Events
Grime by Thea Matthews with Matthew Dickman
Join us as we celebrate the release of Grime, the much-anticipated new book by Thea Matthews. She will be in conversation with Matthew Dickman
About GRIME
From addiction and familial dysfunction to gentrification and police brutality, GRIME examines harsh realities through an activist lens with a rare deftness of poetic form.
These poems explore the dichotomous gravity of despair and desire, apathy and protest, defeat and survival. They trace San Francisco's skyline to encapsulate being born and raised in a metropolis that has grown increasingly strange to its native citizens, even as it serves as a mnemonic for past trauma and death.
Part elegy, part call to resistance, GRIME chronicles Matthews' childhood growing up in the Tenderloin, amidst the glamour and allure of its drug-fueled street life and the squalor of its poverty and addiction, even as the poems veer off from the autobiographical into portraits and dramatic monologues, on the one hand, and experiments with traditional forms like ghazals and pantoums, on the other. The poems hold grit and anguish in one breath, marrying an unflinching eye to a rare formal assurance. As austerity pushes the margins of each page, in poem after poem, the setting shifts, the characters assume different names, yet every moment interlocks to expose the grime of living in the city.
Thea Matthews is a poet of African and Indigenous Mexican descent, originally from San Francisco, California. She holds an MFA in Poetry from New York University and a BA in Sociology from UC Berkeley. Her work has appeared in Colorado Review, The Common, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, The Massachusetts Review, The New Republic, Alta Journal, among others. Matthews is the author of GRIME (City Lights Books, 2025). Her debut collection, Unearth [The Flowers], was published by Red Light Lit Press and was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Poetry Books of 2020. Matthews lives in Brooklyn, New York
Matthew Dickman is the author of Husbandry, Wonderland, Mayakovsky’s Revolver, and All-American Poem, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Sarton Award for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a father, teacher, and freelance creative living in Portland, Oregon
Poetry Reading: H.G. Dierdorff, Emmi Greer, and Kyle Marbut
Join us Saturday for an evening of poetry with H.G. Dierdorff, Emmi Greer, and Kyle Marbut
H. G. Dierdorff is the author of Rain, Wind, Thunder, Fire, Daughter, which was published by the University of Nevada Press in 2024. Their work has been awarded a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship & appeared in journals such as Cut Bank, Arkansas International, & Willow Springs. You can currently find them in Portland, Oregon, where they teach at Clackamas Community College & in the local high schools with Literary Arts
Emmi Greer (all pronouns) is a writer, editor, educator, and snack artist based in Portland, Oregon where they curate and edit the local anthology publication, Buckman Journal. They use queer, neurodivergent forms to investigate the polyamorous relationships between language, art, and consciousness
Kyle Marbut is a poet and bookmaker from Ohio. They are the author of Black Swan Theory (Burnside Review Press) and the chapbooks Cold Open, Inlet, and Last Laugh. They live in Richmond, Virginia
Spanish Book Club with Hector Coronado
El 3 de Noviembre a las 6:30 p.m., acompáñanos en el Club de Lectura en Español
The discussion will be held in Spanish, but you’re welcome to read the novel in either language
Both English and Spanish editions are available for purchase at Up Up Books and you can buy the English version here
About The Transmigration of Bodies
A plague has brought death to the city. Two feuding crime families with blood on their hands need our hard-boiled hero, The Redeemer, to broker peace. Both his instincts and the vacant streets warn him to stay indoors, but The Redeemer ventures out into the city’s underbelly to arrange for the exchange of the bodies they hold hostage. Yuri Herrera’s novel is a response to the violence of contemporary Mexico. With echoes of Romeo and Juliet, Roberto Bolaño and Raymond Chandler, The Transmigration of Bodies is a noirish tragedy and a tribute to those bodies loved, sanctified, lusted after, and defiled that violent crime has touched
El club de lectura será moderado por Héctor Coronado, un poco acerca de él:
Hector nació en Monterrey, México, vivió ahí hasta los 12 años, y considera su lengua materna “Mexicana” - no exactamente Castellana o Español. Ha vivido la mayoría de su vida en Estados Unidos (en Portland desde Febrero de 2024), obtuvo su bachillerato en literatura hispana de la Universidad de Texas, y ahora mantiene contacto con su primer idioma a través de libros, música, cine y vínculos familiares. Este será su tercer grupo de lectura y está muy entusiasmado por esta conversación relajada e informal!
Unsolicited Press - This is Not a Quiet Panel: Womxn Writing for Their Lives
Join Unsolicited Press for an unforgettable evening of fierce, fearless conversation as a panel of womxn authors come together to explore the complexities of identity, memory, and survival through writing. From sexuality and motherhood to growing up rural and the historical erasure of women’s voices, these writers will share how their work interrogates, reclaims, and reimagines what it means to tell one's story in a world that too often silences womxn.
Featured speakers:
Amy Baskin
Elisa Carlsen
Kerry Donoghue
Summer Stewart
Mari Matthias
Aileen Keown Vaux
The discussion will delve into personal and collective narratives, craft, and the power of literature to challenge social norms and ignite change. A Q&A and book signing will follow.
Don’t miss this celebration of womxn’s voices in all their nuance, strength, and defiance.
All are welcome. Event is free.
