke Huy Quan, tells the story of his journey from Vietnamese refugee to 80s child star to the most inspiring comeback in Hollywood history. Interviewed by OPB’s Dave Miller. Ke Huy Quan’s Hollywood adventure began when he was twelve years old, a mere five years after his family escaped Communist Northern Vietnam and settled down to a relatively peaceful life in L.A.’s Chinatown. After attending an open call audition on a whim, he was unexpectedly swept up in the wild world of filmmaking: learning to swim from Harrison Ford on the set of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, receiving trucks full of toys from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas for his birthday, meeting Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker, and making lifelong friends on the set of The Goonies.

A star of two of the most beloved movies of the ‘80s, there appeared to be no limit to Ke’s rise. But just a few years later, the roles had dried up and it seemed like Hollywood no longer had a place for him. He eventually left acting to work odd jobs behind the scenes for directors like Wong Kar Wai. His confidence was badly shaken, but his love of performing never abated. It wasn’t until decades later, when he was 49 years old, that he stepped back in front of the camera to star in a strange little indie film called Everything Everywhere All at Once, which surprised everyone with its incredible box-office and awards season success. To call Ke’s Oscar-winning performance a triumphant return would be an understatement.

In this moving, inspirational memoir, Ke paints a vivid self-portrait, telling both heart-wrenching and funny stories of his early rise, slow fall from the spotlight, the resilience that kept him going through his darkest times, and his eventual resurrection on one of the biggest stages in Hollywood. Never Say Die is the story of Ke’s extraordinary life, a love letter to the movies and people that shaped him, and a powerful testament to never giving up on your dreams.

SATNOV 7
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
PoetryAuthor TalksTalks & Lectures

The Body Has Teeth: A Reading and Conversation

Bold Coffee & Books1755 Southwest Jefferson Street

BOLD is thrilled to host The Body Has Teeth: A Reading and Conversation with Amy Baskin, David Loring Nash, Anthony DiPietro, and Summer Stewart.

Four writers enter the dark from different doors. Anthony DiPietro’s poems move through gay love, sex, and the strange repetitions of desire. Amy Baskin gives Lilith—the first woman, cast as a demon—her fierce voice. Summer Stewart’s poems and essays expose the scripts written onto women’s bodies and lives. In David Loring Nash’s Northwoods, witchcraft, revenge, and human folly wait just beyond the treeline. Join them for a reading, followed by a conversation led by Summer Stewart.

TUENOV 3
6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
ReadingsAuthor TalksTalks & Lectures

Finding Wonderful: Matt Mikalatos

Join The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe for an evening of Hollywood nostalgia and holiday classics!

We’re thrilled to host local author Matt Mikalatos to celebrate his latest, Finding Wonderful: Hopeful Lessons from Jimmy Stewart and It’s a Wonderful Life.

About the book:

It’s a Wonderful Life impacted the lives of many, but no one got more from it than star Jimmy Stewart, who credited the film with giving his life new purpose post-World War II service. Learn the lessons on faith, community, kindness, and more from Stewart and the iconic film with this inspiring gift book.

Beloved star and one of Hollywood’s greatest actors, Stewart achieved fame, fortune, and acclaim—but found that none of it guaranteed happiness. Leaving it all behind to serve as a combat pilot in World War II, he returned home changed by loss and searching for meaning. But while filming the perennial Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life, Stewart learned how to heal and live with gratitude and grace with the help of friends, faith, and purpose. Drawing on his life and words, as well as iconic moments from It’s a Wonderful Life, this book explores how the actor who embodied decency on screen lived it off-screen, too.

Endorsed by the Stewart estate and featuring little-seen photos throughout, Finding Wonderful is a heartfelt series of essays that capture the virtues and values of a man who discovered that the secret to a wonderful life has nothing to do with fame—and everything to do with love, service, and simple goodness.

SATNOV 7
10:15 AM – 11:15 AM
Author TalksTalks & Lectures

Survival: Emiko Jean & T Kira Māhealani Madden

Novelists Emiko Jean (Before You Were Anne) and T Kira Māhealani Madden (Whidbey) join moderator and author Marisa Siegel for a conversation on their most recent novels and the secrets and lies that chase their protagonists. Told through multiple perspectives, both authors create page-turning stories about webs of violence, and the fragile lies that threaten survival.

