The Archive Project

In this episode, we feature two conversations from the 2020 Portland Book Festival that both wrestle with the question of how we look after each other when mental and physical health have been compromised. What do we owe each other, and when do we walk away? In the first segment of the show we feature Robert Kolker who joined us to talk about his new work of nonfiction Hidden Valley Road: Inside t...

In this episode we feature a conversation with Heather McGhee. For nearly two decades, McGhee has been involved in the fight against inequality by designing and advocating for polices in the public and private sectors. She has advised presidential candidates and fortune 500 companies, testified in congress, and lead the think tank Demos which argued before the Supreme Court and helped pass pro-vot...

In this episode, we feature a conversation between novelists Rumaan Alam and Jonathan Lethem from the 2020 Portland Book Festival. There is a rich tradition of the apocalyptic novel. As Alam and Lethem touch on, the urgency in this tradition allows writers to explore what really matters to their characters, and asks what we will keep and what we will forget when push comes to shove. The scope of t...

In this episode, we’re going back into the archive all the way to 1997 to bring you journalist and author Orville Schell. Since 1970, Schell has been reporting widely on China for mainstream newspapers and magazines like the New York Times , the New Yorker , and the Atlantic , to more academic publications like China Quarterly and Foreign Affairs . At the time of this lecture, Schell was at work o...

In this episode, we feature a conversation with Brit Bennett and Bryan Washington, moderated by Jennifer Baker, at the Portland Book Festival in November 2020. In the New York Times best-selling The Vanishing Half , Brit Bennett weaves together multiple strands and generations of a family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990’s. It’s a story that considers the lasting infl...

In this episode, we feature novelist Madeline Miller. When we hosted Miller in January 2021, she had not one but two books on the New York Times Best Seller list: The Song of Achilles and Circe . Both books are retellings, in novel form, of ancient Greek myths. But they are also more than simply retellings. Her books are the reinterpreting of myths that reveal new truths from these ancient stories...

This episode features novelist Jess Walter in conversation with Andrew Proctor at the 2020 Portland Book Festival. There are few writers with such breadth and accomplishment as Walter. He began his career as a journalist for The Spokesman-Review , where he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting. Since then, he has gone on to publish nonfiction, stories, and novels, and also work as a screenwriter....

This episode features award-winning poet and playwright Claudia Rankine in conversation with Jericho Brown at the 2020 Portland Book Festival. This event was presented by West x Midwest, a collaboration between Black Mountain Institute , The Loft’s Wordplay , the Wisconsin Book Festival , and Literary Arts. Claudia Rankine joined us at the Portland Book Festival to talk about her latest collection...

For over 50 years, Ursula K. Le Guin’s science fiction and fantasy books offered hope and inspiration to readers and writers everywhere. Le Guin passed away on January 22, 2018. This live event, presented in Portland, Oregon on June 13, 2018, featured tributes from writers and friends who represent the wide-ranging influence Le Guin has had on international literature for more than 50 years, inclu...

This episode features a conversation between Margaret Atwood and Portland’s own Karen Russell, which took place during the virtual 2020 Portland Book Festival. With a career spanning decades, genres, and forms, Margaret Atwood is easily one of the most important writers alive today. She has been published in 45 countries, and written seminal works of fiction that have become a part of the cultural...

Barry Lopez: 1945–2020 In this episode, one of Oregon’s most celebrated authors, Barry Lopez, discussed his latest nonfiction book, Horizon , with Andrew Proctor, Executive Director of Literary Arts. The two discussed the themes behind the book, including the environmental crisis at hand. A work thirty years in the making, Horizon defies category. It is not merely travel, science, or nature writin...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature Helen Macdonald from an online Portland Arts & Lectures event in October 2020. Helen Macdonald is a multitalented naturalist, illustrator, writer, and historian of science at the University of Cambridge. She has worked as a professional falconer and has assisted with raptor research and conservation projects across Eurasia. Her 2016 book, H I...

