At Wordstock, we’re always looking for new ways to promote stories — the stories we read, the stories we hear, the stories that we tell about our loved ones and ourselves. As a means to help celebrate the stories we love, Wordstock has a variety of events.

Festival Events
The Wordstock Festival includes over a week of events, culminating in the Wordstock Book Fair.

Wordstock Book Fair
An annual festival of books, writers, and storytelling in Portland, Oregon that features nine author stages, over 125 exhibitors, a special children’s activity area and a children’s literature stage. It’s the largest celebration of literature and literacy in the Pacific Northwest, and is one of the largest festivals of its kind in the nation.

Wordstock Literal Fun
An annual event of both food and literature. View pictures (by Kim Oanh Nguyen) from 2011′s Literal Fun.

the Live Wire! Wordstock Extravaganza
The popular public radio variety show recorded in front of a live audience and broadcast on OPB. It includes origianl sketch comedy, live music and conversations with some of the writers in town for the festival. This show is always one of the highlights of the festival. Podcast details from the 2011 show available here: first show, second show

the IPRC’s Annual Text Ball
The IPRC’s Text Ball is Portland’s celebration of all things text, where attendees are encouraged to come dressed with text-influenced evening attire. Along with live music, dancing and text-based refreshments, attendees can enjoy word games and a costume parade.

Other Wordstock Festival Events
Hosted by our partner organizations throughout the region, previous events have included poetry slams, evenings with authors, live storytelling, play readings, discussions and more.

Other Events

Wordstock Short Fiction Competition
An annual national “double blind” competition. The 10 finalists’ stories will be published in the Wordstock Ten, an anthology is available at the festival, at Portland-area bookstores, and online through the Wordstock website.

Wordstock Book-to-Film Festival
A weekend screening of movies adapted from literary works.

Wordstock Red Chair Reading Series
A traveling series of spontaneous readings by writers, local celebrities and enthusiastic novice readers for impromptu audiences.

2012 Events
Wordstock Book Fair Oct 13 & 14, 2012

Past Events
Interested in what events were part of previous festivals? Trying to find out if an author or group you like has done a Wordstock event before? Take a look at Wordstock’s archive of previous festival events.

- 2011 festival event overview (the complete 2011 festival schedule)
- 2011 Live Wire! Wordstock Extravaganza podcasts: first show (episode 161), second show (episode 161)
- 2011 Literal Fun online gallery
- 2010 festival event overview (the complete 2010 festival schedule)
- 2010 Live Wire! Wordstock Extravaganza podcasts: first show (episode 128), second show (episode 129)
- 2010 Literary Feast press release (view the online gallery)
- 2010 Wordstock Book-to-Film Festival schedule
- 2009 festival schedule
- 2009 panel discussion schedule
- 2009 Live Wire! Wordstock Extravaganza podcasts: first show (episode 95), second show (episode 96)
- 2008 panel discussion schedule