About Before You Were Anne:

After a woman is killed and her daughter vanishes, detective Chelsey Calhoun uncovers a legacy of violence and survival that spans from Japan to Seattle in the new novel by the author of The Return of Ellie Black.

A murdered woman. A missing daughter. A truth buried across two continents.

Married, pregnant, and thriving in her career, Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life finally feels whole, until an explosive new case shatters everything. A mother is dead. Her sixteen-year-old daughter, Naomi, has disappeared. And the search will awaken questions about Chelsey’s own origins—questions she’s spent a lifetime afraid to ask.

The victim called herself Anne Walker. But she was born Rika Takahashi, and her journey from a remote Japanese farm to suburban Seattle conceals decades of deception. Across Tokyo’s shadowed underworld, an isolated Idaho town, and years of carefully constructed lies, Rika reinvented herself at every turn. But she was always running—from someone, or something.

Now, Chelsey must find Naomi before she becomes the next victim. But the deeper she delves into Rika’s hidden life, the more she discovers: some secrets are worth killing for. And the most dangerous truths may be the ones closest to home.

Told in three interwoven voices, Before You Were Anne is a gripping suspense novel about the lies that bind families and the sins that echo across generations.

About Whidbey:

A stunning literary achievement and portrait of three women connected through one man in the aftermath of his murder—the explosive and highly anticipated debut novel from beloved and award-winning memoirist, T Kira Madden.

Birdie Chang didn’t know anything about Whidbey Island when she chose it, only that it was about as far away as she could get from her own life. She’s a woman on the run, desperate for an escape from the headlines back home and the look of concern in her girlfriend’s eyes—and from Calvin Boyer, the man who abused her as a child and who’s now resurfaced. On her way, she has an unnerving encounter with a stranger on the ferry who offers her a proposition, a sinister solution, a plan for revenge.

But Birdie isn’t the only girl Calvin harmed back then. There’s also Linzie King, a former reality TV star who recently wrote all about it in her bestselling memoir. Though the two women have never met, their stories intertwine. Once Birdie arrives on Whidbey, she finally cracks the book’s spine, only to find too much she recognizes in its pages. Soon after, on the other side of the country, Calvin’s loving mother, Mary-Beth, receives a shocking phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered.

Calvin’s death sets into motion a series of events that sends each woman on a desperate search for answers. A complex whodunnit told from alternating points of view, Whidbey is searingly perceptive and astonishingly original. Exploring the long reach of violence and our flawed systems of incarceration and rehabilitation, this is a tense and provocative debut that’s sure to incite crucial questions about the pursuit of justice and who has real power over a story: the one who lives it, or the one who tells it?

THUNOV 5
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Talks & LecturesAuthor Talks

HWA Oregon: “Why Horror?” Author Panel

In the “Why Horror?” panel presented by the HWA Oregon chapter, co-hosts Amber and Dan Finnegan of the podcast Dusk to Dawn: Reading Horror and Weird Fiction will sit down with local horror authors Keith Rosson, Danger Slater, Caitlin Starling, and Kelsea Yu to discuss the appeal of horror, how it can be a guiding light through difficult times, and just what it is about bumps in the night that keep us reading page after page.

SATNOV 7
4:00 PM – 9:00 PM
SpiritsDiningBeerWineHolidays & Seasonal

Oyster New Year in Seattle

Hey Seattle friends! Join us at Elliott's Oyster House for Oyster New Year! The event will feature 40+ shuckers expertly shucking 18,000 raw oysters. There will be premium wines (including Love & Squalor), local microbrews, and spirits, as well as other fresh seafood and desserts. The event will also feature a sprint shucking competition, a People’s Choice “Most Beautiful Oyster” Contest, and the famous oyster luge!

