Literary Arts

Founded in 1984, Literary Arts is a community-based nonprofit literary organization dedicated to serving Oregon’s readers and writers.

[literaryarts-blog]

It’s very hard for me to think of a favorite. I don’t love my books. There’s a sense of satisfaction due to the fact that I’ve managed to write this many novels. But I suppose if I had to name a book that had some special meaning to me it would be either “Underworld” or “Libra.” Or “Zero K."

A rare interview with Don DeLillo, one of the titans of American fiction - LA Times

Don DeLillo will make a rare public appearance in the 2016/17 season of Portland Arts & Lectures; subscribe today and don’t miss it!

[literaryarts-blog]

I was a ravenous library mouse. We have a stately public library in Wahpeton, still standing serenely on its great green lawn, endowed by good citizens. I read everything. The library fed me.

Louise Erdrich: By the Book - The New York Times

Louise Erdrich will open the 32nd season of Portland Arts & Lectures on October 20! Don’t miss it; renew today.

[nationalbook]

“5 Awesome Things Author Zadie Smith Said at BAM - In Tweets”

On March 22, 2016,  Zadie Smith was the featured author at Eat, Drink & Be Literary, a series that celebrates renowned authors at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Each event begins with a dinner, wine, and live music, followed by an author who reads from his or her work and discusses the creative process.

[literaryarts-blog]

“Her very presence in the world is a form of activism, but her work, when studied with care, is also political in the sense that it gives evidence of one of the richest and most conflicted human hearts you’re likely to find.”

On Eileen Myles, Crossing the Invisible Line by Dan Chiasson | The New York Review of Books

[literaryarts-blog]

“In my work for The Atlantic I have, for some time, been asking a particular question: Can a society part with, and triumph over, the very plunder that made it possible? In Black Panther there is a simpler question: Can a good man be a king, and would an advanced society tolerate a monarch?”

An Exclusive Look at ‘The Black Panther’ by Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic)

[vintageanchorbooks]

Hanya Yanagihara: ‘Don’t we read fiction exactly to be upset?’

The author of the acclaimed novel A Little Life asks what it means to be ‘brave’ as a writer

[mttbll]

You’re trying to create an event of language that hasn’t been worn out—it is just like how you get beyond all the philosophical clichés… and I think it begins by being as rigorous as you can about language. And each character. Each character requires different language, and these issues become inseparable. You have all these balls in the air: language, character, narrative. For me, the primary focus must be words, sentences, paragraphs.

Dana Spiotta (via mttbll)

[catapultbooks]

“You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?” Aunty Ifeka said. “Your life belongs to you and you alone.” 

 ― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun

Celebrate International Women’s Day by revisiting Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s excellent TED Talk here.

[simena]

Oronska Katarzyna

[wordsnquotes]

I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.

Orhan Pamuk, The New Life (via wordsnquotes)

[brianmichaelbendis]

[brianmichaelbendis]

TOMORROW!! FREE!

PORTLAND COMICS PEOPLE ASSEMBLE!!

The Portland  State University Comics Studies program joins the Will & Ann Eisner  Family Foundation to recognize Will Eisner Week 2016, the annual series  of events held across the country that celebrate graphic novels, sequential  art, free speech, and the legacy of Will Eisner, one of the most innovative  figures in the history of comics and graphic novels.

The PSU  Comics Studies program will host a special screening of the documentary Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential  Artist followed by a panel discussion of “Eisner the Dreamer.”

Panel discussion  participants include Steve Lieber, Eisner-Award winning cartoonist, illustrator  and storyboard artist; Matt Wagner, comics artist and creator of Grendel and current writer of The Spirit; David Walker, an award-winning comic book writer; and  Heidi Kaufman, Associate Professor of English and comics scholar at  University of Oregon.

The event will be moderated  by Brian Michael Bendis, an award-winning writer whose work  includes Powers, Jessica Jones, Avengers, Ultimate Spider-man, and Daredevil, among many others.

Will Eisner (1917-2005) was a  pioneer in the creation of comics during the “Golden Age” of the 1930s and  ’40s, achieving fame with his noir crime-fighting superhero, The Spirit. He  later re-invented himself by publishing several graphic novels, including A Contract with God and To the Heart of the Storm. Each year,  the prestigious Will Eisner Awards, the “Oscars of the Comics Industry,” are  presented at San Diego Comic-Con, the world’s largest comics convention.

Friday, March 4, 2016 Documentary screening: 12pm Panel discussion: 2pm

School of Business  Administration, rm. 190

631 SW Harrison St.  

[austinkleon]

How to read more. Here are books I’ve written. Here are of books I like.

[mediamattersforamerica]

This 11-year-old understands more about the importance of representation than all of the adults at Fox News combined.

[horusyounggod]

Wow

[blackfemmerealness-deactivated2]

Yes baby go ahead!!!

[catapultbooks]

It’s a messy slope, where we start and where we end. For me, much of the trick of fiction writing is that blurriness of the self, that true confusion about what is real and what is not, and my hunch is that I’m not drawn to writers such as Lerner and Knausgaard because they self-consciously want to play with this line, but instead because they are deep in that confusion themselves.

Catapult | On Serving Knausgaard Coffee and an Omelet | Sara Majka (via catapultstory)

[vintageanchorbooks]

“For that is the undeniable, the inevitable, the overwhelming fact of life here. Eight million people squeezed into a space that might accommodate a couple of aboriginal tribes, screaming about sound when what they are feeling is the press of density, more humanity per square inch than humanism can bear.” - Adam Gopnik, “New York Looks Best in Fall”

Equal parts love letter and practical guide to life and parenting in the Big Apple, Adam Gopnik’s “New York Looks Best in Fall” paints a timeless portrait of the city that never sleeps, a city “old as time, worn as Rome, mysterious as life.”

http://bit.ly/1NM0pex

[penamerican]

Mohsin Hamid reads from his novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist as part of the 2010 PEN World Voices Festival. Shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize, the novel largely takes place after the 2001 Indian Parliament Attacks on December 13. 

Subscribe to the #PENpodcast on iTunes, or listen on our website.

[penamerican]

“There is no responsibility of the writer that is different from the responsibility of the human being.”

In this week’s PEN Ten interview, we speak to Mohsin Hamid, the internationally bestselling author of Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, and the forthcoming essay collection Discontent and Its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York, and London.

http://www.pen.org/interview/pen-ten-mohsin-hamid