Interview

Melissa Febos on Her Year Without Sex

‘How do you forge and define a healthy, conscious relationship to something in a society that has a sick relationship to it?’

06/03/2025 By Matthew Trueherz

Long Story Short

Lidia Yuknavitch, Kristen Stewart, and an Ocean Outside of Time

As The Chronology of Water becomes a movie, its author revisits her past in a new memoir, Reading the Waves.

02/04/2025 By Matthew Trueherz

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

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

Homegrown Lit

Required Reading for the 2023 Portland Book Festival

Your syllabus includes six Portland-written books, covering fermentation to poetry, wolves to tigers, geopolitics to a shut-in retired librarian.

10/26/2023 By Matthew Trueherz

Bookshelf

Review: Wolfish, on the Complicated Legacy of the Divisive Species

Mixing memoir, history, science, and the story of OR-7, Portland writer Erica Berry reminds us wolves are never very far away.

02/17/2023 By Matthew Trueherz

Books & Talks

Michelle Tea Talks Tarot, Writing Sober, and the Hazards of Memoir

The author and literary organizer hosts a reading at Northeast Portland's Psychic Sister shop this Friday, March 29.

03/26/2019 By Rebecca Jacobson

Profile

Author Mitchell S. Jackson Is a Blistering, Lyrical Voice of Our Time

For proof, read the Portland-raised writer's staggeringly smart new book, Survival Math.

02/26/2019 By Fiona McCann

Summer Reads 2018

Water Aerobics: An Essay by Courtenay Hameister

"I moved to a spot in the shallow end. I admit that I was already judging Molly harshly for her Chinese-character tattoo because I was jealous of her leg muscles."

07/17/2018 By Courtenay Hameister

Meat, Pray, Love

How Portlander Camas Davis Turned from Journalism to Butchery

Her new memoir, Killing It: An Education, chronicles the long, bloody move.

06/19/2018 By Natasha Tandler

Books

The West, Two Ways: An Excerpt from Jenny Forrester's New Memoir

In Narrow River, Wide Sky, the local writer mines her childhood culture shock in Colorado.

04/17/2017 By Jenny Forrester

Old Portland

Remember the Hungry Tiger: An Excerpt from Martha Grover’s New Memoir

In this passage from The End of My Career, the local zinester recalls an Old Portland haunt.

10/10/2016 By Martha Grover

Books & Talks

iO Tillett Wright Finds His Music in Darling Days

We caught up with the New York artist and activist, who's en route to Powell’s this week, to talk about his new memoir.

09/26/2016 By Lisa Dunn

THE ESSENTIALS

Anthony Lopez to Moby’s Memoir: June’s Pop Culture Hot List

The festival, album, and books you can’t miss this month.

05/19/2016 By Fiona McCann

BOOKS & TALKS

The Epitome of Cool: Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon Wrote a Memoir

The famously reserved rock star joins local jack-of-all-arts Jon Raymond March 3 at Powells. And as it turns out, Jon's a big fan.

02/26/2015 By Rene Bermudez

BOOKS

Great Lines from Songwriter Nick Jaina's New Memoir

Out this week, a new memoir on failure from the prolific Portland composer. From errant love songs to Calvin and Hobbes, we share some highlights.

01/29/2015 By Larisa Owechko

BOOKS

Drugs, Doms & Squirrel Brains: TMI Moments from PDX Memoirs

A look back at some of the cringiest overshares from our favorite Portland authors

01/05/2015 By Aaron Scott Research by Caitlin Feldman

Interview

Q&A: Author Gary Shteyngart

The bestselling author talks about his new memoir, his nickname "Little Failure," and kissing James Franco for his juicy book trailer. He speaks at Powell's on Jan 18.

01/16/2014 By Nathan Tucker