On Saturday, November 5, Literary Arts will mount the first fully in-person Portland Book Festival since 2019. The largest festival of its kind in the Pacific Northwest, 2022's event will sport an expanded youth stage and a new music stage in addition to its standard selection of readings and panels. 

Across 40+ individual events, 80 authors from near and far will show up to the Rose City to chat about their newest works, spanning a gauntlet of genres and age groups. 

As always, the Portland Art Museum is the nucleus, but events (scheduling specifics are TBA in early October) will spread through the park blocks and surrounding locations. The Schnitz will hold two separately ticketed events: New York Times bestselling author Taylor Jenkins Reid (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones and & the Six) will chat about her latest novel, Carrie Soto Is Back, and recent Emmy host, Legally Blonde star, and multiple sclerosis awareness activist Selma Blair will be in conversation with Cheryl Strayed about Blair's recent memoir, Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up. 

The list of gasp-worthy names is long. George Saunders—the New Yorker fiction stalwart whose short story was recently adapted for the Netflix film Spiderhead—will be in attendance for his forthcoming collection Liberation Day. Hometown hero Jon Raymond will talk his new climate thriller Denial, Chuck Klosterman will unpack his self-evidently titled The Nineties, New Yorker contributor Hua Hsu will discuss his new memoir Stay True, and Andrew Sean Greer will attend on the back of his new novel Less Is Lost, a sequel to 2017's Pulitzer Prize-winning Less.

Other local names to look out for include Portlander Renée Watson with her latest Maya Angelou-focused children’s picture book Maya’s Song, former Oregonian reporter Casey Parks with her memoir Diary of a Misfit, and novelist Cecily Wong with her new book Kaleidoscope. John Gray, Pierre Serrao, and Lester Walker of the New York-based chef collective Ghetto Gastro will be in conversation with Portland’s own Gregory Gourdet about their new cookbook Black Power Kitchen.  

There's room for crossover stars, too: Decemberists front man Colin Meloy will chat about his YA novel The Stars Did Wander Darkling, and Fleet Foxes singer Robin Pecknold will chat with New York-based author Brandon Taylor about a recently published volume of Fleet Foxes lyrics titled Wading in Waist-high Water.  

A weeklong, citywide wind-up (details forthcoming) will serve as a preamble to Saturday’s festival, ending with a shot at first dibs to festival's book fair with a Friday night "market"—early access will run you $15. The festival itself is $15 for adults in advance ($25 day-of), and free for kids 17 and under.