Events
Miranda Schmidt’s Book Launch with Justine Chan and Callum Angus!
Join us April 3rd to celebrate the launch of Miranda Schmidt’s debut novel, Leafskin, with Justine Chan and Callum Angus!
ABOUT LEAFSKIN
A poet and her husband have been trying to make a baby. But while undergoing fertility treatments in the midst of a harrowing wildfire season, Jo reconsiders raising a child in a time of climate crisis. When her artist ex-girlfriend, who has always had an uncanny connection to nature, re-enters her life, Jo struggles to navigate the transformations in her relationships and realities.
Miranda Schmidt's lyrical debut novel blurs the boundaries between poetry and prose, human and nonhuman, reality and magic. A tale of queer love, new motherhood, and ecological interconnectedness, Leafskin interrogates how we create, and what we become, in a time of environmental devastation.
About Miranda Schmidt
Miranda Schmidt’s work circles the folkloric, the familial, queer magic, and the more-than-human world. Their writing has appeared in Triquarterly, Orion, Electric Literature, Catapult, and more. She has studied at the University of Washington MFA Program, Bath Spa University PhD program, the Lambda Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Writers, the Bread Loaf Environmental Conference, and the Tin House Workshop. Miranda has taught creative writing at the Portland Book Festival, the Loft, the University of Washington, and Portland Community College. Their ongoing newsletter and teaching project, Writing Toward Nature, explores methods for bringing the more-than-human more deeply into our writing craft.
About Justine Chan
Justine Chan is a writer, poet, and singer-songwriter from Chicago. Should You Lose All Reason(s) (Chin Music Press, 2023) is her first book. Her work has appeared in Electric Literature, KUOW, Moss, Baltimore Review, Beecher’s, Booth, Poetry on Buses, and Midwestern Gothic among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington and has worked many seasons as a park ranger with the National Park Service. She currently lives in Seattle.
About Callum Angus
Callum Angus is a trans writer and editor living in Portland, Oregon, where he edits the literary journal smoke and mold, teaches writing workshops online and in-person, and is at work on a novel. He is the author of the story collection A Natural History of Transition, (Metonymy Press) which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Fiction, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, and an Oregon Book Award/Ken Kesey Award in Fiction. His work has appeared in Joyland, Orion, Nat. Brut, and many other venues, and has been anthologized in Kink, a collection edited by Garth Greenwell and R.O. Kwon. He has received fellowships and residencies from Lambda Literary, Signal Fire Foundation for the Arts, the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, the Sitka Center for Art & Ecology, and The Seventh Wave, among others. A former bookseller at Powell's and the independent Odyssey Bookshop, he holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a BA from Mount Holyoke College, In addition to his own independent classes, he has taught writing at Smith College, UMass Amherst, and Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, as well as at the Tin House Winter Workshop. He also spent an enlightening stint working in publicity for Catapult, Counterpoint, and Soft Skull Press.
Freewrite: Writing Circle
Led by a trained Write Around Portland volunteer facilitator, Freewrite consists of writing, sharing, and giving strengths-based feedback to each other. It’s a great way to unlock your creativity, build or maintain a writing habit, and get some writing done!
April Book Club
Join us for tea, fizzy drinks, snacks, and the novel DETRANSITION,BABY by Torrey Peters
*the event is free but please register to reserve a spot
About the Book
Writing with alarming insight, Torrey Peters captures the grandiose, heartfelt and sometimes mangled aspirations of queer and trans people facing an unprecedented array of personal choice. By showing how gender transition (like divorce, or any transformative life event) can be simultaneously destabilizing and liberating, Peters makes trans culture relatable to all. A voraciously knowing, compulsively readable novel. — Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick
This provocative and modern love story navigates taboos around sex, gender, identity and relationships and is surely one story you won’t want to put down – CNN
Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn’t hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.
Ames isn’t happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese–and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames’s boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she’s pregnant with his baby–and that she’s not sure whether she wants to keep it–Ames wonders if this is the chance he’s been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family–and raise the baby together?
This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can’t reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.
Street Books: Celebrating 15 Years Providing Books and Care on the Streets
Street Books’ 15th Anniversary and Spring Campaign Kickoff Event!
