Portland Arts & Lectures

Portland Arts & Lectures brings the world’s most celebrated writers, artists, and thinkers to our community.

In addition to live lectures that are also broadcast statewide on The Archive Project on OPB radio, the program connects renowned authors with readers and writers of all ages through classroom visits and writing workshops.

The 32nd season of Portland Arts & Lectures features some of the most influential writers at work today. They are novelists, essayists, screenwriters, and poets who have won the most prestigious awards in their profession.

The series begins on October 20 with Louise Erdrich, whose most recent novel, LaRose, is the conclusion of a loose trilogy that includes National Book Award winner The Round House and Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves. Don DeLillo, the author of 16 novels including the National Book Award-winning White Noise, will appear in conversation with filmmaker Noah Hawley on November 17. Irish writer Colum McCann, whose novel Let the Great World Spin won the National Book Award and the Dublin Impac International Prize, will join us on January 12. Poet Tracy K. Smith, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Ordinary Light, a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Life on Mars, will speak on February 16. The series will conclude on April 11 with physician, scientist, and writer Siddhartha Mukherjee, best known for Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Emperor of All Maladies.

Subscribe here