The Archive Project

In this episode, we feature a conversation with Michael Lewis from the 2023 Portland Book Festival.

Lewis is one of the most accomplished and celebrated writers of nonfiction at work today. He is the author of 17 books of nonfiction including Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, the Big Short and Flashboys. All his books are about unconventional people doing extraordinary things, usually behind the scenes.

We’re excited to say that we will welcome Lewis back to Portland on October 29 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall to talk about his new book, Blockers, about the courageous civil servants, everyday Americans, who have stood up to the worst impulses of the Trump administration.

You can get your ticket here.

For now, we’re going back to 2023, when Lewis joined us to talk about his book, Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon.  It’s a book about Sam Bankman Fried and the eventual collapse of this crypto currency hedge fund, Alameda Research, and the exchange he also founded, called FTX.  When we sat down to talk, Bankman Fried had just been found guilty of seven Federal charges, all finance related, and was awaiting sentencing.  It was a trial that many consider the biggest and most important in the world of finance in decades, and was one that was watched closely all across the world.  Lewis had unrestricted access to Bankman Fried, spending over year reporting as Bankman Fried amassed one of the largest fortunes in the world and then lost everything as his businesses collapsed.  The result of that reporting in Going Infinite paints a picture of a Bankman Fired that is very different than how he was portrayed in the press and by government prosecutors. Lewis offers a perspective on Bankman Fried and many of his closest colleagues that is rooted in understanding their deeper motives, how they were shaped as a generation, and how and why they made the mistakes they made.  His conclusion is both startling and important to reckon with for its consequences for our society, regardless of whether you followed the case closely or not.

Michael Lewis is the best-selling author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short, The Undoing Project, The Fifth Risk, and Giong Infinite. His most recent book is Blockers. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his family.

For over fifteen years, Andrew Proctor has led Literary Arts, growing it into the largest literary center in the United States, opening a new headquarters in Portland in 2024 after a $23 million dollar capital campaign. Previously, he worked in New York in the publishing industry and in the human rights sector, and also in London for the cultural affairs office of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.  He has served in a variety of national and local boards and councils and currently sits on the board of the Central East Side Industrial Council and is a member of Mayor Wilson’s Central City Roundtable in Portland.

This week, we’re reaching way back into our archive to feature a talk from Pulitzer Prize winning writer Annie Dillard’s special event in 1989.  We’re broadcasting this talk now to celebrate her incredible contribution to American literature, as she passed away in September 2026 at the age of 81.

When Annie Dillard won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, she was the youngest woman ever to do so. She won for a book published the previous year called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which is a nonfiction book that meditates on writing, solitude, the natural world, and spirituality. The book had a profound impact at the time of its publication and garnered comparisons to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.

Dillard has gone on to have genre bending career, publishing over a dozen titles including book-length nonfiction, novels, essays, and criticism, in addition to more than 25-years of teaching at universities in the Pacific Northwest and the east coast. In 2015 she was awarded the National Humanities Medal for her life’s work.

In this talk, her characteristic sense of irony and humor elicits huge laughs from the audience and her generous spirit invites quiet attention when she tells a story. She reads two excerpts — first from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and then from a book of essays called Teaching a Stone to Talk. Whether she is describing muskrats in Virginia or witnessing an eclipse in the Yakima Valley, she draws profound insights into the nature of existence and what the natural world has to tell us about ourselves.

Annie Dillard, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1945, was a poet and author best known for her prose in both fiction and nonfiction. Dillard has been considered a major voice in American literature since she published Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in 1974 and won a Pulitzer Prize. Influenced by Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, Dillard writes compressed, lyric poetry and prose that engages the balance of daily life within the frame of literature and ideas.

Dillard’s numerous books include the poetry collections Tickets for a Prayer Wheel and Mornings Like This: Found Poems; the nonfiction books Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood, For the Time Being, and The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New; and the novels The Living and The Maytrees.

