Books

A Guide to Loving Trash

A new memoir collects trash—as a class, artistic medium, and societal nuisance—into a manual for empathy.

11/08/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

One-Sentence Stories

Portland News in Small Packages | 2024

Our favorite ballot box, the dystopian future as the present day, and a farewell to the Pac-12.

11/07/2024 By Margaret Seiler

Things to Do

Getting Lost with Chris Marker

Also: Jeremy Okai Davis paints Black performance, and other things to do in town this week.

11/07/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Things to Do

The Portland Book Festival Turns 10

Also: Christine Sinclair plays her final match, and other things to do in town this week.

10/31/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Reading Ahead

The Most Anticipated Book Events in Portland Fall 2024

Ta-Nehisi Coates is coming, the Portland Book Festival is almost here, and the city’s small presses are printing the next generation’s debuts.

10/15/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Booktopia

With New HQ, the City’s Literary Heart (Finally) Finds a Permanent Physical Form

Literary Arts’ expansive Southeast building will house a bookstore, café and bar, and all-ages community resources.

09/18/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Q&A

Mostly True Stories: Chelsea Bieker on Her Novel ‘Madwoman’

“I wanted to write this zany book about motherhood and wellness powders,” she says. “And then it turned into this much deeper thing.”

09/17/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Author Events

Portland Book Festival Announces 2024 Lineup

Richard Powers, Renée Watson, Ani DiFranco, and Danez Smith are among this year’s 80+ authors.

09/12/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

The Game of Portland

Navigating the Great Corn Maze of Fall in Portland

Look up at the swifts, look down at the mushrooms.

09/11/2024 Illustrations by Hawk Krall By Portland Monthly Staff

Picture Book

Carson Ellis Finds Her Past in an Old Portland Warehouse

New paintings illustrate a 20-year-old diary in the artist’s latest book, recounting her first week in town, falling in love, and reading Dylan Thomas aloud.

09/10/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Memoir

Breaking Bread and Capitalism with Lola Milholland

The Umi Organic founder’s memoir challenges the nuclear family model with food.

08/01/2024 Photography by Jason Hill By Matthew Trueherz

Book Review

You’re Safe Here, A Sci-Fi Novel Set In 2060, Reads Eerily Current

Author of the popular Substack newsletter Morning Person, Leslie Stephens takes aim at the wellness industrial complex in her debut novel.

06/27/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Reading Ahead

3 Upcoming Books by Portland Authors

Does your nightstand need a genre-bending food memoir, a wellness-obsessed sci-fi novel, and a first-person report of an adult autism diagnosis? Of course it does.

05/22/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Bookshelf

Riot Grrrl History in Kathleen Hanna’s Rebel Girl

The Portland-born musician’s memoir details ’90s Olympia, Bikini Kill, life on tour, and some serious trauma and healing.

05/17/2024 By Margaret Seiler

Interview

‘Unlikable’ Narrators and the Impossible Expectations of Motherhood

Portland author Kimberly King Parsons unpacks her hotly anticipated debut novel, We Were the Universe.

05/10/2024 By Michelle Kicherer

Down the Aisles

11 Portland Authors’ Favorite Indie Bookstores

Where do Renée Watson, Dane Liu, Erica Berry, and Jon Raymond shop for books? Hint: it’s not Amazon.

05/06/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

As Told To

In ‘skin & bones,’ Renée Watson Writes for Her Devout Readers’ Parents

"I’m always writing for that little girl who needed to see herself and her ancestors represented in stories."

05/03/2024 By Matthew Trueherz Photography by Michael Raines

Awards Season

Erica Berry and Patrick deWitt Are among the 2024 Oregon Book Awards Winners

Kwame Alexander presented seven Oregon authors with new badges to add to their book covers at Monday’s ceremony.

04/10/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Slow Burn

How Writing Romance Helped Alison Cochrun Embrace Her Queerness

The former high school English teacher, raised and based in Vancouver, is now a full-time author of love stories.

03/29/2024 By Rebecca Jacobson

420-Friendly

This Guidebook Tours the Country’s Coolest Cannabis Destinations

In Green Scenes, Portlander Lauren Yoshiko scopes out cat-themed dispensaries, consumption-friendly treehouses, and chic smoke shops.

03/12/2024 By Rebecca Jacobson