Conversing with the Dead: Alex Behr, Brian Padian, Allisa Cherry and Jason Arias
Join us for an evening of prose, poetry, and film as part of the Portland Book Festival 2025’s Cover to Cover! series.
Featuring a special screening of Grief Stick, written by Alex Behr and directed by Brian Padian, with writers Allisa Cherry and Jason Arias
The evening includes live readings, optional audience writing prompts, conversation, and light refreshments
All are welcome. Event is free
Book Launch: Gods of the Smoke Machine by Scott Latta with Elena Passarello
Join us for the launch of Gods of the Smoke Machine: Power, Pain, and the Rise of Christian Nationalism in the Megachurch by Scott Latta, who will be in conversation with author and essayist Elena Passarello.
About Gods of the Smoke Machine
We are entering a new era of religion in America: For the first time, fewer than half the country belongs to a church. Within that group, growing numbers are consolidating in megachurches, which are amassing social and political power in our age of convenience and easy celebrity.
Megachurch pastors have never been more influential--with media empires, networks, and entire colleges under their control. But their churches have also never been more prone to abuse and hurt. Gods of the Smoke Machine goes inside America's largest churches to uncover the hidden stories of trauma happening within our most powerful Christian institutions and meet the survivors, attorneys, and advocates fighting for accountability. It is a cloaked world of sex, power, politics, and money, but also a human story of pain, betrayal, and resilience.
Combining personal storytelling and original reporting, author Scott Latta pulls back the curtain on a dangerously insular institution of more than seventeen hundred churches nationwide that is answerable to almost no outside accountability.
Even those who have never set foot in a church can feel the implications of this societal shift. Megachurch pastors were the kingmakers of Donald Trump and drove the rhetoric behind the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. For decades, they have crafted their own laws even as they fought to influence ours.
Scott Latta is an award-winning journalist who has spent a decade reporting for humanitarian organizations on conflict, displacement, and climate change around the world. His essays and reporting have been featured in The Believer, CityLab, Modern Farmer, and The Southampton Review, which awarded him the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize
Elena Passarello is the author of two award-winning nonfiction collections: Let Me Clear My Throat and Animals Strike Curious Poses. She appears weekly on the PRX radio program Live Wire, and hosts the podcast Open Book, where authors discuss their reading habits. Elena is on faculty at the Oregon State University MFA program
The Comic Book History of the Cocktail by David Wondrich with Jim Meehan
Join us for The Comic Book History of the Cocktail: Five Centuries of Mixing Drinks and Carrying On by David Wondrich in conversation with Jim Meehan
About The Comic Book History of the Cocktail
David Wondrich, widely considered to be one of the world's foremost authorities on cocktails, teamed up with comics artist Dean Kotz to trace the evolution of the cocktail. Beginning with the ancient days of wassail and hypocras (mixed drinks based on wine and beer), they narrate a tumultuous and vibrant history. This illustrated history stretches through the Age of Exploration, the boozier parts of the Enlightenment and America’s hurly-burly nineteenth century, to the disco years, the Cosmo years, and the modern cocktail revolution.
Kotz’s intricate, masterful drawings illustrate stories that have never been properly told and introduce key characters who haven’t yet received their due. Nearly thirty recipes round out this spirited account, featuring accurate versions of old classics and a generous selection of secret weapons from the mixologist’s vest pocket.
As the drinks columnist for Esquire from 2000 to 2016 and the Daily Beast from 2016 to 2022, David Wondrich was perfectly placed not only to observe the modern cocktail revolution, but also to help push it along. A former English professor with a PhD in comparative literature, he turned his studies to good use in writing books such as the James Beard Award–winning Imbibe!, a biography-with-recipes of pioneering bartender Jerry Thomas, and editing The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, which the American Library Association deemed the best reference book of 2021.
Wondrich has trained thousands of bartenders, appeared on Conan O’Brien, The Colbert Report, and The Rachel Maddow Show; collaborated in developing several award-winning spirits (along with his own barware line); and was voted the #3 most influential person in the bar world by a thousand of his peers. He divides his time between Brooklyn, New York, and Trieste, Italy.
Bartender, journalist, and author of The PDT Cocktail Book, Meehan’s Bartender Manual and The Bartender’s Pantry, Meehan has worked in nearly every capacity of the hospitality industry for over 40-plus years.
A Chicago-area native educated in Wisconsin, Meehan achieved acclaim for his work behind the bar in New York City and now resides in Portland, Oregon
Range of Motion by Brian Trapp with Matthew Dickman
We’re delighted to welcome Brian Trapp to Up Up Books for a reading from his novel Range of Motion. He’ll be joined in conversation by Matthew Dickman.
