Episodes
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Michael Lewis (Rebroadcast)
In this episode, we feature a conversation with Michael Lewis from the 2023 Portland Book Festival. Lewis is one of the most accomplished and celebrated writers of nonfiction at work today. He is the author of 17 books of nonfiction including Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, the Big Short and Flashboys....
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Annie Dillard (Rebroadcast)
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. We’re broadcasting this talk now to celebrate her incredible contribution to American literature, as she passed away in September 2026 at the age of 81....
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Portland Monuments Project: Future (Rebroadcast)
The City of Portland is engaged in a national dialogue about public art, history, monuments, and memorials. With support from the Mellon Foundation, the Portland Monuments Project is a multi-year project with the goal of deciding on the future of seven monuments that were damaged, toppled, or...
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Portland Monuments Project: Present (Present)
The City of Portland is engaged in a national dialogue about public art, history, monuments, and memorials. With support from the Mellon Foundation, the Portland Monuments Project is a multi-year project with the goal of deciding on the future of seven monuments that were damaged, toppled, or...
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Portland Monuments Project: Past (Rebroadcast)
The City of Portland is engaged in a national dialogue about public art, history, monuments, and memorials. With support from the Mellon Foundation, the Portland Monuments Project is a multi-year project with the goal of deciding on the future of seven monuments that were damaged, toppled, or...
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Funny Story: Kristen Arnett & Jess Walter (Rebroadcast)
This week features a conversation on humor in fiction featuring two masters of the genre: Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things and, most recently, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One, the story of a lesbian clown navigating life, love, and art in Florida; and Jess Walter, author of Beautiful...
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Scot Nakagawa in conversation with Andrew Proctor
In this urgent presentation, strategist and democracy defender Scot Nakagawa, co-founder of the 22nd Century Initiative, makes the case that artistic freedom is not a cultural amenity but democratic infrastructure. It is the most sensitive indicator we have of the health of a free society.…
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Verselandia! 2025 (Rebroadcast)
Each year, Portland youth spend months writing and competing in poetry slam competitions on high school campuses across the city. Each April, about 20 finalists compete for the title of city-wide Portland slam champ at Verselandia!, in front of an audience of nearly 1,000. The 2026 Verselandia!...
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Javier Zamora (Rebroadcast)
Every year, the Multnomah County Library chooses one book they hope the whole city 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...
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Patrick Radden Keefe (Rebroadcast)
In the words of the Los Angeles Times, “A new book by (Patrick Radden) Keefe means drop everything and close the blinds; you’ll be turning pages for hours.” Keefe is an award-winning investigative journalist, a staff writer at the New Yorker, the creator of a popular podcast, and the author of…
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Tracy Kidder (Rebroadcast)
In this episode we feature one of the giants of story telling and of long form journalism, Tracy Kidder. Kidder passed away at the age of 80 in March 2026, and so we are sharing this recording from 2011 as a way for us to celebrate his life and work, and all that he has given to readers. Spanning...
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Timothy Snyder (Rebroadcast)
This week we are bringing you a conversation that Literary Arts hosted in October 2025 with historian and political philosopher Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny, who spoke about his book On Freedom with Literary Arts executive director – and co-host of this show – Andrew Proctor. Timothy…
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Colm Toíbín (Rebroadcast)
Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, three short story collections and several works of nonfiction. He has written countless articles, plays, an opera libretto and a collection of poetry, and been a finalist for the Booker Prize multiple times He is perhaps best known for his novel…
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Emma Donoghue in conversation (Rebroadcast)
In this episode, we feature the beloved Irish novelist Emma Donoghue, in conversation with OPB’s Crystal Ligori, from the 2025 Portland Book Festival. Emma Donoghue has extraordinary range, writing for the screen, and the stage, as well as authoring many acclaimed novels. Her international...
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Jill Lepore (Rebroadcast)
Jill Lepore is a Harvard professor and contributing writer to the New Yorker. Her books include The Secret History of Wonder Woman, New York Burning, These Truths: A History of the United States, and her latest, We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution – and instant New York Times...
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Jasmine Guillory and Adib Khorram (Rebroadcast)
If you like Heated Rivalry – if you don’t, you’re the only one, but anyway – if you like Heated Rivalry and want more queer romance but wish it had more wine, we’ve got the books for you. This week’s conversation is features queer romance at the 2025 Portland Book Festival, with authors Jasmine...
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Better Worlds: A Panel on Ursula K. Le Guin’s Legacy (Rebroadcast)
In this episode of The Archive Project, we feature a discussion on late writer Ursula K. Le Guin’s legacy of pacifism and environmentalism. Our moderator is Theo Downes-Le Guin, Ursula’s son and literary executor. Theo is in conversation with Oregon-based writers Juhea Kim, author of the novel...