A member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Dillard also holds honorary doctorates at Boston College, the University of Hartford, and Connecticut College. Additional honors include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, a New York Press Club Award for Excellence, an Appalachian Gold Medallion, a Campion Award, and an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received the National Endowment for the Humanities Medal in 2014, awarded to her by President Barack Obama.

Annie Dillard passed away September 15, 2026 at the age of 81.

The City of Portland is engaged in a national dialogue about public art, history, monuments, and memorials. With support from the Mellon Foundation, the Portland Monuments Project is a multi-year project with the goal of deciding on the future of seven monuments that were damaged, toppled, or removed following demonstrations in Portland in 2020-2021. Portland Monuments Project aims to foster public dialogue to reimagine and transform the purpose of monuments and memorials in Portland.

This episode is part three, the final installment of a three-part series as part of the Portland Monuments Project. This week we explore the city’s potential futures; episode one looked to the past, and episode two explored the present.

Literary Arts is involved in this project because storytelling is at the heart of our mission, and monuments tell a story about who we were, who we are, what we value, and who we aspire to be. They tell stories about different communities and the stories they tell are dynamic, in so much as our community is changing, time is passing, and the context for these fixed objects and changes around them.

In this episode, we’ll think about the monuments we need. We’ll hear from Literary Arts executive director Andrew Proctor, whose voice you might recognize as the other co-host of this show. We have a conversation with Portland writers Mitchell S. Jackson and Renée Watson about who they think should be honored with a monument in Portland. And we’ll hear from the people of Portland about the monuments they want to see and the stories they want to be told about this city, where we’ve been, and where it’s going.

Our guide for today’s episode is Archive Project editor and producer, Matthew Workman.

The City of Portland is engaged in a national dialogue about public art, history, monuments, and memorials. With support from the Mellon Foundation, the Portland Monuments Project is a multi-year project with the goal of deciding on the future of seven monuments that were damaged, toppled, or removed following demonstrations in Portland in 2020-2021 by fostering public dialogue  to reimagine and transform the purpose of monuments and memorials in Portland.

This episode is part two of a three-part series as part of the Portland Monument Project. The first episode revisited the city’s past, part two will look at the present, and the culminating episode explores what may come to fruition in the future.

Literary Arts is involved in this project because storytelling is at the heart of our mission, and monuments tell a story about who we were, who we are, what we value, and who we aspire to be.  They tell stories about different communities and the stories they tell are dynamic, in so much as our community is changing, time is passing and the context for these fixed objects changes around them.

In this episode, we’re tracing the path of a monument that went from a guerilla artwork, to a museum piece, and will soon be a monument again. Join us as we travel from the top of Mount Tabor to the mouth of the Columbia River to learn more about this particular monument and its subject – York the Explorer – from art curators, historians, and some nice people enjoying an afternoon in the park. 

Our guide for today’s episode is Archive Project editor and producer, Matthew Workman. 

The City of Portland is engaged in a national dialogue about public art, history, monuments, and memorials. With support from the Mellon Foundation, the Portland Monuments Project is a multi-year project with the goal of deciding on the future of seven monuments that were damaged, toppled, or removed following demonstrations in Portland in 2020-2021 by fostering public dialogue  to reimagine and transform the purpose of monuments and memorials in Portland.

This episode is part one of a three-part series as part of the Portland Monument Project. This episode explores the city’s past, and part two will look at the present and the future.

Literary Arts is involved in this project because storytelling is at the heart of our mission, and monuments tell a story about who we were, who we are, what we value, and who we aspire to be.  They tell stories about different communities and the stories they tell are dynamic, in so much as our community is changing, time is passing and the context for these fixed objects changes around them.

In this episode we’ll talk to the staff at the City’s Office of Arts and Culture who are leading this initiative, hear from experts, from historians, from passersby, and from other stakeholders who are questioning our past practices, and hope create change in how we, as a community choose our monuments – who gets to decide which ones are put up and where they go.