THUNOV 5
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
MusicTriviaTalks & LecturesReadingsAuthor Talks

Reading: Michelle St. Romain, Tara Badstubner, and Liz Collins, followed by live music from Free the Internet

Join us the night before the full Portland Book Festival begins as authors Michelle St. Romain, Tara Badstubner, and Liz Collins discuss their recently released novels and the remarkable animals who play starring roles in their work. The evening will include interesting discussion, Q&A, and music by Free the Internet, a Portland area band. Animal-themed trivia will be sprinkled throughout the evening, with great prizes available, including copies of the books and other swag.

THUNOV 12
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
RSVP requiredHistory TalksAuthor Talks

Permanent Ink: Why We Still Love Print in the Digital Age

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text margin_bottom=”0″ css=”.vc_custom_1793313257834{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]We once depended on handwriting for recording information. Then the printing press changed everything. We could record, store, and access information in thousands of copies. Five hundred years later, the digital revolution is transforming things again. Today, we get information from millions of websites in milliseconds with search engines and AI.

Technology has always shaped the way we’ve stayed informed, expressed ourselves, and stayed connected as communities. What lessons do earlier technologies, like print, hold for us today in the age of AI and digital overload? And why, despite the speed and convenience of newer technologies, is print more popular than ever?

At the end of the talk, audiences will get the chance to try printing on a portable press.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Geoffrey Turnovsky is professor of French at the University of Washington. His teaching and research focus on the cultural history of early modern France and Europe, and the history of print, books, authorship, and reading. He is the author of Reading Typographically: Immersed in Print in Early Modern France.

Geoffrey lives in Seattle.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator color=”turquoise” border_width=”2″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1793313188911{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]Reservations are now open!

Admission is FREE, but reservations are required due to limited seating.[/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”RESERVE A SEAT” color=”warning” size=”lg” css=”” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fthehistorictrust.rezdy.com%2F781920%2Fpermanent-ink-why-we-still-love-print-in-the-digital-age%3F_gl%3D1*zutbgg*_gcl_au*MTA5ODE3MTY3MS4xNzkwMjg5MTQzLjY2NDI0MTc5MS4xNzkwMjg5MTQ2LjE3OTAyODkxOTkuODQzMTY1ODM2LjE3OTAyODkxNDYuMTc5MDI4OTE5OQ..*_ga*MTM2NDc5Mzk1NS4xNzczODQ4NTkw*_ga_J7SXS0R0D6*czE3OTAzNTA1OTIkbzEyNSRnMSR0MTc5MDM3NTAyMSRqMzckbDAkaDY0Njc2MjQ1MQ..”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”10px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator color=”turquoise” border_width=”2″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1791842995682{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]The Historic Trust Fall Speakers Series is Presented by University Village

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THUNOV 12
1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
CraftsAuthor TalksTalks & Lectures

Lace History & Technique Demonstration

Beaverton City Library12375 SW Fifth St

Anna Guillemot, a member of the Portland Lace Society, has been making lace for almost nine years. Her goal is to become comfortable with half a dozen techniques and to demonstrate them, and to spend the rest of her energy admiring the many others in existence in various parts of the world. She loves to teach, thereby encouraging new people to pursue an art that is very far from becoming extinct!

SATNOV 28
1:00 PM
BeerWineCocktailsCiderSpiritsHolidays & SeasonalMusicCraft FairsParties

Inaugural Holiday Bazaar Brewfest

With four floors packed with festive fun, this holly, jolly brewfest might just be your new favorite holiday tradition! Put on your best (or worst!) ugly holiday sweater and join us for plenty of beer, cider, cocktails and other delicious beverages to taste, plus local artisan vendors for your holiday shopping needs, pics with Santa, reindeer games and so much more.