When: 6-8 p.m. Thursday, April 10
Where: Up Up Books
What: Authors Stephanie Adams-Santos, Omar El Akkad and Joshua Pollock; support for Street Books; and excellent company during this challenging time.
Please RSVP through the link. We hope you can join us!
Street Books is celebrating 15 years of providing books and care on the streets of Portland and in the community in 2025.
Please join us for our 15th Anniversary Kick-off Event, 6-8 p.m. Thursday, April 10 at Up Up Books. Featuring readings by three fabulous, local authors we love: Stephanie Adams-Santos , Omar El Akkad and Joshua Pollock
Light refreshments will be served.
*This event is free but we are asking folks to consider becoming monthly sustaining donors in honor of Street Books’ 15th anniversary. Regular, monthly gifts are steady income and help us throughout the year! Thank you for considering a monthly gift OR a special, one-time gift in honor of this momentous year. If you are already a monthly sustainer, please consider increasing your gift to help sustain Street Books into the future.
ABOLISH RENT author, Tracy Rosenthal
Join co-founder of the LA Tenants Union, Tracy Rosenthal, in conversation with organizers from DontEvictPDX and to celebrate the publication of the new book Abolish Rent. They'll discuss the resurgent tenant movement and how we can fight back, stay put, and take control of our homes.
Rent drives millions into debt, despair, and onto the streets. The social cost of rent is too damn high. For anyone fed up with the permanent housing crisis, complicit politicians, and real estate greed, Abolish Rent dissects our housing system from the perspective of those it immiserates. Through unsparing analysis and striking stories of resistance, it shows us how tenants can, through organizing and collective action, harness our power and win the housing we deserve.
Tracy Rosenthal is a cofounder of the L.A. Tenants Union, a frequent contributor to the New Republic, and the author, with Leonardo Vilchis, of Abolish Rent. They are now on rent strike in New York City.
A Conversation with Judith Barrington
Thrilled to announce that Judith Barrington will lead an informal conversation about short form and book-length literary memoirs. Bring ideas, questions, and book recommendations. No writing involved
This event is free. Please reserve your spot below
Apocalypse Party: Food & The Future
Apocalypse Party!
The Future is Coming! From the wreckage of late-stage capitalism, Kitchen Table reimagines food and the future. We’ll talk with bakers, beekeepers, farmers, and chefs about our collective journey into the great unknown.
Join Kitchen Table publisher Brett Warnock and designer Katrina Clasen in conversation with three inspiring contributors to the new issue—Sarah Marshall, Jami Cakes, and Talia Gragg—as they discuss the future of food in restaurants, home cooking, and farming. Get a behind-the-scenes look at how stories for independent food media are generated and come to life. After the panel, stick around to mingle with three insightful Portland-based food writers featured in The Future Issue.
We’ll be pouring Ginger Cult hard (and soft) ginger beer!
Featured Guests
Sarah Marshall is the owner of Marshall’s Haute Sauce and the author of Preservation Pantry. She is a writer, chef, recipe developer, podcast producer, and local foods advocate.
Jami Cakes is the co-owner of MariMacha, an inclusive lesbian wine bar, and the owner of Llena pop-up. She is a chef, farmer, restaurateur, and crazy dog lady.
Talia Gragg is an artist, bartender, wine nerd, and whiskey aficionado. She has worked at La Moule (RIP) and Multnomah Whiskey Library and is currently on staff at the très chic restaurant Street Disco—about which she wrote in the new issue.
Emme Lund & Autumn Bettinger Reading
Join Emme Lund and Autumn Bettinger as they read from SIR, a limited edition chapbook from Matthew Dickman and Scott Cannon’s Picture Frame Press
Emme Lund is an author living and writing in Portland, OR. She has an MFA from Mills College. Her work has appeared in Electric Literature, TIME Magazine, The Rumpus, Romper, the Portland Mercury, and Autostraddle, among many other venues. In 2019, she was awarded an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship in Fiction. Her debut novel, The Boy with a Bird in His Chest (Atria Books, 2022) was longlisted for the First Novel Prize from the Center For Fiction, is a finalist for an Oregon Book Award, was named a best book of the year by Buzzfeed and The Portland Mercury, and was included on lists in The Washington Post, USA Today, People Magazine, The Advocate, Cosmopolitan, and Shondaland.