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Stacey Abrams (Rebroadcast)
Stacey Abrams is probably best-known as a politician and political organizer; she the first Black woman in U.S. history to become the gubernatorial nominee of a major political party. Abrams has launched multiple nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies, with a longstanding focus on voter...
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Marjane Satrapi
This episode, we bring you Marjane Satrapi. She gave this talk on April 7, 2008, just about one year after the film adaptation of her comic Persepolis had been featured at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for best animated feature. Sastrapi’s death was announced on...
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Taylor Byas & m mick powell in conversation with Jae Nichelle (Rebroadcast)
We’re taking it back to the 2025 Portland Book Festival this weekend, with poets m. mick powell and Taylor Byas, and moderater Jae Nichelle. Taylor Byas’s second collection, Resting Bitch Face, uses watching and surveillance to explore Black female subjectivity. Byas engages with multiple art…
more -
Tracy Kidder
In this episode we feature one of the giants of story telling and of long form journalism, Tracy Kidder. Kidder passed away at the age of 80 in March 2026, and so we are sharing this recording from 2011 as a way for us to celebrate his life and work, and all that he has given to readers. Spanning...
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Portland Monuments Project: Future
The City of Portland is engaged in a national dialogue about public art, history, monuments, and memorials. With support from the Mellon Foundation, the Portland Monuments Project is a multi-year project with the goal of deciding on the future of seven monuments that were damaged, toppled, or...
-
Portland Monuments Project: Present
The City of Portland is engaged in a national dialogue about public art, history, monuments, and memorials. With support from the Mellon Foundation, the Portland Monuments Project is a multi-year project with the goal of deciding on the future of seven monuments that were damaged, toppled, or...
-
Patrick Radden Keefe
In the words of the Los Angeles Times, “A new book by (Patrick Radden) Keefe means drop everything and close the blinds; you’ll be turning pages for hours.” Keefe is an award-winning investigative journalist, a staff writer at the New Yorker, the creator of a popular podcast, and the author of…
more -
Portland Monuments Project: Past
The City of Portland is engaged in a national dialogue about public art, history, monuments, and memorials. With support from the Mellon Foundation, the Portland Monuments Project is a multi-year project with the goal of deciding on the future of seven monuments that were damaged, toppled, or...
-
Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore is a Harvard professor and contributing writer to the New Yorker. Her books include The Secret History of Wonder Woman, New York Burning, These Truths: A History of the United States, and her latest, We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution – and instant New York Times...
-
Verselandia! 2025
Each year, Portland youth spend months writing and competing in poetry slam competitions on high school campuses across the city. Each April, about 20 finalists compete for the title of city-wide Portland slam champ at Verselandia!, in front of an audience of nearly 1,000. The 2026 Verselandia!...
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Particia Smith & Pádraig Ó Tuama in conversation
April is National Poetry Month, and to kick things off, this year we have a conversation from the 2025 Portland Book Festival between two of our most accomplished contemporary poets: Pádraig Ó Tuama and Patricia Smith. Their conversation is moderated by Portland poet, musician, and Torah teacher,...
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Cathy Park Hong (Rebroadcast)
In this episode of The Archive Project, we feature poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong from Portland Arts & Lectures in January 2022. Hong became nationally famous in the spring of 2020 for her essay collection Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, a book so searing and powerful it landed…
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Funny Story: Kristen Arnett & Jess Walter
This week features a conversation on humor in fiction featuring two masters of the genre: Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Thingas and, most recently, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One, the story of a lesbian clown navigating life, love, and art in Florida; and Jess Walter, author of…
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NBF Presents: Jason De Léon & Megha Majumdar
Portland Book Festival has been a proud partner of the National Book Foundation Presents program for many years now, and at the 2025 festival we featured a program called “The Cost of Hope,” moderated by National Book Foundation executive director Ruth Dickey, and featuring 2024 National Book…
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Javier Zamora (Rebroadcast)
Every year, the Multnomah County Library chooses one book they hope the whole city 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...
-
Colm Tóibín
Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, three short story collections and several works of nonfiction. He has written countless articles, plays, an opera libretto and a collection of poetry, and been a finalist for the Booker Prize multiple times He is perhaps best known for his novel…
more -
Jasmine Guillory and Adib Khorram
If you like Heated Rivalry – if you don’t, you’re the only one, but anyway – if you like Heated Rivalry and want more queer romance but wish it had more wine, we’ve got the books for you. This week’s conversation is features queer romance at the 2025 Portland Book Festival, with authors Jasmine...