Brewfest fun
Tasting stations & vendors across the property * Ballroom, Mezzanine, Lola's Room and Ringler's Pub
40+ beverages, including 25 taps of beer & cider, plus wine, spirits, cocktails, THC & CBD seltzers and non-alcoholic
40+ local artisan vendors
Photos with Santa
Live music in the Ballroom

SATNOV 7
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Author TalksTalks & Lectures

Restaurants and Relationships: Chai Pani and Nixta Taqueria

Authors and acclaimed chefs Molly Irani(Service Ready: A Story of Love, Restaurants, and the Power of Hospitality) and Meherwan Irani(No. 1 Best Indian Cookbook in the World) sit down with renowned chefs and coauthors Sara Mardanbigi and Edgar Rico (Nixta Taqueria Presents: From Tacos to Tahdig) to discuss their recent publications and experiences building community through food. Joined by moderator and fellow chef, Farideh Sadeghin (The Hot Dog Cookbook and Cheesy), both pairs move beyond their recipes to share the cultures, upbringings, and people that inspired their successful businesses.

About Service Ready:

Molly Irani, the visionary cofounder of the James Beard Award–winning restaurant Chai Pani, shares her passion for hospitality and story of building a thriving business that puts people first.

Growing up with parents who owned a restaurant, Molly understood the power of service but also had a keen understanding of the industry’s challenges. When her husband Meherwan wanted to open a restaurant that would serve the Indian street food of his childhood, Molly thought he was nuts. And yet, the couple turned this unlikely dream into a vibrant reality. Chai Pani would eventually win the James Beard Award for Most Outstanding Restaurant in America, and be named one of 50 Favorite Restaurants in America by The New York Times, and one of Southern Living’s 20 Friendliest Places in the South.

In Service Ready, Molly takes readers on their inspiring journey to the heights of culinary and professional success. While she and her husband learned their way into running a restaurant, Molly created a groundbreaking work culture with industry-leading retention rates. They have fostered a loyal team and legions of fans, and have since launched multiple Chai Pani locations, the fast-growing spin-off, Botiwalla, and the popular spice business, Spicewalla.

Molly shares the ten core principles that have shaped their path, offering essential lessons for any industry. She opens up about the challenges and rewards of being business partners with your life partner and shares how she and Meherwan learned to merge their strengths in order to thrive. Her story celebrates the power of female leadership in a traditionally male-dominated field and is a testament to the essential impact these strengths bring to businesses. As she reflects on navigating a recession, a global pandemic, and the devastating floods in Asheville, she explores resilience, innovation, and how to create a strong culture in any workplace.

About No. 1 Best Indian Cookbook in the World:

People of the earth! James Beard Award–winning chef Meherwan Irani is here to tell you that Indian street food is the best food on the planet—and that with more than 100 of his recipes you can have it at home any time you want.

“If you love Indian food, Irani decodes the entire canon for the home cook without oversimplifying or diluting the most delicious of global cuisines.”—Andrew Zimmern

Entering Meherwan Irani’s restaurants feels like walking into a party—and opening his cookbook is no different. With warmth, affection, and a bit of swagger, Irani makes a compelling, delicious case for adding Indian food to your weekly rotation, providing you with clear instruction on how to build layers of flavor and texture, putting beloved favorites like bhel puri, vada pav, kathi rolls, and more within your grasp.

In the No. 1 Best Indian Cookbook in the World, Irani takes you through the depths of this (liberally defined) subgenre of Indian cuisine that’s filled with delicious snacks, flavorful sandwiches, and curries and chutneys galore. He covers classics like pakoras and chaats as well as stews from roadside cantinas and Chinese-Indian stir fries. Through more than 100 recipes, Irani shares his tips for making street food with minimal time and effort, like sweet, bright, and crunchy Corn Bhel and a Mumbai Toastie, which provides one of the best uses you’ll get out of white sandwich bread. From Dhansak, the triple lentil stew his mom used to make, to the golden-crisp Dosa that’s now found itself in the lexicon of street food, these recipes are rooted in childhood memories, travels through India, and deeply conducted research on the cultures that have contributed to Indian cuisine. Essays throughout dig into areas of Indian cuisine that Irani loves to talk about, like why naan isn’t eaten with every single Indian dish and why chai should be made with substandard tea leaves.

With more than 100 recipes for sandwiches, chaats, fried goodies, and more, you’ll quickly see why this is the No. 1 Best Indian Cookbook in the World.