Autumn Bettinger is a short-form fiction writer and full-time mother of two living in Portland, Oregon. She is a 2024 Fishtrap fellow, has won the Tadpole Press 100-Word Writing Contest, the Not Quite Write Flash Fiction Prize, and the Silver Scribes Prize. Her work has been audio adapted for The No Sleep Podcast and her stories can be found in The Journal of Compressed Literary Arts, The Good Life Review, Elegant Literature, and others.
Explore Meditation to Enhance Your Writing with Tieara Myers
In this exploratory workshop, you will explore writing in a group setting and learn meditation tools to enhance your writing experience. There will be time to write and time to be guided through meditations. We’ll also discuss writing, noting what comes up for you as you write, and how that transforms through the workshop.
Your journey in writing may be new or a process you’ve been exploring for some time. Writing may come to you with inspiration or with detailed depth and research. Everyone has their unique style of approaching writing. It is an expression of yourself. The subject matter is the medium that you transmute yourself through.
Your purpose for writing is your own. You may find it to be healing and part of your self-care practice. You may come to writing to have the experience of creating something new.
There is a wealth of things that may come up while you are writing. You may come across writer’s block. You may be nervous to share your story. You may think you are not good enough. You may struggle with creating pacing for your writing practice.
All levels are welcome! This means anyone new to writing, curious about writing, wanting to expand their journaling, or folks who have been writing for years are more than welcome to join in.
March Book Club
Join us for tea, fizzy drinks, snacks, and Zaina Arafat's YOU EXIST TOO MUCH
*this event is free but please register to reserve a spot
About the Book
A “provocative and seductive debut” of desire and doubleness that follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she endeavors to lead an authentic life (O, The Oprah Magazine).
"The writing here is electric and carries the narrative all the way through. This is an exciting and dynamic book that explores intersectional identity and human longing extremely well." ―Electric Literature, 14 Highly Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books Coming This Spring
On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12–year–old Palestinian–American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother’s response only intensifies a sense of shame: “You exist too much,” she tells her daughter.
Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East—from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine—Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought–after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as “love addiction.” In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her.
Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings—for love, and a place to call home.
Poetry Reading
Join us for a reading with poets Karen Rigby, Brittney Corrigan, Genevieve DeGuzman, and Joan Naviyuk Kane
Karen Rigby is the author of Chinoiserie (Ahsahta Press), which won a 2011 Sawtooth Poetry Prize, and Fabulosa (JackLeg Press), which was named as one of Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry of ’23-’24 selections. A National Endowment for the Arts literature fellow, her poems have been published in The London Magazine, Australian Book Review, Poetry Northwest, and other journals. She lives in Arizona.
Brittney Corrigan is the author of the poetry collections Daughters, Breaking, Navigation, 40 Weeks and most recently, Solastalgia, a collection of poems about climate change, extinction, and the Anthropocene Age (JackLeg Press, 2023). Brittney was raised in Colorado and has lived in Portland, Oregon for more than three decades, where she is an alumna and employee of Reed College. Her recent debut short story collection, The Ghost Town Collectives, won the 2023 Osprey Award for Fiction from Middle Creek Publishing.
Genevieve DeGuzman is the author of Karaoke at the End of the World (forthcoming March 2026, JackLeg Press). A 2022 Oregon Literary Fellow, she has been an Alice James Award finalist and earned Best New Poets nominations. Locally, she has been featured in the Poetry Moves project for C-TRAN and in Oregon Arts Watch. As a poet, Genevieve won the Atticus Review contest and was a finalist for the Michelle Boisseau Prize selected by Traci Brimhall and for the Black River competition by Black Lawrence Press. Born in the Philippines, she grew up near San Diego and lives in Northeast Portland.
Joan Naviyuk Kane is Inupiaq and the author and editor of many collections of poetry and prose, including Dark Traffic, Hyperboreal and Circumpolar Connections: Creative Indigenous Geographies of the Arctic. She has raised her children as a single mother in Alaska, Massachusetts, and Oregon, where she is an associate professor at Reed College.