Range of Motion is a comic yet poignant coming-of-age novel about twins, caregiving, and connection. It follows a pair of twins: Michael, the awkward “normal one,” and Sal, who is charming, mischievous, and has cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities, and speech disabilities. The novel is partly based on my experience of growing up with my own twin brother Danny, who could only say 12 words but still found ways to express himself in profound ways. It’s a novel about the resilience of special needs families and the secret language of siblings
Brian Trapp is director of disability studies at the University of Oregon, where he also teaches fiction and nonfiction. His work has been published in the Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Longreads, Brevity, and elsewhere. He has been a Steinbeck Fellow, a Borchardt Scholar, and an Elizabeth George grant recipient. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, with his twin brother, Danny
Matthew Dickman is the author of Husbandry, Wonderland, Mayakovsky’s Revolver, and All-American Poem, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Sarton Award for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a father, teacher, and freelance creative living in Portland, Oregon
Hell Yeah by Rachelle Toarmino with Aidan Ryan, Zubair Ahmed, Christopher Diaz, and Jeff Alessandrelli
Join us as we celebrate the release of Hell Yeah, Rachelle Toarmino’s highly anticipated second collection of poems. She will be joined by Aidan Ryan, Zubair Ahmed, Christopher Diaz, and Jeff Alessandrelli
About Hell Yeah
An intimate, ecstatic examination of the wonders of common speech. As automatic and wholehearted as a hell yeah between friends, the poems interject into various sites of the interpersonal-from a work email and doctor's office to a long-distance call and Yahoo! Answers rabbit hole — to measure the strange, mundane, and ancient ways we relate and respond to one another. In an alternating rhythm of logic and lyric, doubt and doubling down, Toarmino regifts plain and inherited language to arrive at a theory for familiarity and something like faith: how we know what we know and why we share what we know. With curiosity, generosity, oddball intellect, and charm, Hell Yeah captures that gut impulse to feel yes, say so, and sing it.
Rachelle Toarmino is a poet from Niagara Falls, New York. She is the author of the poetry collections Hell Yeah (Third Man Books, 2025) and That Ex (Big Lucks Books, 2020), as well as several chapbooks, most recently My Science (Sixth Finch Books, 2025), winner of the 2024 Sixth Finch Chapbook Contest. Her work has appeared in Poets.org, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Southeast Review, The Slowdown, and Omnidawn, which awarded her its 2024 Single Poem Broadside Prize. She earned her MFA in poetry at UMass Amherst, where she received an Academy of American Poets Prize. She is also the founding editor in chief of the literary publishing project Peach Mag and the creator and lead instructor of Beauty School, an independent poetry school. She lives in Buffalo
Aidan Ryan is the author of I Am Here You Are Not I Love You (University of Iowa Press, 2025), and the director and producer of a short documentary film of the same name. His writing has appeared in Public Books, The Millions, The White Review, Lit Hub, Colorado Review, and elsewhere, and in the anthologies Conversations with George Saunders, Best New Poets 2019, and Silo City Reading Series: Ten Years of Poems in Grain Silos. He is the publisher of Foundlings Press and senior editor at Traffic East. He lives in Buffalo, New York.
Zubair Ahmed is a Bengali-American poet. He is the author of City of Rivers, published in the McSweeney’s Poetry Series, and a chapbook, Ashulia, published by Tavern Books. His works have appeared in Poetry, Tin House, The Believer among others. He lives in and works from Portland, OR.
Christopher Diaz is an indigenous CHamoru from the Pacific Island of Guåhan (Guam). As a writer, performer, and photographer, he has been featured by NBC news, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Poets & Writers.org, and more. He is a two-time grand slam champion of Houston’s slam poetry team, “Write About Now,” which ranked fifth in the nation in 2018, and he won first place at the 2023 Bigfoot Regional Poetry Slam festival with his PNW team. He has previously taught poetry and performance with the non-profit, "Writers in the Schools,” and offers free and paid writing workshops in Portland and Vancouver. You can find him at www.christopherdiazcreates.com.
Jeff Alessandrelli is the author of seven books, most recently the novel And Yet (Future Tense, 2024). His poetry and prose have been published in The American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. His reviews and interviews in Bomb Magazine, The Rumpus, Kenyon Review, Rain and more. He also directs the nonprofit book press/record label Fonograf Editions.
Open Mic!
Join us for Open Mic hosted by Matthew Dickman, Saturday, October 25 from 5–7 PM.
We’re thrilled to welcome the poet Bobby Elliott who will kick off the evening by reading some of his latest work—then we’ll open the floor to YOU!
Here’s how it works:
Sign-up starts at 5 PM
14 available spots
Read ONE PAGE (poem, novel, essay - whatever you’re currently working on!)
You have 5 minutes to share, and your name will be drawn randomly.
ALL ARE WELCOME!