About Nixta Taqueria Presents: From Tacos to Tahdig:

“The future of American food is found at Nixta, where Edgar Rico and Sara Mardanbigi combine Mexican, Persian, and American flavors to create one of the country’s most essential restaurants.”—Brian McGinn, director and executive producer of Chef’s Table

Sara Mardanbigi and Edgar Rico are proud hyphenated Americans: Iranian and Mexican, respectively. It’s their superpower and what they’ve built their award-winning restaurant Nixta Taqueria on. Pulling from their rich culinary heritages, they’ve done what first-genners do best—created delightful twists on Mexican, Iranian, and American classics. In Nixta Taqueria Presents: From Tacos to Tahdig, they sling tacos and tostadas, alongside platters of golden, fluffy rice; rich stewed meats; and so, so, so many herbs.

Nixta Taqueria Presents: From Tacos to Tahdig takes you through recipes from Edgar’s childhood in Visalia, California, with family dishes like Tortas de Milanesa de Pollo and Chicharrones en Salsa Verde. Then it’s Sara’s turn, sharing recipes from the Ozarks in Arkansas and family trips to Iran for Maman’s Fish with Kuku Sabzi and Ash Reshteh. Lastly, they bring it all together, showing the full-force beauty and surprising connection between the two cuisines with recipes like Smashburgers Al Pastor and Saffron Tres Leches.

More recipes include:

  • Nixta Taqueria’s legendary Duck Carnitas Tacos
  • Barbacoa Empanadas
  • Fesenjoon
  • Beet “Tartare” Tostada
  • And their famous cross-cultural recipe for rice pudding, Sholeh Zard

With over 100 recipes and stunning photography, Nixta Taqueria Presents: From Tacos to Tahdig is a celebration of where Edgar and Sara have come from and where they are now. Come along for the ride!

SATNOV 7
3:00 PM – 7:00 PM
CiderSpiritsWine TastingsMusicHolidays & SeasonalStreet Festivals

6th Annual Hillsboro Downtown Sip & Shop

đŸ· Your Favorite Downtown Tradition Is Back and Better Than Ever đŸ›ïž

On Saturday, November 7 from 3:00PM to 7:00PM, Historic Downtown Hillsboro comes alive for Sip & Shop 2026, a festive self-guided stroll through the heart of the district featuring over a dozen local wineries, cideries, breweries, and mocktail makers, live music, carolers, holiday shopping, and a dining guide packed with specials from local restaurants and food carts.

This is the event that turns a November Saturday into something you'll be talking about all season. Grab your glass, explore at your own pace, and discover why this beloved Downtown tradition keeps drawing over 150 guests year after year.

Four Soaking Stations with mini-snacks are set up along the route to keep you fueled between sips. Check in at Colours Art Supply or LaHaie's to get your passport and start your adventure.

Here’s how the Sip & Shop Passport works:

> You’ll be directed to pick up your passport map, Swag bag including restaurant specials and more, and tasting glass* (While supplies last) at one of two check-in locations
Sip, stroll & shop your way between 2nd and 4th Avenue and Washington to Lincoln, featuring 15+ retail locations, discovering wine, cider, and zero-proof tastings all along Main Street and beyond. Snack at four soaking stations placed along your stroll. Select merchants may offer special promotions during your visit.
Visit the retailers and restaurants noted on the passport and collect stamps at a minimum of seven shops. No retail purchase required. Our intent is to introduce you to some of the key contributors who make and keep Historic Downtown great.
Drop your completed passport at any participating retail location. Completed passports will be collected and raffle drawings for themed gift baskets valued between $30 – $70.
Wine Concierge Service will whisk your purchases off to designated pickup spots so you can keep sipping and shopping worry-free

Check-In Locations - Check-In begins at 3:00PM, Final Check-In at 6:15PM

LaHaie’s at 277 E Main Street
Colours Art at 270 E Main Street

Date: Saturday, November 7

This Year's Participating Pourers:

3 Goats Vineyard
Bull Run Cider
Patton Valley Wines
Dion Vineyards
2 Towns Cider
Résolu Cellars
DAnu Winery
Helvetia Winery
Chris James Cellars
La Randonnée
Flipturn Cellars
Scotch Church Road Vineyard
Parra Wine Co.
Urban River Spirits
Apolloni Vineyards

This year, proceeds benefit The Family Peace Center of Washington County, so every ticket you purchase supports something truly meaningful in our community.

