Live Wire!
Live Wire, Portland’s own nationally syndicated radio variety show, celebrates 10 years on air this month with a stellar lineup and three live shows (Read our feature about how Live Wire is planning to take over the world):
Mar 1, Alberta Rose Theater
Come see award-winning Marvel comic book writer Matt Fraction, author-musicians Willy Vlautin and Wesly Stace, co-founder of Throwing Muses and the CASH Music project Kristin Hersh, director of the Carter family documentary, The Winding Stream, Beth Harrington, and musical guest Albatross, a new Portland band featuring Ryan Sollee (of Builders and Butchers).
Mar 15, Alberta Rose Theater
Comedic renaissance man Fred Armisen takes the stage along with award-winning author Sherman Alexie, socio-political comedian,W. Kamau Bell, and musical guests the gypsy folk band Run On Sentences.
Mar 29, Alberta Rose Theater
Join former football player turned author of Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies, Chris Kluwe; actress, author, and fomer host of TBS show Dinner and A Movie, Annabelle Gurwich; and Seattle–based rock band Cumulus.

Hip Mama and Rad Dad Re–launch Party
Mar 2, Reading Frenzy
Join Tomas Moniz and Ariel Gore in the re–launch of their alternative parenting publications. Hip Mama is re–launching with a 20th anniversary issue championing single, urban, and feminist mothers with Gore back at the helm. Winner of Utne’s Independent Media Award and edited by Moniz, Rad Dad touches on issues of fatherhood often overlooked like equality in parenting, the challenges faced by gay and transgender fathers, and the emotions of sperm donation.

End of Eve by Ariel Gore
Mar 3, Powell’s City of Books 
Join Ariel Gore for the launch of her newest book, End of Eve. Having made a name for herself writing about motherhood (see Hip Mama), Gore explores the other side in her poignant memoir about relocating to Santa Fe to care for her difficult mother as she battles cancer. 

Loggernaut Reading Series: Stretch
Mar 5, Ristretto Roasters
Justin Hocking (author of The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld and director of the Independent Publishing Resource Center), poet Julie Joosten (author of Light Light), and Kelly Luce (author of Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail) read in another installment of prose and poetry themed readings.

The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld
Mar 5, Powell’s City of Books 
Released after a six-publisher bidding war, Portland writer Rene Denfeld’s debut novel, The Enchanted, delves into the life of a death-row prisoner who perceives magic all around him in his solitary cell. The author of three nonfictions books, Denfeld works by day as a dealth-penalty investigator, seeking to uncover the “why” of unspeakable crimes to save convicts from walking the final mile. The Enchanted channels this real-world setting into an unflinching, magical-realist tale of the beauty that still manages to persist even in the darkest places. Read our profile of Denfeld in our Spring Arts Preview.

Entertainment for People: New Shit Show
Mar 10, Disjecta
The raucous, indie variety show is back with a New Shit Show for 2014 featuring never before seen work by a recurrent group of performers the second Monday of every month. The lineup? Some of Portland’s most dashing performers: McSweeney’s author and filmmaker Arthur Bradford, singer/songwriter Laura Gibson, comedian Amy Miller, Moth StorySLAM host Andrew Dickman, poet Mindy Nettifee, writer Heather Larimer, and McSweeney’s/Hobart contributor and creator of Entertainment for People, B. Frayn Masters. 

Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark 
Mar 10, Powell’s City of Books
When millionaire John Astor sent out two expeditions to explore Astoria in 1810, he envisioned the birth of a global trade empire based at the mouth of the Columbia that would rival the East Coast. Thomas Jefferson shared in these dreams, imagining a separate democracy on this new West Coast frontier. But Peter Stark reveals what complicated these grandiose visions when the travelers themselves faced harrowing conditions and fought for survival in this true adventure tale.

Everybody Reads: Sonia Sotomayor
Mar 11; Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
Capping Multnomah County Library’s Everybody Reads campaign, the Supreme Court justice reads from her inspiring memoir, My Beloved World, in an evening sponsored by the Multnomah County Library and Library Foundation and presented by Literary Arts.

Smallpressapalooza
Mar 17, Powell’s City of Books
March is Small Press Month and Powell’s own small press advocate Kevin Sampsell hosts the 7th annual marathon reading festival showcasing small press authors. Come prepared for a literary throw down with this year’s lineup: Ross Robbins, Walidah Imarish, Dena Rash Guzman, Samue Snoek–Brown, Lisa Ciccarello, Kyle Minor, Matty Byloos, Jeff Alessandrelli, Emily Kendal Frey, Noah Cicero, Melody Owen, and Virginia Paine. 

27th Oregon Book Awards Ceremony
Mar 17, The Gerding Theater at the Armory
Hosted by Pulitzer Prize winning author Luis Urrea at the stately Gerding Theatre, the 27th Annual Oregon Book Awards honors the state's finest accomplishments by Oregon writers in the genre of poetry, fiction, graphic literature, literary non-fiction, and young reader's literature. With big names going head-to-head, including sci-fi doyenne Ursula K Le Guin and noir upstart Roger Hobbs, international cartoonist stars Craig Thompson and Joe Sacco, Portland poets Matthew Dickman and the recent National Book Award–winner Mary Szybist, and more, the awards promise a night of suspense.  

Read our coverage of the finalist announcement and for a full list of the nominees.

Unchaste Reading Series
Mar 18, The Blue Monk
Listen to women writers read their minds and share their stories in an evening of honest, funny, and intimate readings in three acts. This installment showcases authors Cari Luna, Lydia Charlotte, Jenny Drai, Anne Gudger, Mindy Nettifee, Nena Rawdah, Elva Redwood, and Meg Worden. 

Willy Vlautin and Peter Brown Hoffmeister
Mar 18, Broadway Books
Watch as Willy Vlautin and Peter Brown Hoffmeister join forces and read entertaining stories from their new all-American work. Vlautin, the lead singer in alt-country band Richmond Fontaine, releases his fourth book, The Free, in which a young runaway transforms the lives of three down-and-out souls, and Hoffmeister returns to fiction to release an original retelling of the Samson and Delilah story set in Yosemite with Graphic the Valley.

Grin and Bear It: A Bear–Themed Variety Show
Mar 21, Independent Publishing Resource Center
Celebrate the release of the audio zine Xtra Tuff #6.75: Report from Uyak Bay with its creators, Moe Bowstern and Erin Yanke with artwork by Alec Icky Dunn, and a trio of bear acts—in film, as improv, and in song—as well as dancing, singing, fitness tips, and trivia contest. The variety show is hosted by Moe Bowstern and features filmmaker Vanessa Renwick, improv comedian Brad Fortier, and musician El Demasiado and his One Man Band. 

Floyd Skloot
Mar 25, Broadway Books
Skloot reads from his newest works, Revertigo, a shifting, off–kilter memoir depicting his debilitating bouts of vertigo, and Close Reading, his 7th full–length collection of poetry that explores diverse expressions of love.