February Book Club
Join us for tea, coffee, fizzy drinks, snacks, and much discussion around Kaveh Akbar's debut novel, Martyr!
*this event is free but please register below to reserve a spot
About The Book
“Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite writers. Ever.” —Tommy Orange, Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of There There
“The best novel you'll ever read about the joy of language, addiction, displacement, martyrdom, belonging, homesickness.” —Lauren Groff, best-selling author of Matrix and Fates and Furies
Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.
Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others.
Sip & Knit
Bring your current knitting project and join us Sunday at 1pm for book talk, tea, and snacks!
*We’re welcoming donations (books, gloves, hats) to the amazing Street Books
Poetry Reading
Join us for an evening of poetry and stories with Nastashia Minto and Robert Lashley!
About Nastashia
Nastashia Minto is the author of Naked: The Rhythm and Groove of It. The Depth and Length to It. They are African American, born in South Georgia and raised there by her grandparents. Her life experiences led them to obtain an associate degree in occupational therapy and a bachelor’s degree in psychology. An eccentric, spiritual dream tender, she has been writing since she was nine years old. She’s found that her writing offers a way to help both herself and others. She is a 2021 recipient of the Tanne Foundation Award whose work has appeared in literary journals such as Nailed, Gobshite Quarterly, Portland Metrozine, SUSAN The Journal, Unchaste Anthology, Survivorlit, and Heron Clan VIII. She is a popular featured reader at literary events and schools throughout the Pacific Northwest. She has been featured on podcasts such as Feminist Book Club, Literary Speaking, and Beyond Well with Shelia Hamilton.
About Robert
Robert Lashley was a 2016 Jack Straw Fellow, Artist Trust Fellow, and a nominee for a Stranger Genius Award. His books include Green River Valley (Blue Cactus Press, 2021), UpSouth (Small Doggies Press, 2017), and The Homeboy Songs (Small Doggies Press, 2014). His poetry has appeared in The Seattle Review of Books, NAILED, Poetry Northwest, McSweeney’s, and The Cascadia Review, and recently, The Cascadia Field Guide, which has been on the bestseller list for 40 weeks. In 2019, Entropy Magazine named The Homeboy Songs one of the 25 essential books to come out of Seattle. In 2024, his Novel, I Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer, was selected as a finalist for a Washington State Book Award.
Book Launch! SUPERSYMMETRY
Join us as we celebrate the launch of S.R. Schulz’s Supersymmetry published by Ooligan Press. Sean will be in conversation with translator and editor Agi Bori
About the book
For every particle, there is a hidden one that fits perfectly together with it. Balances it out. Makes the laws of the universe work.” In this one-of-a-kind story, a young woman struggles through faltering relationships to find meaning in her identity and in love.
Getting pregnant at nineteen was never Lisa’s plan. Postpartum depression, single parenthood, her own childhood trauma, and her son’s increasingly violent outbursts make Lisa feel like she’s unraveling. Alone, with guilt weighing heavy on her mind and her path shrouded in uncertainty, she leaves her hometown in Oregon and ventures to Croatia, hoping for a fresh start.
There, she meets Luka, a handsome man with a complex past. The partnership and love that Lisa builds with Luka helps her navigate the estranged familial relationships she left behind in Oregon, but as her feelings for Luka continue to develop, her past begins to resurface and she’s forced to confront the secrets she’s been keeping from him.
Lisa's present in Croatia and her past in Oregon collide in this dramatic story of a young woman looking to make her life into something more. Can Lisa run away from her problems forever, creating a new life, identity, and love for herself? Or will the pull of family prove stronger than the thousands of miles that separate them?
About the author
S.R. Schulz lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, three sons, and two dogs. He’s been traveling to visit family in Croatia since 2010. He currently works as a family physician just outside Portland, Oregon, and is a faculty member at Oregon Health & Science University. His writing has been published online and in print, including McSweeney’s, HAD, Rejection Letters, Maudlin House, Autofocus, and others. Supersymmetry is his first novel.
Picture Frame Press Chapbook Launch!