Tickets are available now, and early bird pricing won't last. Grab yours before November 1st and save, then gather your crew, sip and shop throughout the day and stay for dinner at one of our many delicious dining spots in Historic Downtown Hillsboro.

Shout to our Community Sponsors: Le'Stuff, Lithtex Printing
💾 Refund Policy - Stuff happens! Ticket cancellations before
Nov. 4 are eligible for a refund.

Questions? Contact the Sip & Shop Team:
> Sandie Nelson, Le'Stuff Antique Mall 503-860-3663
> Kathleen Floistad, Cedar Street Antiques/ Le'Stuff Antique Mall 503-780-0785
>>Kathie Nelson, Résolu Cellars 503-803-9270

WEDNOV 4
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
ReadingsAuthor TalksTalks & Lectures

An Evening with Wandering Aengus Press

Broadway Books is thrilled to celebrate Wandering Aengus Press with editor-in-chief Jill McCabe Johnson, and authors Chrys Buckley, John Fadely, Veronica Kornberg, and A. Molotkov.

Wandering Aengus Press and its imprint, Trail to Table Press, are dedicated to publishing works to enrich lives and make the world a better place, because why not do as much good as we can in the world with what little time we have? Established in 2017, they publish literary works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Publishing between two to six books a year, they work closely with each author to create books they can feel proud of and readers will love, be inspired by, and treasure. Their editors generously donate their time and expertise, and every book is a work borne of love and dedication. Wandering Aengus is named after the title of a poem by Yeats. Aengus is the Celtic god of love and poetic inspiration, as well as the treasured cat of press founder Jill McCabe Johnson.

SATNOV 7
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Author TalksTalks & Lectures

On Biography: Julia Cooke & Lance Richardson

Authors Julia Cooke (Starry and Restless) and Lance Richardson (True Nature) sit down to discuss their new biographies.Both works explore the lives of trailblazing journalists and activists. Moderated by journalist Charley Locke.

About Starry and Restless:

The page-turning story of three women reporters and the way they changed the world, work, and journalism.

She hid on a Red Cross boat to reach Omaha Beach on D-Day. She walked the abandoned streets of Hong Kong to take food to her daughter’s father, a prisoner of war. She fought off the advances of overzealous Yugoslavian diplomats, found overlooked details of world history in a dentist’s kitchen in Sarajevo. She traveled alone to Mexico. She traveled alone to Congo. She traveled alone to the American South. She married Hemingway. She married a Chinese poet-playboy-publisher, then married a British war hero. She fell in love with H. G. Wells. She gave birth and raised a child on her own. She landed on the front page of the newspaper. She wrote for the great magazines of her time—Vogue, The New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar. She wrote a play. She wrote a memoir. She wrote a genre-breaking travel narrative. She wrote bestsellers. She wrote and wrote and wrote. She changed the very way we think about writing and the way journalists craft stories—which sources are viable, which details are important—and the way women move and work in the world.

She was Martha Gellhorn. She was Emily “Mickey” Hahn. She was Rebecca West. Each woman was starry-eyed for success, for adventure, and helped ensure that other starry and restless women could make unforgettable lives for themselves. They fought for their lives and their work. They were praised and criticized for it all.

In language as lively and nimble, in passages as intimate and adventurous, and with conviction as fierce and indefatigable as her subjects’ own, Julia Cooke’s Starry and Restless plays out the stories of three women across three decades and five continents. Martha, Mickey, Rebecca—journalists, authors, mothers, lovers, friends. These women didn’t just bear witness to the great changes of the twentieth century; their curiosity, grit, ambition, and stories changed the world.

About True Nature:

The firstbiography of Peter Matthiessen, the novelist, naturalist, and Zen roshi, whose trailblazing work championed Native American rights and helped usher in the modern environmental movement, by award-winning writer Lance Richardson.