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Tara Roberts in conversation
In 2016 Tara Roberts was living in Washington DC feeling, in a new way, the deep fractures in America, including the way we understand our history. She felt called to be part of trying to heal these divisions. It was a chance encounter with a photograph at the National Museum of African American...
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Nicholas Boggs in conversation
Baldwin was key figure in the American civil rights movement of the last 1960s, and he is one of our most important American writers. Author of the novels If Beale Street Could Talk, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and Giovanni’s Room, he was also an essayist, poet, and playwright. Baldwin’s…
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Taylor Byas & m mick powell in conversation with Jae Nichelle
We’re back at the 2025 Portland Book Festival this week, with poets m. mick powell and Taylor Byas, and moderater Jae Nichelle. Taylor Byas’s second collection, Resting Bitch Face, uses watching and surveillance to explore Black female subjectivity. Byas engages with multiple art forms —…
more -
Emma Donoghue in conversation
In this episode, we feature the beloved Irish novelist Emma Donoghue, in conversation with OPB’s Crystal Ligori, from the 2025 Portland Book Festival. Emma Donoghue has extraordinary range, writing for the screen, and the stage, as well as authoring many acclaimed novels. Her international...
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Omar El Akkad and Karen Russell in Conversation
In this episode, we feature two of Oregon’s most accomplished writers, Omar El Akkad and Karen Russell from a conversation that took place at the 2025 Portland Book Festival. They were joined onstage by Willamette Week‘s arts and culture editor Rachel Saslow for a conversation about the ongoing...
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Barbara Kingsolver, in conversation with Jess Walter (Rebroadcast)
On this episode of The Archive Project, we feature Barbara Kingsolver in conversation with Jess Walter. Barbara Kingsovler is the author of seventeen books, including nonfiction, short stories, poetry, and novels. Her novels include modern classics like The Poisonwood Bible and The Lacuna....
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Better Worlds: A Panel on Ursula K. Le Guin’s Legacy (Rebroadcast)
In this episode of The Archive Project, we feature a discussion on late writer Ursula K. Le Guin’s legacy of pacifism and environmentalism. Our moderator is Theo Downes-Le Guin, Ursula’s son and literary executor. Theo is in conversation with Oregon-based writers Juhea Kim, author of the novel...
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2025 Portland Book Festival
Join us in our third installment of this special episode where we spend the day at the 2025 Portland Book Festival. Saturday, November 8, in downtown Portland. Our Virgil is once again editor and producer Matthew Workman, who is taking a turn at the microphone as he searches for festival authors…
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Tommy Orange: Everybody Reads 2020 (Rebroadcast)
This episode of The Archive Project features a lecture from Tommy Orange in Portland, Oregon. This lecture was the culminating event of the Multnomah County Library’s 2020 Everybody Reads program—an annual shared reading experience that includes city-wide events for readers of all ages. In his...
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Salman Rushdie (Rebroadcast)
This episode of The Archive Project features author Salman Rushdie reading from and discussing his 1999 New York Times bestseller The Ground Beneath Her Feet. Just one year after almost a decade in hiding from the Iranian government, Rushdie made his first public appearance in Portland…
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Angela Flournoy in Conversation
Angela Flournoy came to Portland for the 2025 Portland Book Festival, where she discussed her new novel The Wilderness in conversation with Renée Watson, award-winning author of skin & bones. The title of The Wilderness refers to what Flournoy describes as the true “coming of age” — instead of…
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Timothy Snyder in Conversation
This week we are bringing you a conversation that Literary Arts hosted in October 2025 with historian and political philosopher Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny, who spoke about his book On Freedom with Literary Arts executive director – and co-host of this show – Andrew Proctor. Timothy…
more -
M. Gessen (Rebroadcast)
Every once in a while, a writer arrives in a historic moment who can explain it, even while it is still actually occurring. M. Gessen is one of these writers. They are a part of the lineage of other incredible writers of their moments, like George Orwell, and Hannah Arendt. Gessen is the author…
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Ta-Nehisi Coates in conversation with Omar El Akkad (Rebroadcast)
In this episode, we feature Ta-Nehisi Coates in conversation with Omar El Akkad from the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in October 2024. Coates’ versatility and virtuosity as a writer makes him one of the most singular and important writers at work today. He first rose to national recognition as a...
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Emily Wilson (Rebroadcast)
Emily Wilson was cast as Athena in a stage production of The Odyssey at the age of eight. It turned out to be a defining moment in her life, that ultimately set her on a course of decades of passionate and devoted study. Her 2018 translation of The Odyssey garnered overwhelming critical acclaim,...
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Gabrielle Zevin: Everybody Reads 2024 (Rebroadcast)
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...