Our guide for today’s episode is Archive Project editor and and producer, Matthew Workman.

For a hands-on experience, join local nonfiction comic artist Shay Mirk for a free creative zine-making workshop on the monuments we need on May 9th and May 10th. Click here to learn more and register.

This week features a conversation on humor in fiction featuring two masters of the genre: Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things and, most recently, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One, the story of a lesbian clown navigating life, love, and art in Florida; and Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins and, most recently, So Far Gone, about a journalist living off the grid who is forced back into society to help his grandchildren. The conversation is moderated by OPB’s Jess Hazel, host of Morning Edition.

As they discuss, Jess and Krisetn are both writers of place, and are often writing about people who might be thought of as outsiders or marginal. Kristen is a Florida writer, by her own description everything she writes is about Florida, specifically Orlando and Central Florida. And Jess ranges in his work but often, including in So Far Gone, returns to the American Northwest, here to the Eastern Northwest; he also delivers a defense of Spokane, his birthplace and long-time hometown.

The episode starts with the author’s favorite knock-knock jokes, both of which are very personal choices and give some insight into what these funny writers find funny.

What comes through as a primary connection between Jess and Kristen’s work is their fascination with people. Writing is a way to try to better understand people, including people drastically different from the writer, which is a deeply empathetic project. Humor is a way to understanding other people and to connecting with people across some of the things that might seem to divide us.

Kristen Arnett is the author of the novel With Teeth, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction, and the New York Times bestselling novel Mostly Dead Things, which was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, The Cut, Oprah Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in Orlando, Florida.

Jess Walter is the author of eleven books, most recently the novels So Far Gone, The Cold Millions and Beautiful Ruins; The Zero, a finalist for the National Book Award and Citizen Vince, winner of the Edgar Award for best novel. His work has been published in 34 languages and his short fiction has won O. Henry and Pushcart prizes, appeared three times in Best American Short Stories, and is collected in the books The Angel of Rome and We Live in Water. Walter lives in Spokane, Washington.

Jess Hazel has hosted Morning Edition for OPB since 2024. They graduated with a BA in Journalism at the University of Montana and have previously hosted Morning Edition in Montana and Southern Colorado. Hazel has a voracious appetite for stories and treasures books that make them laugh, cry or cringe.

Each year, Portland youth spend months writing and competing in poetry slam competitions on high school campuses across the city. Each April, about 20 finalists compete for the title of city-wide Portland slam champ at Verselandia!, in front of an audience of nearly 1,000.

The 2026 Verselandia! competition returns to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on Thursday, April 30 at 7 pm. For more information and tickets visit our website literary-arts.org.

On this episode, we go backstage at Verselandia! 2025 to talk to student poets as they wait to take the stage at the Schnitz, and then hear them perform.  We’ll also hear some poems from people competing in this year’s Verselandia!, and talk to them about their work.

A quick note to listeners: Portions of this episode contain mature themes that may not be suitable for all audiences.

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 themes of the book, and they distribute thousands of free copies—thanks to the Library Foundation—to readers of all ages from across the county. At Literary Arts, our role is to bring the author to town for a talk in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

The 2025 Everybody Reads book was the memoir Solito by Javier Zamora.

Written from the perspective of his nine-year-old self, Solito is a gripping and beautiful account of Zamora’s three-thousand-mile journey from a small village in El Salvador to his new home in United States. Epic in scope and intimate in detail, it’s a book about the family one comes from, the family one longs for, and the family one makes. Zamora conjures all the wonder, fear and imaginative capacity of his young self; clear-eyed in his depictions of cruelty and danger, insistent on recognizing kindness. He also renders his journey with vivid detail with breathtaking lyricism, paying close attention to the power of language – this comes as no surprise, given that Zamora is also an award-winning poet.

