The new year will begin with “What Goes Around Comes Around” featuring poet D. A. Powell; author and co-editor of The Believer literary magazine Heidi Julavits; and poet and performer Sierra Nelson. OCnotes will provide the music. by Matt Valentine D. A. Powell is the author of five collections, including Useless Landscape, or A Guide for

Cliché: Beggars can't be choosers Meaning: If you're already outta luck, you better be happy with whatever you're given. This evening's new work will address the cliché “Beggars Can’t Be Choosers” and features novelist and essayist Leslie Jamison; poet Roger Reeves; and Portland-based novelist Alexis Smith. Music will be provided by Yves. Leslie Jamison is the author of

Cliché: The Writing's on the Wall Meaning: a premonition or indication of the inevitable This is it! THE LAST EVENT at the old Hugo House building. Bring a writerly friend or five to celebrate the life of Hugo House. After the show, feel free to stick around to have a drink and perhaps break into a

Cliché: All's fair in love and war Meaning: Lovers and soldiers aren't bound by the typical social and moral rules Hear new work on the theme "All's fair in love and war" from Andrew Sean Greer; fiction writer Claire Vaye Watkins; and New York-born poet and spoken-word performer Roberto Ascalon. Alex Osuch will perform experimental

Sex, ye olde titan of taboo, is everywhere around us and people seem desperate to not talk about it.  Even at its best (pun intended!), sex seems to live at the most agonizing emotional intersections: embarrassment, excitement, shame. It’s about love and it’s about power, and it’s either completely hidden or absolutely everywhere, depending on

One day you’re living one kind of life—maybe you like it, maybe you don’t—and the next day something crucial in that life’s taken-for-grantedness is gone. The things that made that life cohere are gone or irrevocably transformed. Death, foreclosure, tsunami, divorce, unwanted pregnancy, unwanted wedding proposal, unwanted malaria, unwanted zombie apocalypse. “How do you rebuild

General admission: $25 | Hugo House member: $20 | Student: $10 "Good writers borrow; great writers steal." – T.S. Eliot We've asked three great writers and a musician to create new work "stolen from" artists they admire. The event will feature new work by Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger’s Wife, which won the Orange

 “Too soon!”: the stern reproach awaiting comedians who crack jokes about the dearly and recently departed. The comedian is supposed to feel lousy and clumsy, but more often than not they seem tickled to have been scolded. To anyone who has encountered death up close, it is decidedly unfunny, except for when laughter is the

Cliché: Beating a dead horse Meaning: To continue to bring up the same ol' subject, even though it's already been concluded and it won't do any good to debate it further. The 2015-2016 season begins on with writing based on the cliche “Beating a Dead Horse.” The event features novelist and reporter Dinaw Mengestu; fiction writer

General admission: $25 | Hugo House member: $20 | Student: $10 This evening brings brand-new work based on the theme “Animals” and features: Alexander Chee, author of the novels Edinburgh, which won the Lambda Editor’s Choice Prize and was named Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, and the recent The Queen of the

For the 2018-19 season of Hugo Literary Series — the first in our new home — we're looking back to look forward and asking the writers and musicians to create new things from the old. Each event within the series takes its theme from an iconic book — those whose titles have a resonance beyond

Anthony Doerr, Natalie Diaz, Karen Finneyfrock, Jake Uitti  The craft of writing is governed by a variety of rules, and every writer has their non-negotiables. Chekov said, "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." F. Scott Fitzgerald hated exclamation points because he thought using