The Archive Project

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature one of the highlights of the 2022 Portland Book Festival. It’s a conversation between two of our most accomplished fiction writers, George Saunders and Jess Walter. Their conversation is by turns hilarious, caustic, tender, and profound.  Our interviewer for the event was OPB’s own Geoff Norcross, who does his usual masterful job moderating. Find...

This week’s episode of The Archive Project features a conversation from the 2022 Portland Book Festival. Portland-born writer Mitchell S. Jackson interviewed Leila Mottley about her debut novel, Nightcrawling . Jackson is the author of the novel The Residue Years and the nonfiction book Survival Math . He is the winner of a Whiting Award and he received the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing for hi...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we bring you an event from the 2022 Portland Book Festival, which took place on Saturday, November 5, 2022. The hour is split into two halves of thematically related conversations. Up first, OPB’s Tiffany Camhi interviews writer Melissa Febos about her essay collection, Girlhood ; in the second half of the show, OPB’s Jenn Chavez speaks with music critic an...

This week’s episode of The Archive Project features Reza Aslan discussing his new book, An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville . Aslan was interviewed by Literary Arts executive director Andrew Proctor at the 2022 Portland Book Festival, presented by Bank of America, which took place on Saturday, November 5 in downtown Portland. Iran has been in the news...

We’re thrilled to welcome Barbara Kingsolver back to Portland on Tuesday, October 17 at the Keller Auditorium. She’ll share her newest novel, DEMON COPPERHEAD, and be joined in conversation with author Jess Walter. More info here . This episode of  The Archive Project features Barbara Kingsolver in an interview with Literary Arts executive director Andrew Proctor, as part of the 2012-1...

On this episode of The Archive Project , we feature multi-genre bestselling poet and author of thirty-eight books, Kwame Alexander, who discusses his memoir Why Fathers Cry at Night with James Beard award-winning chef of Portland’s Kann, and author of the cookbook Everybody’s Table , Gregory Gourdet. Their conversation was recorded at Powell’s Books in downtown Portland. Alexander is best-known fo...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature a talk from Edwidge Danticat from Portland Arts & Lectures on May 12, 2022. Danticat became nationally recognized with her debut novel published in 1994 Breath, Eyes, Memory which was an Oprah Book Club selection and national bestseller. Since then, she has gone on to publish more than a dozen books in multiple genres—novels, short fiction, m...

On this episode of The Archive Project, we feature a conversation between Kiese Laymon and Imbolo Mbue on storytelling, environmental racism, and activism, recorded at the 2023 AWP Conference in Seattle, Washington. Set in a fictional African village being polluted by an oil company, Imbolo Mbue’s latest novel, How Beautiful We Were , confronts environmental devastation, corporate colonialis...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature some of the incredible slam poets who performed as part of Verselandia!—the annual, city-wide youth poetry slam championship event, presented by Literary Arts—in 2022. Each year, youth spend months writing and competing in slams on high school campuses across the city. Then, each April, about twenty student finalists compete for the title of city...

Join us in welcoming Ann Patchett back to Portland on Thursday, September 7 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. She’ll share her newest novel, TOM LAKE , and will be in conversation with writer Cheryl Strayed. Find more info and tickets here . In this episode of The Archive Project , we hear from beloved, best-selling novelist, essayist, and bookstore owner Ann Patchett. The talk in this e...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we are celebrating the kickoff of National Poetry Month with a special event, recorded in front of a live audience at Literary Arts event space in downtown Portland on September 17, 2022. This event was part of a partnership with the Alano Club of Portland and their Artists in Recovery series, about the intersections of mental health and substance use recov...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we’re reaching back more than 30 years into the archive to feature the prolific novelist Jane Smiley from a Portland Arts & Lectures event in 1991. This period was an inflection point in her career. At that time, she had established herself as an important and respected American writer, but had yet to find a large audience—to this day, many believe The...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature journalist Patrick Radden Keefe from a Portland Arts & Lectures event in February 2023. Keefe is the author of five books of nonfiction, most recently Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Rebels, and Crooks , a collection of essays from his work as a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. NPR called Rogues “a wonderful book, not only because K...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature Lauren Groff from a Portland Arts & Lectures event in early 2023 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Groff is the author of six books of fiction, the last three of which, Fates and Furies , Florida , and Matrix were all national bestsellers and all finalists for the National Book Award. One of the many delights in reading Groff’s books is t...

This week on The Archive Project , we bring you a lecture from the 2003/2004 season of Portland Arts & Lectures, featuring renowned memoirist and short story writer Tobias Wolff. Best known for his memoirs This Boy’s Life  and  In Pharaoh’s Army , Wolff has also published award-winning fiction, mostly short stories, and in this lecture is discussing his 2003 novel,  Old School , which was a fi...

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 Beasts of a Little Land , a finalist for the 2022 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Michelle Ruiz Keil, a...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we reach back to the year 2000 to highlight one of the best conversations about writing found in our archives: A special event with Amy Bloom and Michael Cunningham. Amy Bloom had just published a collection of stories entitled, A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You , and Cunningham had published one his most important and bestselling novels, The Hours, j...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature a conversation from Pickathon 2022. Literary Arts partnered with the Pickathon music festival to program on-stage author readings, and for a live recording of The Archive Project at the Lucky Barn stage. At The Archive Project live, Oregon poet laureate Anis Mojgani led a wide-ranging conversation with Portland-based multidisciplinary writers and...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature Scottish novelist Douglas Stuart, winner of the Booker Prize for his debut novel, Shuggie Bain . He speaks about his new novel, Young Mungo , with Portland-based author and Oregon Book Award winner Omar El Akkad. They discuss the desire and longing at the heart of the story of the love between two working class young men from different religious...

On this episode of The Archive Project , we feature multi-genre bestselling poet and author of thirty-eight books, Kwame Alexander, who discusses his memoir Why Fathers Cry at Night with James Beard award-winning chef of Portland’s Kann, and author of the cookbook Everybody’s Table , Gregory Gourdet. Their conversation was recorded at Powell’s Books in downtown Portland. Alexander is best-known fo...

In this episode, we feature a conversation between Louise Erdrich and Portland-based writer Trevino Brings Plenty from the 2021 Portland Book Festival. Louise Erdrich joined us virtually from Minneapolis for an event in front of a live audience at the Newmark Theater. She is on our most celebrated and writers alive. Her novels include The Night Watchman , which won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize, The Rou...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature Abdulzarak Gurnah from a Portland Arts & Lectures event in September 2022.  He joined us as part of the American launch of his most recent novel Afterlives . He had just won the Nobel prize for literature, after a long and distinguished career as a novelist in Britain, thought he was relatively unknown here in the United States. In his talk,...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature a Portland Book Festival event with two prominent young adult novelists whose work appeals to readers of any age. Ellen Hagan’s novel in verse, Don’t Call Me a Hurricane , explores the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy on a New Jersey shore community through the perspective of Eliza, who is fighting to protect her home from development while navigatin...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature a talk by Amor Towles from a Literary Arts special event on February 1, 2023. Towles is the author of three novels including the huge, international bestseller, A Gentleman in Moscow . He joined us to talk about his latest work The Lincoln Highway , also a bestselling novel, which began for Towles a full twenty years before its publication with a...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature a talk from Edwidge Danticat from Portland Arts & Lectures on May 12, 2022. Danticat became nationally recognized with her debut novel published in 1994 Breath, Eyes, Memory which was an Oprah Book Club selection and national bestseller. Since then, she has gone on to publish more than a dozen books in multiple genres—novels, short fiction, m...