The Archive Project

This episode features Malcolm Gladwell in conversation about his newest book, Revenge of The Tipping Point. He spoke with Literary Arts executive director Andrew Proctor in front of a live audience in downtown Portland in October 2024.

National Book Foundation Presents: Awards & Activism at the 2024 Portland Book Festival with Robert Samuels and m.s. RedCherries.

This episode features M. Gessen, the final speaker of the 2024/25 Portland Arts & Lectures series at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

Tune into this conversation about the infusion of cultural heritage and lineage into recipes which showcase first-generation American food.

In this episode, we feature Emily Wilson speaking as part of Portland Arts & Lectures at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in April 2025.

Celebrate Earth Day with fresh insights from authors and environmentalists Ferris Jabr and Amy Stewart at the 2024 Portland Book Festival.

Journey through Verselandia! 2024 with performances from the event and interviews with this year's hopefuls.

In this episode, we bring you a talk from Javier Zamora. It was the culminating event of the 2025 Everybody Read's program.

This episode features Ijeoma Oluo, author of Be a Revolution, in conversation with author Hanif Fazal at the 2024 Portland Book Festival.

Celebrated novelist and screenwriter, Alice Hoffman in conversation with the Director of the Multnomah County Library Vailey Oehlke at Wordstock: Portland's Book Festival.

Michael Ondaatje shares multiple sequences from his critically acclaimed fourth novel, Anil's Ghost.

A conversation from Portland Book Festival 2024 called Reconciliation with authors Renée Watson and Joe Wilkins, moderated by Mitchell S. Jackson.

This episode features a conversation with author Richard Powers from the 2024 Portland Book Festival.

This week, we're reaching way back into our archive to feature a talk from Pulitzer Prize winning writer Annie Dillard's special event in 1989.

Every year, the Multnomah County Library chooses one book they hope the whole city of Portland will read. Between January and April, the Library, and their partner organizations, host events based around the themes of the book, and they distribute thousands of free copies—thanks to the Library Foundation—to readers of all ages from across the county. Here at Literary Arts, our role is to bring the author to town for a talk in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.   This year, the 2025 Everybody Reads selection is the memoir Solito by Javier Zamora. For information about how to engage with the program, visit the Multnomah County Library's web site. I am thrilled to say Javier Zamora will be in Portland on Tuesday, March 11 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall for the culminating event of the 2025 Everybody Reads Program.   For now, let's return to the 2024 Everybody Reads event, featuring Gabrielle Zevin and her novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.   Gabrielle Zevin has been steadily publishing fiction for almost two decades and has also written occasional criticism as well as award-winning screenplays. But it was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow that catapulted her to the stratosphere of literary stardom. It was a #1 New York Times bestseller and spent over 50 weeks on the fiction bestseller list.    To be sure, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is about video games, and makes a convincing argument for the power and potential of narrative storytelling in video games. But really, it is about making art, and questions about originality, appropriation, and ambition that come with that pursuit. And perhaps more so, it is a love story, about friends and creative partners, and the excitement, joy, tragedy, and betrayal that come with any long relationship. It's about something, I'd wager, we've all been thinking about the past few years: connection.    Tickets for Everybody Reads 2025 with Javier Zamora are on sale now! Find your tickets here.  Gabrielle Zevin is a New York Times best-selling novelist whose books have been translated into forty languages.   Her tenth novel, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, was a New York Times Best Seller, a Sunday Times Best Seller, and a selection of the Tonight Show's Fallon Book Club. Tomorrow was Amazon.com's #1 Book of the Year, Time Magazine's #1 Book of the Year, a New York Times Notable Book, and the winner of both the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction and the Book of the Month Club's Book of the Year. Following a twenty-five-bidder auction, the feature film rights to Tomorrow were acquired by Temple Hill and Paramount Studios.  The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry also spent many months on the New York Times Best Seller List. A.J. Fikry was honored with the Southern California Independent Booksellers Award for Fiction, the Japan Booksellers' Prize, among other honors. A.J. Fikry is now a feature film with a screenplay by Zevin. She has also written children's books, including the award-winning Elsewhere.   She is the screenwriter of Conversations with Other Women (Helena Bonham Carter) for which she received an Independent Spirit Award Nomination for Best First Screenplay. She has occasionally written criticism for the New York Times Book Review and NPR's All Things Considered, and she began her writing career, at age fourteen, as a music critic for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Zevin is a graduate of Harvard University. She lives in Los Angeles. 