Bobby Elliott is an award-winning poet and educator. His debut collection of poems, The Same Man, was selected by Nate Marshall as the winner of the 2025 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize and was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press on September 9th, 2025. His writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from BOMB, The Cortland Review, ONLY POEMS, Poet Lore, Poetry Northwest, RHINO and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and sons
Matthew Dickman is the author of Husbandry, Wonderland, Mayakovsky’s Revolver, and All-American Poem, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Sarton Award for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a father, teacher, and freelance creative living in Portland, Oregon
Two Poets and a Memoirist: Writing the Personal and Paternal
Join us for an evening of readings and conversation with memoirist Wayne Scott, and poets Matthew Dickman, and Matthew Nienow. They will share new work, reflect on their personal journeys, and discuss how parenthood, partnership, and art intersect
Wayne Scott is the author of the memoir The Maps They Gave Us: One Marriage Reimagined. His writing has appeared in The Sun, Poets & Writers, The Psychotherapy Networker, Huffington Post, and The Oregonian, among others. His New York Times essay, “Two Open Marriages in One Small Room” (January 2020), was adapted for the Modern Love podcast and read by Edoardo Ballerini (summer 2021), then “dutchified” for Modern Love (Amsterdam), the television series, in 2022. Some of his more notable tweets are included in Tolstoy Together: 85 Days of War and Peace (A Public Space Books, 2021). He was a Tin House Fellow in 2019. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his partner and three young adult children. He works as a writer, psychotherapist, and teacher
Matthew Dickman is the author of Husbandry, Wonderland, Mayakovsky’s Revolver, and All-American Poem, which won the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Sarton Award for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his two sons
Matthew Nienow is the author of two poetry collections from Alice James Books: House of Water (2016) and If Nothing (2025), as well as three earlier chapbooks. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Georgia Review, New England Review, 32 Poems, and other journals. A former Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellow, he has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Elizabeth George Foundation, Artist Trust, and 4Culture. He lives in Port Townsend, Washington, with his wife and two sons
Radical Lesbians & the Second Wave
Judith Barrington and June Thomas come together for an evening of readings from their latest books - Virginia’s Apple: Collected Memoirs and A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women’s Culture - followed by a conversation with the audience. Come if you lived through it; come if you want to know about it
June Thomas is a journalist and podcaster. She previously served as senior managing producer for Slate’s podcasts and was the founding editor of Outward, Slate’s LGBTQ section. She is the author of A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women’s Culture. Her writing has appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek, Marie Claire, T Magazine, and The Advocate. After spending forty years in America she now resides in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Judith Barrington is the author of Virginia’s Apples: Collected Memoirs, published in October 2024. Her earlier memoir, Lifesaving, won a Lambda Literary Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir. She is also the author of the best-selling craft book Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art, as well as five poetry collections. Her memoirs and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Creative Nonfiction, ZYZZYVA, Narrative, and the Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, and have been listed as “Notable Essays” in The Best American Essays. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Poetry Reading
Join us for an evening of poetry with three remarkable voices, Kathleen Flenniken, Jessica E. Johnson, and Jennifer Perrine
Kathleen Flenniken is the author of Dressing in the Dark, selected for the Pacific Northwest Poetry Series by Linda Bierds and published by Lynx House Press in Fall 2025. Her other collections include Post Romantic (2020), Plume (2012) and Famous (2006). She is the recipient of fellowships from the NEA and Artist Trust, a Pushcart Prize, and a Washington State Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Image, Orion, the Cascadia Field Guide and Poetry Unbound anthologies, and in the documentary film Richland, now streaming on Apple TV. She served as Washington State Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2014
Jessica E. Johnson (she/they) is the author of the book-length poem Metabolics (Acre Poetry Series), the chapbook In Absolutes We Seek Each Other (New Michigan Press), and the memoir Mettlework (Acre Books). Jessica is a career community college instructor based in Portland, Oregon and a contributor to Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. She co-hosts the Constellation Reading Series
Jennifer (JP) Perrine is the author of five books of poetry: Beautiful Outlaw, Again, The Body Is No Machine, In the Human Zoo, and No Confession, No Mass. JP lives in Portland, where they cohost the Incite: Queer Writers Read series and work with the Parks and Nature department
Book Launch: Patrick McGinty
Join us Friday evening as we celebrate the release of Patrick McGinty’s Town College City Road. Patrick will be in conversation with Candace Jane Opper and Sarah Marshall
About Town College City Road
An emotionally complex coming-of-age story — Kirkus Reviews
Town College City Road will leave readers both shattered and strangely hopeful—a brilliant, unmissable novel that cements a major literary talent — Chelsea Bieker, author of Madwoman and Godshot
A queer Rust Belt coming-of-age novel, Town College City Road follows Kurt Boozel from childhood in an insular Northwestern Pennsylvania steel town through life’s booms and busts, and back to his Rust Belt home. As a teenage math whiz, Kurt is bullied but relishes the opportunity to tutor his high school’s star athlete. After their friendship ends in a public and emasculating act of violence, Kurt steers his life progressively eastward, first as a closeted economics major clinging to the coattails of his richer fraternity brothers, then to New York for a high-pressure finance job. After turning his attention to the fantastic promises of the cryptocurrency market, he finds himself unmoored while driving across Pennsylvania in the midst of a snowstorm to be the best man at his brother’s wedding.
Through his struggles to pass multiple masculine initiations, both real and metaphorical, Kurt ultimately discovers that the only thing tougher than running away from rural mythology is constructing a new one
Patrick McGinty teaches at Slippery Rock University and serves on the executive council for his statewide faculty union, APSCUF. He is the author of Test Drive (Propeller Press, 2022), a novel about Pittsburgh’s driverless car sector
Candace Jane Opper is a writer, a mother, a visual artist, and a numbers person. She is the author of Certain and Impossible Events, selected by Cheryl Strayed as the winner of a Kore Press Memoir Award and featured in NPR’s 2021 Books We Love
Sarah Marshall is a writer, podcaster, and media critic focused on setting straight our collective memory. She is the co-host of the popular modern history podcast You’re Wrong About, which has been highlighted in the New Yorker, the Guardian and Time Magazine
Spanish Book Club
Though this book club will be led in Spanish, you’re welcome to read the novel in either language
Both the English and Spanish editions are available for purchase at Up Up Books
Acompáñanos para discutir Pedro Páramo. “One of the best novels in Hispanic literature, and in literature as a whole.” —Jorge Luis Borges
Una obra maestra de lo surreal que influyó en una generación de escritores en América Latina, Pedro Páramo es el relato de otro mundo de la búsqueda de un hombre por su padre perdido. Ese hombre le jura a su madre moribunda que encontrará al padre que nunca conoció, Pedro Páramo, pero cuando llega al pueblo de Comala, lo encuentra habitado por recuerdos y alucinaciones. Allí surge la trágica historia del propio Páramo y del pueblo en cuyo cada rincón permanece la huella de su alma podrida
Hector nació en Monterrey, México, vivió ahí hasta los 12 años, y considera su lengua materna “Mexicana" - no exactamente Castellana o Español. Ha vivido la mayoría de su vida en Estados Unidos (en Portland desde Febrero de 2024), obtuvo su bachillerato en literatura hispana de la Universidad de Texas, y ahora mantiene contacto con su primer idioma a través de libros, música, cine y vínculos familiares. Este será su segundo grupo de lectura y está muy entusiasmado por esta conversación relajada e informal!
