The Archive Project

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...

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 them...

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 b...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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...

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, wri...

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 o...

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...

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 liter...

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 prod...

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 a...

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 hi...

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 ...

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 Freedo...

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 i...

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 o...

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 passiona...

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 aro...

This week features a conversation from the 2024 Portland Book Festival, featuring best-selling author Ijeoma Oluo, who is a self-described “writer, speaker, and internet yeller.” She discusses her lat...

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 them...

A life-long Northwesterner, Egan has spent much of his career exploring his home region. One might even say he is the quintessential Pacific Northwest writer. He served as the first Pacific Northwest ...

This week’s episode features one of the most highly anticipated conversations from the 2024 Portland Book Festival. Author Rachel Kushner joined the festival with her most recent novel, the Book...

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 hi...

This week we have a conversation between one of the ultimate literary power couples: Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt.    Paul Auster passed away in April of 2024. The New York Times obituary called him ...

This week’s episode features the trailblazing, legendary journalist: Connie Chung, in conversation about her new memoir, CONNIE. In her book, Chung shares the story of her decades-long career as an As...

This episode features readings and conversations from an event entitled “I See My Light Shining.”  The event was a part of the Elders Project, which is sponsored by Columbia University and features in...

This episode features Malcolm Gladwell in conversation about his newest book, Revenge of The Tipping Point. He spoke with Literary Arts executive director Andrew Proctor in front of a live audience in...

We have been proud to partner with the National Book Foundation to present conversations featuring National Book Award finalists as part of the annual Literary Arts Portland Book Festival. The 2024 ev...

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 i...

This week we have a conversation from the 2024 Portland Book Festival on first-generation American food: cooking that combines tradition and lineage with evolution and personal stories. The conversati...

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 passiona...

This week we have a 2024 Portland Book Fest conversation about Planet Earth, and remarkable people who are working to understand it and protect its wonders. Our moderator is Zoë Carpenter, a writer an...

Each year, Portland area youth spend months writing and competing in poetry slam competitions on high school campuses across the city. And each April, 20 finalists compete for the title of city-wide P...

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 them...

This week features a conversation from the 2024 Portland Book Festival, featuring best-selling author Ijeoma Oluo, who is a self-described “writer, speaker, and internet yeller.” She discusses her lat...

In this episode, we feature the celebrated novelist and screenwriter Alice Hoffman. She’s in conversation with the former Director of the Multnomah County Library, Vailey Oehlke, at the Portland Book ...

In this recording, Michael Ondaatje shares his fourth novel, Anil’s Ghost. He begins by giving an overview of the plot, which is set in a civil war-torn Sri Lanka at the end of the twentieth century. ...

This week we are taking you back to Portland Book Festival 2024, with a conversation on the theme of “reconciliation” featuring Renée Watson, discussing her latest book, Skin & Bones, and Joe Wilk...

This week we are featuring a conversation from the 2024 Portland Book Festival. The incomparable Richard Powers came to Portland to discuss his new novel, Playground, with Literary Arts Executive Dire...

When Annie Dillard won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, she was the youngest women ever to do so. She won for a book published the previous year called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which is a nonfiction book t...

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 aro...

It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and love is in the air on The Archive Project. We are featuring two conversations from the 2024 Portland Book Festival with bestselling contemporary romance writers.     ...

A life-long Northwesterner, Egan has spent much of his career exploring his home region. One might even say he is the quintessential Pacific Northwest writer. He served as the first Pacific Northwest ...

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 o...

This week’s episode features one of the most highly anticipated conversations from the 2024 Portland Book Festival. Author Rachel Kushner joined the festival with her most recent novel, the Book...

This week we have a conversation between one of the ultimate literary power couples: Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt.    Paul Auster passed away in April of 2024. The New York Times obituary called him ...

This week’s episode features the trailblazing, legendary journalist: Connie Chung, in conversation about her new memoir, CONNIE. In her book, Chung shares the story of her decades-long career as an As...

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 hi...