Join Margaret Malone and Tim Joy as they read from Early the Other Morning, a limited edition chapbook from Matthew Dickman and Scott Cannon’s Picture Frame Press
Margaret Malone is the host of the literary radio show Bust the Canon on Xray.fm and author of the story collection People Like You, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for First Fiction, winner of the Balcones Fiction Prize, and selected as one of the Northwest’s "25 Books to Read Before You Die."
A recipient of grants, fellowships, and residencies from institutions such as MacDowell, the Ucross Foundation, the Ford Family Foundation, Sitka Center, and Literary Arts, Margaret mentors established and emerging writers on their individual projects, in person and online. She loves connecting with writers worldwide—so feel free to reach out through the link below!
This is Tim Joy's first published work since the mid-1980s when a few of his personal narratives appeared in Northwest Magazine, a weekly insert in The Sunday Oregonian.
Tim taught English for 20 years at La Salle High School in Milwaukie and served as an administrator at De La Salle North Catholic High School in northeast Portland for another 21 years. He retired this past June and has been on the road with his bride, hanging out with grandchildren, or sitting under a tree with a book.
ENO/ONO New Year/Fresh Writing
Two-part workshop on Saturdays
Jan 25 and Feb 1, 2025
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Explore new stories + poems via Brian Eno’s “Obscure Strategy” instructional cards, Yoko Ono’s quirky experiential poems, Lynda Barry’s journaling exercises and more.
Logo c/o Uncomfortable Club.
Offered twice online via Corporeal. Now taught in person for the first time.
Alex Behr is the author of Planet Grim: Stories (7.13 Books) and is writing a second collection for 7.13, to be published the spring of 2026.
She is the co-author of the short fiction chapbook Cold Plum Wine (Picture Frame Press) and the author of the poetry chapbook Grief Stick (Picture Frame Press).
She received an MFA in creative writing from Portland State. She has taught intermediate fiction at the college level, creative writing residencies at Portland high schools for 10 years through Literary Arts’ Writers in the Schools and at the Portland Book Festival, online at Corporeal Writing, and new in 2025, in person at Up Up Books, The Attic, and Literary Arts.
Her interviews, essays, poems, and short fiction have appeared widely, including in Salon, Tin House, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Cleaver, X-R-A-Y, Propeller, The Rumpus, Oregon ArtsWatch, Oregon Humanities, Lumina, Portland Review, and Gravity of the Thing.
She has participated in and/or organized numerous readings in Portland, San Francisco, and New York City, and has contributed her writing to a podcast, cable TV show, and other media projects.
What Past Participants Are Saying About Alex’s Workshops!
"Alex’s class presentations opened new, imaginative paths to creativity for me using music, poetry, and the work of Brian Eno, Yoko Ono, Matthew Salesses, Michael Ondaatje and other brilliant writers. Alex’s insights are deep, original and funny. I loved the class and will sign up for more."
—Peter
“I’m so enjoying your class — the exercises, the journal, the new pathways to writing — thank you for offering it into the world."
—Margaret
"I’d rarely want to take a lab more than once, but I would return because I could get new material from the same portals/prompts, ideas, and leading that you did. This is one of THE best labs I’ve ever taken at Corporeal Writing. Hands down. You are a brilliant teacher."
—Katie
January Book Club
Join us at 6pm for Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
This event is free! Please dm or email michelle@upupbooks.com and let us know if you’ll be attending
Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer
Write for Life: A 6-Week Gathering
Every Sunday at 10 AM | Starting January 12, 2025
Begin, maintain focus, and complete your writing project
Whether you're a beginner or an experienced writer, Julia Cameron’s Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer will help you start, stay committed to, and complete your writing project. Over the course of six weeks, we’ll provide structure and community to support you, with weekly check-ins, group discussions on what’s coming up for us, and time to complete the writing tasks at the end of each chapter together as a group.
Details:
When: Sundays at 10:00 AM
Where: Up Up Books
Duration: 1 Hour per Week for 6 Weeks
Dates: January 12 – February 16
Cost: $50 (includes book)
How the Gathering Works:
Weekly Sessions: Every Sunday, we’ll gather for one hour to review key takeaways from Write for Life, discuss insights and challenges, and complete the writing tasks at the end of each chapter.