Open Mic! w/ Wayne Scott, hosted by Matthew Dickman
Join us for Open Mic hosted by Matthew Dickman, Saturday, September 27 from 5–7 PM.
We’re thrilled to welcome writer Wayne Scott who will kick off the evening by reading some of his latest work—then we’ll open the floor to YOU!
Here’s how it works:
Sign-up starts at 5 PM
14 available spots
Read ONE PAGE (poem, novel, essay - whatever you’re currently working on!)
You have 5 minutes to share, and your name will be drawn randomly.
ALL ARE WELCOME!
Wayne Scott is the author of, The Maps They Gave Us: One Marriage Reimagined (2025, Black Lawrence Press) and his writing has appeared in The Sun, Poets and Writers, The Psychotherapy Networker, Huffington Post, and The Oregonian, among others. His New York Times essay, “Two Open Marriages in One Small Room” (January 2020) was adapted for the Modern Love podcast and read by Edoardo Ballerini (summer 2021), then “dutchified” for Modern Love (Amsterdam), the television series, in 2022. He is a writer, psychotherapist, and teacher in Portland, Oregon
Matthew Dickman is the author of Husbandry, Wonderland, Mayakovsky’s Revolver, and All-American Poem, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Sarton Award for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a father, teacher, and freelance creative living in Portland, Oregon
Book Launch for Psychotropia: Under the Influence
We’re thrilled to celebrate the release of Bill Reinert’s Psychotropia: Under the Influence — a cosmic trip where cults, conspiracies, and cosmic cephalopods collide. Bill will be in conversation with his niece, Catherine, to discuss his new book and the ideas behind it
Bill Reinert is a retired journalist and teacher who spends his time writing satire, playing the piano, working word puzzles, and torturing his cats with a laser pointer. He also volunteers as a tutor in an ESL class for adult immigrants and studies Spanish in his spare time. He has written for, edited, and copyedited newspapers and magazines in Texas and on the West Coast. Born in Rhode Island, he graduated from the University of Rhode Island and hitchhiked across the country in his 20s, falling in love with the Great Northwest along the way. He’s spent most of his life on the Left Coast, mostly in Portland, Oregon, where he now resides
Catherine Reinert currently resides in Denver, Colorado where she works as a nurse and researcher. Prior to her transition into the medical field, Catherine received a B.A. in English literature. She has a lifelong interest in travel, reading, films, and, of course, apocalyptic sci-fi
Belmont Art Collective Reading & Pre-Reading Writing Prompt
Join the members of the Belmont Art Collective Saturday September14 at 6pm for an inaugural reading of poetry and fiction. Featuring the work of Karolinn Fiscaletti, Karah Kemmerly, Carolyn Supinka, and Alex Terlecky
Before the reading, come early to join BAC for a nature-inspired writing exercise in the workshop space at 5:30pm. Registration is free and BAC is accepting donations to be contributed to the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition
Freewrite w/ Write Around Portland
Join Write Around Portland for a writing workshop hosted with Ruth Leibowitz. This in-person writing circle will take you on a journey to craft fantastical worlds and characters. You’ll dive into writing activities and prompts designed to push the limits of your imagination and reignite your creativity
The cost for this workshop is $35
Visit Write Around Portland for more information and to register:
Open Mic!
Join us for Open Mic hosted by Matthew Dickman, Saturday, August 16 from 5–7 PM.
We’re thrilled to welcome writer Eric Tran who will kick off the evening by reading some of his latest work—then we’ll open the floor to YOU!
Here’s how it works:
Sign-up starts at 5 PM
14 available spots
Read ONE PAGE (poem, novel, essay - whatever you’re currently working on!)
You have 5 minutes to share, and your name will be drawn randomly.
ALL ARE WELCOME!
Eric Tran is a queer Vietnamese writer and the author of Mouth, Sugar, and Smoke (Diode Editions, Spring 2022) and The Gutter Spread Guide to Prayer (Autumn House Press, 2020) as well as the chapbooks Revisions (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018) and Affairs with Men in Suits (Backbone Press, 2014) . He is an Associate Editor for Orison Books and a psychiatrist in Portland, Oregon
Matthew Dickman is the author of Husbandry, Wonderland, Mayakovsky’s Revolver, and All-American Poem, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Sarton Award for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a father, teacher, and freelance creative living in Portland, Oregon
Open Mic!
Join us for Open Mic hosted by Matthew Dickman, Saturday, July 19 from 5–7 PM.
We’re thrilled to welcome writer Daniela Naomi Molnar who will kick off the evening by reading some of her latest work—then we’ll open the floor to YOU!
