• March 27, 2024
          BIPOC Reading Series March
          April 4, 2024
          Everybody Reads 2024: Gabrielle Zevin
          April 8, 2024
          2024 Oregon Book Awards Ceremony
          April 18, 2024
          Aimee Nezhukumatathil: Portland Arts & Lectures 2023/24
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  3. Vanessa Veselka

Vanessa Veselka Oregon

Vanessa Veselka is the author of the novel Zazen, which won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, and The Great Offshore Grounds. Her short stories have appeared in Tin House and ZYZZYVA, and her nonfiction in GQThe AtlanticSmithsonianThe Atavist, and was included in Best American Essays and the anthology Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex worker, a union organizer, an independent record label owner, a train hopper, a waitress, and a mother. She lives in Portland, OR. Her latest novel, The Great Offshore Grounds, was the 2021 winner of the Ken Kesey Award for fiction and was long-listed for the National Book Award.

Events, Classes, and Seminars

Our events, classes, and seminars bring the community together to hear, learn, and discuss the most compelling issues and ideas of our day. We hope you will join us in our downtown Literary Arts space, online, and at partnering venues across Portland and Oregon.