The Archive Project

In this episode of The Archive Project , we reach back deep into the archive for a lecture by Caryl Phillips from Portland Arts and Lectures in 1999. It’s a fascinating talk about the tragic life of singer and songwriter Marvin Gaye.     Caryl Phillips was born on the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts in 1958 and was raised in Leeds, England. His career began in the 1980s British theater and quickly e...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature best-selling, award-winning novelist Ann Patchett, who discusses her latest novel, Tom Lake , with Portland’s own Cheryl Strayed. Ann Patchett is one of our most beloved contemporary authors. She is the author of two children’s books, four books of nonfiction, and nine novels. The New York Times Book Review has said “expect miracles when you read...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature Viet Thanh Nguyen in conversation with author Tommy Orange from the 2023 Portland Book Festival. Viet Than Nguyen won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for his debut novel The Sympathizer , which sold more than one million copies worldwide, catapulted him to national fame. Since then, Nguyen has gone on to publish two more books of fiction, and a work o...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we explore storytelling and the intersections between literature and music with our friends at the Oregon Symphony and 45 th Parallel Universe.     First, we have a conversation led by Oregon Symphony creative chair Gabriel Kahane. As part of the 2023 Portland Book Festival, Kahane spoke with one of his frequent collaborators, the poet Matthew Zapruder. The...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature renowned author, Mary Beard. Probably the most famous classicist in the world, Mary Beard is best known for her international bestsellers SPQR , about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, and Women & Power: A Manifesto, a study of ancient and modern attitudes toward female speech. She joined us in the fall of 2023 to talk about her latest b...

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 Leslie Marmon Silko in conversation with Molly Gloss from a special event in 2010, at Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall. While Leslie Marmon Silko had begun to publish poems and short stories in the 1960s, it was her iconic and ground-breaking novel, Ceremony , published in 1978, that established her as one our greatest living writers. Sin...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul from a visit he made to Portland, Oregon in 1991. The storied career of Naipaul spans more than a half century. In his lifetime, he was compared to Conrad, Dickens, and Tolstoy. Born in Trinidad to an Indo-Trinidadian family, he lived a peripatetic life, travelling the world constantly, though ultimately based in Engla...

In this episode of The Archive Project, we take you behind the scenes at the 2023 Portland Book Festival, which we hosted in downtown Portland on November 4, 2023. The festival featured over 100 writers in more than 50 events throughout the day. One of the best things about book festivals is the magic of having that particular group of authors all together at the same place at the same time. It mi...

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 . Kingsolver is known for socially engaged writing that embraces the psychological and emotional. As she has...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we’re reaching back into the archive to 2020, to a virtual conversation with Colson Whitehead from Portland Arts & Lectures. It was, in fact, our very first virtual event of the pandemic and while we are so glad to be back live, it is fascinating to hear again from that time period. We’ve chosen to broadcast this conversation now because Whitehead has j...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature a conversation with Michael Lewis from the 2023 Portland Book Festival. Lewis is the author of 17 books of nonfiction including Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Big Short and Flashboys . His books are about unconventional people doing extraordinary things, usually behind the scenes. Lewis joined Portland Book Festival to talk about his new book, Goin...

In this episode of The Archive Project , we feature Zadie Smith in conversation with New Yorker staff writer Parul Sehgal. Smith is one of the preeminent fiction writers of our age. She burst onto the stage in the year 2000 with her debut novel, White Teeth . It was a huge bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic, and signaled a bold new talent had entered the literary world. Since then, she has p...

In this episode of The Archive Project, we share a conversation about something you probably never think about, unless you think about it all of the time: disabled parenting. We’ll hear from Eliza Hull, a contemporary musician, disability advocate, and writer based in regional Victoria, Australia, and the editor of a new anthology, We’ve Got This: Essays By Disabled Parents , which features storie...

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...