Here’s how it works:
Sign-up starts at 5 PM
14 available spots
Read ONE PAGE (poem, novel, essay - whatever you’re currently working on!)
You have 5 minutes to share, and your name will be drawn randomly.
ALL ARE WELCOME!
Daniela Naomi Molnar is a poet, artist, and writer who works with color, water, language, and place. Her most recent book of poetry, Chorus, was selected by Kazim Ali as the winner of the Omnidawn 1st/2nd Book Prize and won the 2024 Oregon Book Award. Her second book, PROTOCOLS: An Erasure, is published by Ayin Press (June 24, 2025).
Matthew Dickman is the author of Husbandry, Wonderland, Mayakovsky’s Revolver, and All-American Poem, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Sarton Award for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a father, teacher, and freelance creative living in Portland, Oregon
Poetry Reading with Shilo Niziolek, Courtney LeBlanc and Sara Quinn Rivara
Join us for an evening of poetry with Shilo Niziolek, Courtney Leblanc and Sara Quinn Rivara!
Shilo Niziolek is the author of the short story collection Pigeon House, the memoir Fever, two poetry collection, atrophy and Little Deaths. She is a creative writing workshop facilitator at Literary Arts, an English and Writing instructor at Clackamas Community College, and the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of the literary magazine, Scavengers, through Querencia Press.
Courtney LeBlanc is author of the full length collections Her Whole Bright Life, winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize (Write Bloody, 2023), Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart (Riot in Your Throat, 2021), and Beautiful & Full of Monsters (VA Press, 2020). Her next collection, Her Dark Everything is forthcoming in April 2025 from Riot in Your Throat. She is the Arlington Poet Laureate, a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellow (2022), and the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press.
Sara Quinn Rivara is the author of three collections of poetry: Little Beast (Riot in Your Throat Press, 2023) finalist for the 2024 Oregon Book Awards in Poetry, Animal Bride (Tinderbox Editions, 2019) and Lake Effect (Aldrich Press, 2013). Her work is rooted in place and focuses on gender, myth, fairytale, domestic violence, motherhood, and the ways a female-identified person moves through an often hostile world.
June Book Club
Join us Wednesday, June 25 at 6pm for Aja Barber's Consumed:The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism
We live in a world of stuff. We dispose of most of it in as little as six months after we receive it. The byproducts of our quest to consume are creating an environmental crisis. Aja Barber wants to change this--and you can, too.
In Consumed, Barber calls for change within an industry that regularly overreaches with abandon, creating real imbalances in the environment and the lives of those who do the work—often in unsafe conditions for very low pay—and the billionaires who receive the most profit. A story told in two parts, Barber exposes the endemic injustices in our consumer industries and the uncomfortable history of the textile industry, one which brokered slavery, racism, and today’s wealth inequality. Once the layers are peeled back, Barber invites you to participate in unlearning, to understand the truth behind why we consume in the way that we do, to confront the uncomfortable feeling that we are never quite enough and why we fill that void with consumption rather than compassion. Barber challenges us to challenge the system and our role in it. The less you buy into the consumer culture, the more power you have. Consumed will teach you how to be a citizen and not a consumer.
Writer and consultant Aja Barber hails from Reston, Virginia, and currently lives in London with her husband and their two cats. Consumed is her debut, a treatise on the intersection of fashion, climate change, and social justice. After publicly announcing that she would not use fast fashion companies to sponsor her social media presence, Aja is now considered to be an expert voice in this space. You can find some of her writing on Instagram, and more of it on Patreon, where readers support her work.
Open Mic Night
Join us for our Open Mic hosted by Matthew Dickman on Saturday, June 21, from 5–7 PM.
We’re thrilled to welcome writer Alex Behr, who will kick off the evening by reading some of her latest work—then we’ll open the floor to YOU!
Here’s how it works:
Sign-up starts at 5 PM
14 available spots
Read ONE PAGE (poem, novel, essay - whatever you’re currently working on!)
You have 5 minutes to share, and your name will be drawn randomly.
ALL ARE WELCOME!
Alex Behr is the author of Planet Grim: Stories (7.13 Books) and is currently working on a second collection slated for release in 2026. Her writing has been featured in Tin House, Salon, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Cleaver, Oregon Humanities, and Lumina, among others. She is also 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), now in its second printing. Her writing appears in Tin House, Salon, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Lumina, and Painted Bride Quarterly, among many others, and is featured in fine art and on podcasts.
Matthew Dickman is the author of Husbandry, Wonderland, Mayakovsky’s Revolver, and All-American Poem, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Sarton Award for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a father, teacher, and freelance creative living in Portland, Oregon
Reading at Up Up: Allisa Cherry, Carrie Aberle, H.G. Dierdorff, and Jennifer Pons
Join us for an evening of readings and conversation with four poets from the Pacific Northwest.
Allisa Cherry is the author of An Exodus of Sparks (Michigan State University Press) and the 2024 recipient of the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize from the RCAH Center for Poetry. Her work has appeared in journals such as TriQuarterly, The Journal, The Penn Review, and The McNeese Review and was a finalist for the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize at Persea Books and the Sewanee Review Award for Poetry. She currently lives in Portland where she teaches classes and workshops for immigrants and refugees transitioning to their lives in the U.S. and serves as a poetry editor for West Trade Review."