Celebrate Valentine's Day weekend with romance writers from the 2024 Portland Book Festival.

In this episode, we feature Tim Egan speaking as part of Portland Arts & Lectures at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in January 2025.

This episode features Ta-Nehisi Coates in conversation with Omar El Akkad from the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in October 2024.

Revisiting the 2024 Portland Book Festival with the "Deceit and Dark Humor" panel, featuring student readings from Writers in the Schools.

This week's episode features Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt when they interviewed each other for a special event hosted by Literary Arts in 2006.

Portland Arts & Lectures welcomes back Abraham Verghese to discuss his second novel, The Covenant of Water.

In this episode, we feature a conversation with Connie Chung from her September 2024 event with Literary Arts.

In this episode of The Archive Project, author Salman Rushdie reads from and discusses his 1999 novel, The Ground Beneath Her Feet.

During her Stone Award acceptance interview, Dove discusses her writing process, adapting her work to the stage, and facing fear through poetry, among other subjects.

In this episode, we revisit a Portland Arts & Lectures event with author Yann Martel where he reads selections from his award-winning novel, Life of Pi, and answers audience questions about the book.

Update your TBR list: 2024 Portland Book Festival authors recommend some of their favorite writers and titles featured at the event.

Novelist Madeline Miller speaks about Greek myths and how she approaches her retellings in this 2021 talk and interview with Omar El Akkad.

In this episode of The Archive Project, we revist a rare public appearance for the release of his 2016 memoir, Shoe Dog, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the story of the man behind the swoosh.

Novelist Amy Tan talks about her life and early writing career, including writing The Joy Luck Club, in this lecture from 1991.

This episode features Malcolm Gladwell in conversation about his newest book, Revenge of The Tipping Point. He spoke with Literary Arts executive director Andrew Proctor in front of a live audience in downtown Portland in October 2024.

This episode features acclaimed writer Renée Watson speaking at the World Stage Theater as part of the “I See My Light Shining” event in June 2024

From the 2023 Portland Book Festival on the relationships between humans and animals, and on our ideas about the meaning of animals. 

Naomi Alderman discusses her novel The Future, about friends who plot a daring heist to save the world from the tech billionaires threatening it.

Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses his family, the American Dream, and his memoir, A Man of Two Faces, in this conversation with Tommy Orange.

This episode is a celebration of the life of writer and teacher Tom Spanbauer, who passed away on September 21, 2024.

In celebration of National Poetry Month, this episode features poet and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil at Portland Arts & Lectures. 

This week, we continue to celebrate National Poetry Month with a conversation from the 2023 Portland Book Festival featuring Jane Hirshfield and Major Jackson with moderator Matthew Zapruder.

John Freeman, Jane Hirshfield, and Debra Gwartney honor Barry Lopez as part of 2023 Portland Book Festival Cover to Cover event series with Broadway Books Year of Reading Barry Lopez.

Dive into Verselandia! Portland's annual youth poetry slam championship, with performances from 2023's event and interviews with this year's hopefuls

Barbara Kingsolver discusses her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Demon Copperhead, with Jess Walter at this live event in Portland, Oregon.

With his signature humor, author Charles Yu deconstructs the “lecture” genre and by doing so reveals profound insights into what it means to be human. 

Ruth Ozeki, the featured author for Everybody Reads 2023, speaks about reading, writing, and the power of storytelling in her metafictional novel A Tale for the Time Being.

A conversation on food, cooking, family, traditions, and storytelling. And like some of the best meals, it just happens to be vegetarian.

Renowned classicist Mary Beard takes us back in time to ancient Rome, in this lecture about the making of her latest book, Emperor of Rome.

Celebrated author Caryl Phillips discusses the life and impact of singer-songwriter Marvin Gaye in this lecture from 1999.

In the wake of the Sam Bankman-Fried trial, Michael Lewis discusses Going Infinite, his book exploring the rise and fall of Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency hedge fund and exchange.

Tracy K. Smith discusses her latest poetry collection, To Free the Captives, in this conversation with fellow poet, Major Jackson.

Literary journalist David Grann talks about writing adventure and true crime stories, including The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon.

Legendary actor Tom Hanks shares his debut novel, as well as anecdotes from his storied career, in this conversation with screenwriter Jon Raymond.

Ann Patchett discusses her latest best-selling novel, Tom Lake, with Cheryl Strayed in this conversation recorded in Portland, Oregon.

Zadie Smith, joined by Parul Sehgal, sparkles with humor and insight in this conversation about her latest novel, The Fraud.