Daily Practice: Throughout the week, you’ll write Morning Pages daily, go on an Artist Date, try to meet your daily writing quota, and take a daily walk.
Community Support: This gathering is about having a supportive community. You’ll be part of a group of writers, all working toward completing their own projects, with space to share what’s coming up in their writing practice.
Voices of the Northwest: A Night of Poetry and Storytelling with Elisa Carlsen, Mari Matthias, and Amy Baskin
Join us January 10, 2025, at 7 PM for an unforgettable evening celebrating the rich voices of the Pacific Northwest. Three exceptional authors—Elisa Carlsen, Mari Matthias, and Amy Baskin—will share their work and the stories that inspire them.
Elisa Carlsen, poet and author of Cormorant (Unsolicited Press, 2023), explores the human dimensions of ecological projects in her evocative verse. Mari Matthias, author of The Runestone’s Promise (2022), brings her unique storytelling craft to the stage, offering a glimpse into her creative process as she builds anticipation for her upcoming novel, Cleah’s Bequest. Amy Baskin, an award-winning poet and author of Night Hag (Unsolicited Press, 2023), reimagines myth and history in her compelling poetry.
Don't miss this opportunity to hear from these talented writers and engage with the narratives that define the Northwest. Admission is free, and books will be available for purchase and signing.
Book Launch! Allisa Cherry’s An Exodus of Sparks
Join us Thursday at 7pm for the launch of Allisa Cherry’s debut poetry collection, An Exodus of Sparks! Allisa will be joined by Laura Moulton and Dominic Laing
About Alllisa Cherry
Allisa Cherry’s debut poetry collection, An Exodus of Sparks (Michigan State University Press)won the 2024 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize and was a finalist for both Persea Books’ Lexi Rudnitsky Prize and The Sewanee Review’s poetry contest. Her writing has appeared in many literary journals, including TriQuarterly, Penn Review, The Journal, The Baltimore Review, Rust & Moth, and many more.
Allisa was raised in a rural religious community in the irradiated high desert along the eastern border of Arizona. She has long since relocated to the Pacific Northwest where she completed her MFA in Poetry at Pacific University. Allisa works in workforce development teaching classes designed for immigrants and refugees transitioning to a life in the United States and is an associate poetry editor for West Trade Review.
About Laura Moulton
Laura Moulton is the author of Loaners: The Making of a Street Library, (Perfect Day Publishing). She is founder and director of Street Books, (https://streetbooks.org), Portland’s bicycle-powered mobile library for people living outside and at the margins. She also created Truth & Dare, a contemporary arts and writing workshop, (https://truthanddare.substack.com). Her work has taken her into public schools, prisons, shelters and universities. Participatory art projects have featured postal workers, poets, immigrants and writers incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. She has taught writing at Lewis & Clark College and for Literary Arts. She earned an MFA from Eastern Washington University.
About Dominic Laing
Dominic Laing is a memoirist and poet who believes good storytelling invites people to know and be known. He's a writer because when he writes, he feels communion...and also because his sixth-grade English teacher told him to keep at it. So, here's to you, Glenda.
Dominic loves stained-glass windows, gluten-free waffles and gardening. He's officiated three weddings and broken one finger. Dominic's work is published in Ekstasis, Hinterlands, Madcap Review and Ellipsis Zine. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his partner, Jenae, and their new baby, Sonora.
Chapbook Launch! Matthew Dickman's Love Spell/Love Hex with Alex Behr and Joseph Mains
Join us Friday at 7pm for the launch of Matthew Dickman’s new chapbook, Love Spell/Love Hex. He will be joined by writers Alex Behr and Joseph Mains
Matthew Dickman is the author of Husbandry, Wonderland, Mayakovsky's Revolver, Brother, 50 American Plays, and All-American Poem, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize and a Kate Tufts Award. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Sarton Award for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry Magazine, The London Review of Books, and Poetry London, among other places.