Carrie Aberle is a poet and essayist whose writing has appeared in literary journals and anthologies including Prairie Schooner, Image, Cream City Review, Boulevard and others. Her forthcoming poetry collection Prophet Mother was a finalist for the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize. Carrie received her MFA from Pacific University and was a 2022 fellow in the Jack Straw Writers Program. She has served as a teaching assistant of creative writing at Seattle University and holds a post-MFA certificate in teaching creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. Carrie grew up in a German-American farming community in rural Kansas on Kaw, Osage, and Jiwere land, and now lives near Seattle on Suquamish land.
H. G. Dierdorff is a poet from the scablands and pine savannas of eastern Washington, the ancestral, unceded land of the interior Salish people. She is the author of Rain, Wind, Thunder, Fire, Daughter, which was selected for the 2022 Betsy Joiner Flanagan Award in Poetry and was published by the University of Nevada Press in 2024. Her work has been awarded a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship and appeared in journals such as Cut Bank, Arkansas International, and Willow Springs. You can currently find them in Oregon, where they volunteer with Write Around Portland and teach poetry through Literary Arts.
Jennifer Pons is originally from Chicago, Jennifer Pons has lived in the Portland area for the past 26 years. She's a writer and an educator, and she teaches writing at Clackamas Community College. Her poems appear in Portland Review, West Trade Review, Red Rocks Literary Review, Ninth Letter, Mom Egg Review, CutBank Online, Whale Road Review, and others. A finalist for the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry and the Pamet River Prize and a semifinalist for the Black River Chapbook Competition, she holds MFAs from the University of Arizona and Seattle Pacific University. If the garden is a metaphor (and it is), she lives it in the real with her partner and their children. No metaphor (every metaphor) required. She's currently pursuing a credential in biblio-poetry therapy (and is happy to share about what the heck that means).
From Prompt to Page
Join us at 5pm for an inspiring evening as we showcase the creative works of Parkrose High School students from the PATHfinder and POPS Clubs, which provide support and resources to teens who have been impacted by incarceration, detention, and deportation. This anthology features poetry, stories, drawings, paintings, collages, and photographs that take us inside their sense of feeling at home and address longing about those who are away, too often a parent, and about broken homes, broken hearts, and broken dreams.
Claw Machine Launch and Reading
Join us for a thrilling evening as we celebrate the launch of Claw Machine, a dark and speculative fiction anthology published by Little Key Press.
This chillingly imaginative collection features work from: Angela Yuriko Smith, Angelique O'Rourke, Beth Cook, Curtis C. Chen, Elle Mitchell, Erik Grove, J.B. Kish, Katherine Quevedo, Laura K. Burge, Mark Teppo, Marriane Xenos, Pia Baur, Sarah Walker, Simone Cooper, Summer Olsson, Valerie Geary, and Wes Mitchell, with an introduction by Will Errickson.
Come meet the authors, hear selections read live, grab your signed copy, play a mini claw machine until you win, and celebrate this eclectic collection of stories.
Club De Lectura: Señales Que Precederán Al Fin Del Mundo
Acompáñanos el Jueves 12, Junio para discutir Señales Que Precederán Al Fin Del Mundo de Yuri Herrera. El libro está disponible en Up Up Books! *Spanglish Welcome
Sobre Señales Que Precederán Al Fin Del Mundo
Una apasionante reflexión de la vida en la frontera de los Estados Unidos y México, esta novela combina sensibilidades modernas con la mitología precolombina mientras relata la historia de Makina, una joven temperamental y libre que busca a su hermano desaparecido. A lo largo de su camino, Makina tiene que depender de su ingenio para completar nueve etapas mitológicas en un mundo hostil y peligroso. Con referencias míticas provenientes tanto de la tradición occidental como de la indígena, esta historia presenta una lucha familiar—la de los inmigrantes indocumentados—en una manera imaginativa y única, pero nunca comprometa la humanidad fundamental y conmovedora de su heroína.
Moderador del club de lectura
Héctor nació en Monterrey, México, vivió ahí hasta los 12 años, y considera su lengua materna “Mexicana” — no exactamente Castellana o Español. Ha vivido la mayoría de su vida en Estados Unidos (en Portland desde Febrero de 2024), obtuvo su bachillerato en literatura hispana de la Universidad de Texas, y ahora mantiene contacto con su primer idioma a través de libros, música, cine y vínculos familiares. Este será su primer grupo de lectura y está muy entusiasmado por esta conversación relajada e informal!
Portland Book Week Sale!
In celebration of Portland Book Week, all books are 20% off starting Friday, June 6 - Sunday, June 8
Portland Book Week!
Spend a week exploring 60+ independent booksellers in the Portland and Vancouver areas.
Bookstore Crawl - Visit as many local, independent bookstores as you can. Pick up a bingo card at any one of the participating bookstores.
Literary Events - Check out the many literary events happening across town at various bookstore lcations
Rose City Book and Paper Fair - Stop by the Rose City Book and Paper Fair at the end of this year’s book week.
Raffles and Giveaways - Complete bingos for a chance to win prizes! Giveaways and discounts at select bookstores, too!
Exclusive merchandise - Pick up an exclusive PBW 2025 tote bag at participating stores!