“A stunning, formidable achievement by a brilliant biographer. Lance Richardson takes his readers on a wild ride with Peter Matthiessen.” —Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of American Prometheus

“A fair-minded, grippingly paced, and tremendously readable narrative.” —Pico Iyer, Air Mail

Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), a towering figure of twentieth-century American letters, achieved so much during his lifetime, in so many different areas, that people have struggled to pin him down. While ambivalent about his WASP privilege—as a teenager he demanded that his name be removed from the New York Social Register—he attended Yale and cut his teeth in postwar Paris, co-founding The Paris Review as he worked undercover for the CIA. But then, after a rebellious stint as a Long Island fisherman, he escaped into a series of wild expeditions: floating through the Amazon to recover a prehistorical fossil; embedding with a tribe in Netherlands New Guinea; swimming with sharks off the coast of Australia. His novels, inspired by his travels, were unclassifiable meditations about Caymanian turtle hunters and frontier outlaws in the Florida Everglades. Meanwhile, his nonfiction became legendary: nature books like Wildlife in America—“key parts of the canon of emergent environmental writing,” says Bill McKibben—as well as advocacy journalism supporting Cesar Chavez, Leonard Peltier, and Native American land claims.

Underlying all Matthiessen’s disparate pursuits was the same existential search—to find a cure for “deep restlessness.” This search was most profoundly articulated in The Snow Leopard, his famous account of a 250-mile wildlife survey across the Himalayas. In True Nature, Lance Richardson reconstructs the full scope of a spiritual quest that ultimately led Matthiessen, even as he inflicted great pain on his family, to the highest ranks of Zen. Drawing on rich primary sources and hundreds of interviews, Richardson depicts Matthiessen’s life with page-turning immediacy, while also illuminating how the writer’s uncanny gifts enabled him to sense connections between ecological decline, racism, and labor exploitation—to express, eloquently and presciently, that “in a damaged human habitat, all problems merge.”

THUNOV 12
7:00 PM
Talks & LecturesAuthor Talks

Ray Warren Symposium Keynote Speaker: Dylan RodrĂ­guez

Fowler Student Center615 S Palatine Hill Rd

Please join us at the 23rd Annual Ray Warren Symposium on Race and Ethnic Studies for “You Gotta Be a Little Crazy”: Radical Community as Alter-Being, a keynote presentation by Dylan Rodríguez.

Dr. RodrĂ­guez is a distinguished professor at the University of California, Riverside whose work focuses on liberationist, anticolonial, and abolitionist challenges to power, authority, and institutionality.

No registration is required. ASL interpretation will be provided. Free and open to the public.

After the talk, please join us for a reception and book signing in the Beth Miller Lounge. Books by the speaker will be available to purchase.

SATNOV 7
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
💰 $200Spirits

Whiskey & Wool: Luxury at its Finest

Spend an evening in the Mill at Wool for the People sampling our locally distilled spirits paired with some of the most exclusive and luxurious fibers in the world. Bring your wheel and get a taste of: Qivuit, harvested by hand in Alaska and milled at Wool for the People; Paco-Vicuna, raised here in the PNW and processed meticulously here at Wool for the People; and Bison, a truly American fiber. Each guest will receive twenty-five grams of fiber total, paired with a unique whiskey or spirit distilled at New Deal.

SATNOV 7
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
PoetryAuthor TalksTalks & Lectures

A Thousand Flames: Book Launch and Signing

Up Up Books1452 NE 28th Ave

Celebrate the release of A Thousand Flames, the debut poetry collection by Corey S. Pressman. Corey S. Pressman's debut collection, A Thousand Flames, offers poems of secular devotion in which a bird feeder can stand as the axis mundi and the bees have a god of their own. Across twelve sections, they travel from a Rockland County childhood to a hilltop in the fog, and as far back as the rooftops of Neolithic ÇatalhöyĂŒk. Each poem asks you to slow down and stay a little longer than expected.

"Corey Pressman is a magical human - magical art, magical writing. His finely made poems are bells of vision and clarity to help us 'stay the same changing.'" - Naomi Shihab Nye

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