Alex Behr is the author of Planet Grim: Stories (7.13 Books). Her second short fiction collection is forthcoming in 2026. Behr received a Regional Arts and Culture Council Arts3C grant to produce the short film Grief Stick, directed and edited by Brian Padian. Through poetry, videos, and music, it explores the sudden death of Alex’s fiancé. It’s accompanied by a chapbook of the same name (Picture Frame Press). She is the co-author of Cold Plum Wine (Picture Frame Press). Her writing has appeared widely, including in Tin House, Salon, Oregon Humanities, Gravity of the Thing, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Portland Review, Lumina, Propeller, Oregon ArtsWatch, and Painted Bride Quarterly
Joseph Mains is a writer and poet who lives and works in Portland, Oregon. He has had work published in The Collapsar, H_NGM_N, and Spork Press among others.
Sip and Knit
Burned out on the holiday rush? Stop in Saturday, December 14, from 3- 4:30 pm and knit, drink cider or tea, eat cookies and share book ideas with author Alex Behr
We’re welcoming donations (books, scarves, gloves, hats)to the amazing @street.books as well.
To RSVP- DM or email michelle@upupbooks.com
Many Seasons and Writing the Self
Workshop with author Frances Badalamenti where you will talk about the art of writing self, the craft of book-writing and book-editing and practice the writing of self
Poetics of Care
Poetics of Care Reading with local poets, Sara Guest, Emily Kendal Frey and Daneen Bergland
Sara Guest is a longtime facilitator and former Write Around Portland staffer who has taught and facilitated writing and reading workshops with Literary Arts, Soapstone, PNCA and the Northwest Narrative Medicine Collaborative. She has lived in Portland since 2004 and is an avid reader, poet, editor, creative and community-builder who is a Senior Fellow with American Leadership Forum of Oregon, sits on the Write Around Portland board and Development Council for Literary Arts and works as Communications Advisor to Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson.
Emily Kendal Frey lives in Portland. She is the author of the poetry collections THE GRIEF PERFORMANCE and SORROW ARROW (which won the Oregon Book Award). Her latest collection, LOVABILITY, is out from Fonograf Editions. She is a practicing psychotherapist.
Daneen Bergland grew up in the Midwest but long ago found her way home to the Pacific Northwest. She is a recipient of an Oregon Literary Arts fellowship, a co-editor of the poetry collective Airlie Press, and author of The Goodbye Kit, whose poems examine our relationships to each other and with the more than human world, and share in common a sense of lament and wonder for the mutability of life.
Book Launch: Sacred Folks by Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
About Sacred Folks
Sacred Folks (University of New Mexico Press) brings it all home in the final book of Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.’s urban Native Chicago story cycle. Disciples, demons, gods, gangbangers, and the city itself all meet up to tell unforgettable tales across time and neighborhoods. Our guide through the trilogy, Teddy, is right in the thick of things, and he recounts for us parts of the path to the end and explains how and maybe why we got here and where we might go after all.
About Theodore Van Alst
Theodore is the author of the Sacred trilogy, of which Sacred Smokes and Sacred City are the first two installments, and the gothic novella Pour One for the Devil. He is also the coeditor of the national bestseller Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology and creative editor for Transmotion (a journal of postmodern Indigenous studies). His fiction and photography have been published in The Raven Chronicles, Red Earth Review, The Journal of Working-Class Studies, Unnerving Magazine, The Rumpus, Electric Literature, and Yellow Medicine Review, among others.
Theodore C. Van Alst is Professor and Chair of Indigenous Nations Studies and Director of the School of Gender Race and Nations at Portland State University.
Book Launch: Henry Latourette Miller’s The Pacific Northwest Disaster Guide & in coversation with Paul Slyman
About Pacific Northwest Disaster Guide
The Pacific Northwest Disaster Guide focuses on specific natural disasters, and provides precise and helpful preparation skills through illustrations, quizzes, and guided activities fit for all ages. Learn to:
Pack Go Bags and build living stockpiles.
Identify natural disasters before they strike.
Secure your home in case of damaging events.
Plan household evacuation procedures for multiple disasters.
Survive and thrive in the aftermath of catastrophe.
About Henry Latourette Miller
Henry is a writer and city planner based in the Portland, Oregon, metro area, where he grew up. As a journalist, he has written about our housing crisis, sustainable transportation, and the intersection between planning and culture for various publications, including Street Roots, BikePortland, and The Oregonian. As a planner, he always looks for bold and practical solutions to make it easier for Americans to thrive in their communities.