The writer Sandra Cisneros said, “I have waited decades for a memoir like Solito.”

But, Solito isn’t simply a story of a migrant’s harrowing journey, it’s the story of a writer becoming a writer. It is also one of the most important American stories of our time.

“Poetry and history were the first tools I had to begin to explain my life so far away from the land that watched me be born and grow up for the first nine years of my life.”

Javier Zamora was born in La Herradura, El Salvador in 1990. When he was a year old, his father fled El Salvador due to the US-funded Salvadoran Civil War (1980-1992). His mother followed her husband’s footsteps in 1995 when Javier was about to turn five. Zamora was left at the care of his grandparents who helped raise him until he migrated to the US when he was nine. His first poetry collection, Unaccompanied, explores some of these themes.

In his debut New York Times bestselling memoir, SOLITO, Javier retells his nine-week odyssey across Guatemala, Mexico, and eventually through the Sonoran Desert. He travelled unaccompanied by boat, bus, and foot. After a coyote abandoned his group in Oaxaca, Javier managed to make it to Arizona with the aid of other migrants.

Zamora is the winner of a 2024 Whiting Fellowship and the 2022 LA Times-Christopher Isherwood Prize. He holds fellowships from CantoMundo, Colgate University (Olive B. O’Connor), MacDowell, Macondo, the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation (Ruth Lilly), Stanford University (Stegner), and Yaddo. He is the recipient of a 2018-2019 Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University, a 2017 Lannan Literary Fellowship, the 2017 Narrative Prize, the 2016 Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award for his work in the Undocupoets Campaign.

In the words of the Los Angeles Times, “A new book by (Patrick Radden) Keefe means drop everything and close the blinds; you’ll be turning pages for hours.”

Keefe is an award-winning investigative journalist, a staff writer at the New Yorker, the creator of a popular podcast, and the author of six books, including the bestsellers Rogues, Empire of Pain, and Say Nothing.

“When I go out looking for a good story,” says Keefe, “I almost never find one. Instead, the really good ones tend to fall in my lap.” Say Nothing was prompted by reading an obituary. A wild-seeming rumor about the 90’s heavy metal band The Scorpions led to the podcast Wind of Change, a sweeping tale of government secrets, Soviet spies, propaganda, and 90’s power ballads.

To call his research “meticulous” is an understatement. Keefe’s book, Snakehead, required over 300 interviews to complete. Say Nothing found him speaking to thousands of sources. While writing about the opioid epidemic in EMPIRE OF PAIN, Keefe was blocked from speaking to the Sackler family, so instead, he amassed thousands of correspondences from personal emails to Bar Mitzvah announcements.

Though Keefe’s doggedness recalls the detective stories that inspired him early on, he is perhaps more hopeful than hardboiled. By approaching those forces that appear too vast to unravel, he proves that even institutions and systems that seem unassailable can, in fact, be broken down and examined—one interview, one receipt, one wedding invitation at a time. Like all the great whodunnits, his books contain breathtaking plot twists. Though he has, on at least one occasion, solved a murder mystery, Keefe is less interested in pointing to a perpetrator and more interested in holding up a mirror. The question at the heart of his work is one that pertains to everyone: What does it mean to be human?

His newest book, London Falling, is an investigation into the mysterious death of 19-year-old Zach Brettler and its connection to both London’s criminal underworld and its elite circles. The author Katherine Rundell says, “Nobody writes like Patrick Radden Keefe; nobody makes achieving something so powerfully complex and difficult look so easy. It’s a form of intellectual generosity and, I think, a form of genius.”

Patrick Radden Keefe is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of the New York Times bestsellers Rogues, Empire of Pain, and Say Nothing, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, was selected as one of the ten best books of 2019 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal, and was named one of the top ten nonfiction books of the decade by Entertainment Weekly. His previous books are The Snakehead and Chatter. His work has been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing. He is also the creator and host of the eight-part podcast Wind of Change.