In this episode, we feature Isabel Wilkerson, interviewed by Viet Thanh Nguyen, from the 2020 Portland Book Festival. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Isabel Wilkerson the National Humanities Medal for “her masterful combination of intimate human narratives with broader societal trends” and for “championing an unsung history.” This was for her first book The Warmth of Other Suns , which chr...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature Colson Whitehead interviewed by Mitchell S. Jackson in September 2020. There are few writers who are both as versatile and accomplished as Colson Whitehead. His subjects have ranged from elevator inspectors, to middle-class Black American suburbia, to the World Series of Poker; he has written noir, a zombie thriller, a semi-autobiographical comin...

In this episode of The Archive Project , journalist and bestselling author, Susan Orlean, talks about what kinds of topics spark her interest and her process of researching and writing The Library Book . Orlean shares the two kinds of stories that she is drawn to as a writer: Stories of new discoveries, and stories that are hiding in plain sight. The Library Book combines both of these qualities....

This episode of The Archive Project features highlights from the opening day of the 2020 Portland Book Festival , presented by Bank of America . Listen to excerpts from longer discussions. Novelists Emily Nemens, National Book Award-winner Charles Yu, and moderator Jon Raymond talk about ambition, disappointment, family, and the possibility of a new story. Claire Messud and Lydia Millet get into a...

This episode of The Archive Project features highlights from the first week of the 2020 Portland Book Festival , presented by Bank of America . Listen to excerpts from longer discussions. Evette Dionne and Anne Helen Petersen discuss burnout, politics, and the unique pressures on millennials; poets Hafizah Geter, Justin Phillip Reed, and moderator Ashley Toliver explore displacement, violence, myt...

This episode of The Archive Project features highlights from the opening day of the 2020 Portland Book Festival , presented by Bank of America . Listen to excerpts from longer discussions between short story writers Souvankham Thammavongsa and Lidia Yuknavitch, with moderator Marisa Siegel; novelists Chelsea Bieker and Kelli Jo Ford, with moderator Kesha Ajose Fisher; and memoirist Dr. Michele Har...

The 2020 Portland Book Festival, presented by bank of america, will take place November 5-21 , and will be presented virtually with most events available to view for free. For more information, including our lineup of authors & presenters, visit: literary-arts.org/pdxbookfest In this episode of The Archive Project , we revisit a panel discussion from the 2019 Portland Book Festival. The panel,...

The 2020 Portland Book Festival, presented by bank of america, will take place November 5-21 , and will be presented virtually with most events available to view for free. For more information, including our lineup of authors & presenters, visit: literary-arts.org/pdxbookfest Deadly Magic: Vengeance, Justice, and Destiny – a discussion on fantasy writing and craft from the 2018 Portland Book F...

In this episode of The Archive Project we revisit an event that took place at the 2019 Portland Book Festival. The panel, titled Look Closer: Poetry & Myth Remaking, features poets Sally Wen Mao, Paisley Rekdal, and Jake Skeets, with moderator Dao Strom. Myths come in many forms. There are the formal myths of different cultures such as gods and heroes, the creation of the world; there are nati...

In this episode of The Archive Project , Colson Whitehead and Yaa Gyasi discuss the intersection of race and fiction. In his novel, The Underground Railroad , Whitehead explores a world in which the infamous Underground Railroad is not a euphemism, but a reality—a subterranean railroad system connecting alternate versions of America in each state along its route. In Homegoing , Gyasi tells the sto...

This episode of The Archive Project features a conversation between 2020 Oregon Book Award winners Kesha Ajose Fisher and Ashley Toliver, with Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani. Much of their conversation focuses on craft—writing from the space of the unknown, writing as self-discovery, the role of time in the creative process—but they also discuss what it is like to cultivate a diligent writing p...

The 2020 Portland Book Festival will take place November 5-21 , and will be presented virtually with most events available to view for free. For more information, including our lineup of authors & presenters, visit: literary-arts.org/pdxbookfest In this episode of The Archive Project we revisit an event that took place at the 2019 Portland Book Festival. The panel, titled Self Portrait: Memoir...

The 2020 Portland Book Festival will take place November 5-21 , and will be presented virtually with most events available to view for free. For more information, including our lineup of authors & presenters, visit: literary-arts.org/pdxbookfest Note: Portions of this episode contain mature themes that may not be suitable for all audiences . This episode of The Archive Project features a panel...