Nature: Appendix Drawings by Island Pizza
We're thrilled to present new work by Island Pizza. Known for their text-based, experimental approach to art & print, Island Pizza offers a collection of drawings for this intimate display at Up Up Books. This show is a celebration of complexities of nature & culture, the taboo, and the power of a unified, inclusive front of individual & collective thinking.
Island Pizza was born in 1987 in Indianapolis, IN where they grew up in a Caribbean-American family. They moved to Portland in late 2007 to work with friends on building an outdoor community space. In Portland, they attended PSU, PNCA and the Oregon College of Art & Craft where they earned their MFA. During this time they performed with a literary collective/noise band called Clothes. They have self-published two artist books using mixed print and hand-binding methods, and have had one solo exhibition. Island Pizza currently lives in SE Portland and works at Up Up Books
Morgan Waites and Michelle Kicherer: Sex Work in Fiction, Autofiction, and “Other”
Join us for a reading and conversation on sex work in fiction, autofiction, and 'other,' with Morgan Waites and Michelle Kicherer
Morgan Waites is the author of She Was Horrid, published by Unsolicited Press. Her short fiction has appeared in Calliope Magazine and The Finger Magazine. Originally from rural Alabama, she now lives in Portland, Oregon, where she works as a software engineer.
Michelle Kicherer covers books and music for the San Francisco Chronicle and Willamette Week. Her award winning fiction has appeared in The Master’s Review, The Sierra Nevada Review, The Berkeley Fiction Review, and others. Michelle is a writing coach and teaches classes in fiction and memoir, where she always encourages her students to get a little weirder. Her debut novella Sexy Life, Hello was a finalist for the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Award and came out on March 6, 2025 on Banana Pitch Press. Michelle is a sometimes radio show host, variety show producer and host, and loves gathering musicians, writers and “others.”
Open Mic Night
Join us for our Open Mic hosted by Matthew Dickman on Saturday, May 24th, from 5–7 PM.
We’re thrilled to welcome writer Lisa Wells, who will kick off the evening by reading some of her latest work—then we’ll open the floor to YOU!
Here’s how it works:
Sign-up starts at 5 PM
14 available spots
Read ONE PAGE (poem, novel, essay - whatever you’re currently working on!)
You have 5 minutes to share, and your name will be drawn randomly.
ALL ARE WELCOME!
Lisa Wells is the author of The Fire Passage, winner of the Levis Prize in Poetry, Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World, a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and her debut collection of poetry, The Fix, won the Iowa Poetry Prize. Her essays have been published in Harper’s Magazine, Granta, N+1, The New York Times, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and The Best American Food and Travel Writing. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Matthew Dickman is the author of Husbandry, Wonderland, Mayakovsky’s Revolver, and All-American Poem, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Sarton Award for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a father, teacher, and freelance creative living in Portland, Oregon
Sip & Knit
Sunday at 1pm bring your current knitting or crafting project and join us for book talk, tea, and snacks
Reading with Jennifer Perrine, David Seung, and Rivka Clifton
Join us Saturday, May 10th for a reading with Jennifer Perrine, David Seung, and Rivka Clifton!
Jennifer (JP) Perrine is the author of five books of poetry: Beautiful Outlaw, Again, The Body Is No Machine, In the Human Zoo, and No Confession, No Mass. Their other recent work appears in Best Small Fictions, A Mouth Holds Many Things: A De-Canon Hybrid Lit Collection, and Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, and Poetry. A two-time winner of Arts and Culture Diversity and Inclusion Awards from the Asian American Journalists Association, Perrine lives in Portland, Oregon, where they cohost the Incite: Queer Writers Read series and work as the equity and racial justice program manager with the regional parks and nature department.
David Seung is a Korean-American standup comedian and writer advocating for his hometown of downtown Portland, Oregon through his walking tour company, Side Dish Mafia Food Tours. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Portland State University, where he now in turn teaches.
Rivka Clifton is the transfemme author of Muzzle (JackLeg Press) as well as the chapbooks MOT and Agape (from Osmanthus Press). She has work in: Pleiades, Guernica, Black Warrior Review, Colorado Review, and other magazines.
Knitting and Book Talk
Sunday, April 27, bring your current knitting project and join us at 1pm for book talk, tea, and snacks
We’re welcoming book donations to the amazing organization Street Books
Open Mic!
Join us for Open Mic Night!
Hosted by Matthew Dickman on Saturday, April 26th, from 5–7 PM.
We’re thrilled to welcome writer Jay Ponteri, who will kick off the evening by reading some of his latest work—then we’ll open the floor to YOU!
Here’s how it works:
Sign-up starts at 5 PM
14 available spots
Read ONE PAGE (poem, novel, essay - whatever you’re currently working on!)
You have 5 minutes to share, and your name will be drawn randomly.
ALL ARE WELCOME!
Jay Ponteri directed the creative writing program at Marylhurst University from 2008-2018 and is now the program head of PNCA at Willamette University’s Low-Residency Creative Writing program. He’s the author of the novel Someone Told Me (Widow and Orphan House, 2021), as well as Darkmouth Inside Me (Future Tense Books, 2014) and Wedlocked (Hawthorne Books, 2013), which received an Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction
Matthew Dickman is the author of Husbandry, Wonderland, Mayakovsky’s Revolver, and All-American Poem, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Sarton Award for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a father, teacher, and freelance creative living in Portland, Oregon
ABOLISH RENT author, Tracy Rosenthal *Masks-Required Event
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.
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.
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