This Saturday is the Portland Book Festival’s gauntlet run. Sure, Literary Arts and its partners have hosted readings, concerts, and conversations all week as part of the annual events expanded program this year, but Saturday, November 7, is when the literari really hit the ground running. Theaters, galleries, and bookstores across the city will host authors, poets, musicians, and even a Hollywood A-Lister, all sharing takes on life’s biggest themes and questions.
While general admission passes for the fair’s main events are sold out, people who didn’t snag a pass can find plenty of other free or separately ticketed events, too (see below). Check out the Portland Book Fest website for the full schedule. Even if you missed out on a pass after they went on sale in July, there are still ways to get in on the fun. Here are some of the events that caught our attention.
Saturday events for pass holders:
10 AM Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis discuss Wildwood—their 2011 Portland-set modern fantasy novel and its acclaimed new stop-animation movie adaptation by Laika—with the director of Literary Arts, Andrew Proctor. Bonus brownie points for spritzing up with the Impassable Wilderness, literary perfume house Imaginary Authors’ new Wildwood-inspired fragrance. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Requires pass plus a $5 ticket; book option sold out.
11AM Julia Wertz reads from her graphic memoir Bury Me Already (It’s Nice Down Here): Comics on Pregnancy and Parenthood, a collection of comics about new marriage and motherhood right before the pandemic hit. Organizers have done some matchmaking of authors and thematically related artworks in PAM’s collection to audiences a new way to appreciate both: Wertz is curatorially paired with Jump, from the portfolio Wayzgoose, Mary Kay Nitchie’s 1989 lithograph. Portland Art Museum, Prints & Drawings gallery, Level 0.
11:15AM Local playwright and actor Anthony Hudson reads his script for “Girl With a Cigarette,” featured in his debut collection Lamp Back: Plays and Other Grievances. “Girl With a Cigarette” is a 2018 performance where Carla Rossi, Hudson’s retired drag persona, lectured about Moses Soyer’s painting Girl With a Cigarette while dressed as its subject. Hudson won’t be in drag this time, but Hudson might let Rossi’s voice escape purgatory for this performance. Portland Art Museum, American Art gallery, Level 2.
11:30AM Lisa Hanawalt, the creator of the gone-too-soon animated series Tuca & Bertie and the production designer of BoJack Horseman, reads from her new memoir I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex. Hanawalt’s reading is curatorially paired with Roy Riding Mars, Lorinda Riding Venus, Karen Tossavainen’s 1994 photoetching. Portland Art Museum, Prints & Drawings gallery, Level 0.
NOON Ke Huy Quan—recognized for childhood roles in The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and his long-overdue return to acting in Everything Everywhere All at Once, which won him an Oscar—discusses his new autobiography, Never Say Die: A Memoir, with OPB’s Dave Miller. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Requires pass plus a $5 ticket, or $45 with book.
12:30PM Collage artist Kevin Sampsell reads from his surrealist novel Baby in the Night, about a child who believes his father is the moon, and sets on a mission through his neighborhood to learn the truth. Sampsell is curatorially paired with Night, Akio Takamori’s 1996 lithograph. Portland Art Museum, Northwest Art gallery, Level 4.
1:30PM Hanawalt and Wertz discuss graphic novels in a conversation moderated by award-winning comic writer and journalist Shay Mirk. Portland Art Museum, Whitsell Auditorium, Level 0.
2PM Danny Ramadan reads from Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir, which looks back at young queer life in the Middle East during the 2010s. Ramadan is curatorially paired with Slipstream (by the light of the moon), Mary Ann Peters’s large-scale 2017 painting. Portland Art Museum, Northwest Art gallery, Level 4.
3:15PM Alexis Nikole Nelson—a chef and outdoors influencer known as Black Forager, who built a cross-platform online following of millions with her charming, personable delivery of expert foraging knowledge—discusses her debut cookbook and foraging guide, Happy Snacking, Don’t Die!: Foraging and Vegan Recipes With Black Forager with OPB’s Crystal Ligori. Newmark Theatre.
Other events this week that don’t require a pass:
THU, NOV 5 Book Bar, the festival-timed pop-up bar at 723 SW Salmon St, at the foot of the South Park Blocks, hosts an evening of musical theater karaoke. You are either very drawn to this free event or very committed to staying away.
6PM FRI, NOV 6 The NE Fremont Rose City Book Pub, not to be confused with downtown’s Book Bar, hosts a free performance from Lopez Island singer-songwriter and farmer Derek Eisel, a.k.a. Beto Renaud, titled Songs of Lesbian Potlucks and Husbands Who Fix Tractors.
2PM SUN, NOV 8 Helena Bonham Carter, Steve Buscemi, Oprah Winfrey, and others show up in Sasha Waters’s documentary Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World, sharing works by the late poet. The film screens at PAM’s Whitsell Auditorium, and tickets are $15, $10 for members, or $35 including museum admission.
5–8PM SUN, NOV 8 OK Chicken & Kaho Soi, the Thai restaurant in the old Pok Pok space on SE Division hosts Sara Mardanbigi and Edgar Rico of Austin restaurant Nixta Taqueria and offers a special menu for the evening that includes some of their dishes. Diners can make a reservation or just show up and hope there’s a table.
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