How to Make Book-Loving Friends IRL in Portland
Online, it's easy enough to find people who like your favorite romantasy authors and/or translators of nineteenth-century German poetry. But stalking that enigmatic someone with impeccable taste on Goodreads or Reddit can only ever go so far. There is a formal author event pretty much every night somewhere in the city—Powell’s, Broadway Books, Annie Bloom’s—but it’ll be on you to chat up the stranger reading Sarah J. Maas or Goethe next to you. If you want a little help finding wordy friends IRL, check out one or two or all of these regular and totally free events around town. We’ve collected meetups and public book clubs geared toward bringing like-minded folks together, whether to fawn over graphic novels or recite poems to strangers from memory.
Books with Pals
Hosford-Abernethy
The third Wednesday or Thursday evening of each month, comic book shop Books with Pictures (1401 SE Division St) hosts this open-invite book club devoted to a wide variety of graphic novels—from the Bitter Root series, about a family of sympathetic monster hunters during the Harlem Renaissance, to an illustrated retelling of the 1872 queer vampire murder mystery Carmilla. Sometimes artists and writers join to talk about their latest work.
Constellation Reading Series
Northwest District
Portland writers Jessica Johnson and Joon Ae Haworth-Kaufka set out expressly to connect literary-minded folks around town in this series, held on the second Thursday of each month at Bishop and Wilde (2601 NW Thurman St). Expect poems, fiction, nonfiction; the only emphasis is to give space to underrepresented writers. Two out-of-town writers and one Portlander read each time, and a strong contingent of regulars occupying the cozy shop’s couches and window seats make it feel like a true community.
Read to a Therapy Dog
Vernon
One of the coolest monthly events (dates vary) at Green Bean Books (1600 NE Alberta St) lets young bookworms sign up for a 15-minute session reading with a golden retriever named Clive on the open-air deck. Kiddos do the reading (not Clive) so the shop recommends it for 5- to 12-year-olds looking to work through a picture book or early-reader novel. For littler little ones, check out Spanish Story Time, recommended for ages up to 6.
One Page Wednesday
Buckman
Portland novelist Emme Lund hosts this literary open mic of sorts the first Wednesday of each month at the Literary Arts bookstore (716 SE Grand Ave). Instead of polished works, readers throw their name in a bowl hoping to share a page from a work in progress—slam poems, writing class homework, a snippet of a long-gestating Southern Gothic novella. Lund plays, too, reading a draft of something to start, and each event boasts a notable featured reader, like Kimberly King Parsons or Omar El Akkad.
Other People’s Poems
Buckman
Do you ever recite poems to your friends? Do you want to? If so, drop by Mother Foucault’s (715 SE Grand Ave) on the first Friday of the month and you’ll find a welcome audience to grace with your favorite bit of Sappho or Auden or Rimbaud. The kicker is that it must be from memory. While sharpening your verse, look for concerts, zine launches, and politically inclined readings on the literary bohemian clubhouse’s calendar.
Prose Before Bros
various
The name of Nanea Woods’s book club is no joke. In fact, it doesn’t articulate all the rules. Prose Before Bros’ official monthly meetings are reserved for women of color and are usually kept to around three dozen attendees (the overall group, started in 2018, counts more than 1,000 members; reach out via its website to get in touch), though more casual happy hours and BIPOC book swaps are advertised on Instagram and open to the wider public.