About Paul Slyman
Paul has been the General Manager of Major Projects at Metro since 2010. He previously worked at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and the Portland Development Commission.
Cameron Walker reading & in conversation with Erica Berry
Delighted to welcome Cameron Walker, author of the recent collecition of short stories, How to Capture Carbon, who will be in conversation with Erica Berry.
About the Book
How to Capture Carbon: In a dozen luminous stories, award-winning author Cameron Walker brings readers to the water’s edge, where the known world collides with magic and with the mysterious depths of the human heart. Here, a pandemic turns children into sea creatures, a baker kneads unusual pie crusts during a California mudslide, and a young man sets off to see the world in a flying coat. Lyrical and dreamlike, How to Capture Carbon navigates the seas of a changing climate and the transformative power of loss--and of love.
About Cameron Walker
Cameron Walker is the author of the children’s book National Monuments of the U.S.A. and the essay collection Points of Light. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Orion, and The Last Word On Nothing. She lives in California with her family.
About Erica Berry
Erica Berry is the author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear which won the 2024 Oregon Book Award. Her essays appear in the New York Times, the Yale Review, the Guardian, and other publications. She is a contributing editor at Orion magazine and teaches writing in Portland, Oregon.
Book Launch: Beau Bernstein’s Shotgun Woman with Summer Stewart
Join us for the book launch of Beau Bernstein’s SHOTGUN WOMAN (Unsolicited Press) with Summer Stewart!
About Shotgun Woman
From the outside looking in, Wheaton County is a picturesque little farm town on a sleepy stretch of interstate, deep in the heart of Texas. A slice of the American dream in its Golden Age. But beyond this carefully manicured façade, something sinister is beginning to surface. The year is 1953 and hot on the heels of a fiercely divisive local election, with desegregation on the ballot, the challenger to the County Commissioner has just been found dead in a roadside ditch. In the eyes of the sheriff’s department, the fatality is just an unfortunate traffic accident. But to the man’s grieving widow, Eudora Burleson, it’s anything but. To uncover the twisted conspiracy and expose the truth, Eudora must go toe-to-toe with corrupt politicians, two-faced townsfolk, and even the infamous Ku Klux Klan themselves – in a town that’s all too sympathetic to their cause. But make no mistake; Eudora Burleson is no timid housewife. Raised by a grizzled old outlaw during the Great Depression, Eudora’s upbringing was tough, so tough she became. And though she’s outnumbered, outflanked, and outgunned, with allies few and far between, Eudora’s not backing down. She’s taking the fight to them, come hell or high water.
About Beau Bernstein
Beau Bernstein is a professional writer, amateur anthropologist, and terrible musician. Born and raised in Texas, he now lives in the majestic Pacific Northwest with his wife and two Portuguese Water Dogs. He was last spotted wandering in the forest somewhere west of the Olympic Mountains.
About Summer Stewart
Summer is a poet and editor living in the PNW. She is co-founder of Unsolicited Press and her poetry has been published in Forth Magazine, Ampersand Lit, Two Cities Review, Beacon Magazine, Pear Drop Magazine, Euphony, and Nameless Magazine. Summer holds an MFA from Portland State.
Scavengers & Querencia Press Presents: A Portland Book Festival Off-Site Reading
Scavengers Literary Magazine and Querencia Press Presents: A Portland Book Festival Off-Site Reading!
Come here some of Scavengers and Querencia’s amazing contributors read from their work!
Monstrous Bodies Poetry Reading with Diannely Antigua & Amanda Hawkins
Join poets Amanda Hawkins and Diannely Antigua at UpUp Books where they'll read from their collections and discuss how poetry "cage[s] and cradle[s]" visceral truths. Hawkins's forthcoming collection, When I Say the Bones I Mean the Bones (Wandering Aengus, 2025), "burns through themes of living, dying, of the spiritual, how human beings fit onto and into the earth." Antigua's Good Monster (Copper Canyon, 2024) "reckons with shame and her fallout with faith." Both poets embrace darkness and ambiguity in their pursuit of spaces - bodily and otherwise - worthy of being called home.
Portland Book Festival: Cover to Cover
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