Powell’s is excited to offer virtual event programming featuring authors from around the world. We’re using Zoom Webinar as our virtual event platform (as it comes with enhanced security features). Missed an event? Watch past virtual events on our YouTube channel.
Questions about how to attend our virtual events? Click here for our FAQ.
Wednesday, June 23 @ 5pm (PT)
The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter (Crown) is an essential reevaluation of the complex triumphs and tragedies of Jimmy Carter’s presidential legacy — from the expert biographer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Prometheus. Four decades after Ronald Reagan’s landslide win in 1980, Jimmy Carter’s one-term presidency is often labeled a failure; indeed, many Americans view Carter as the only ex-president to have used the White House as a stepping-stone to greater achievements. But in retrospect the Carter political odyssey is a rich and human story, marked by both formidable accomplishments and painful political adversity. Forty years before today’s broad public reckoning with the vast gulf between America’s creed and its actions, Carter looked out over a nation torn by race, crippled by stagflation, and demoralized by both Watergate and Vietnam and prescribed a radical self-examination from which voters ultimately recoiled. The cost of Carter’s unshakeable belief in doing the right thing would be a second term — and the ascendance of Reagan. Drawing on interviews with members of Carter’s administration as well as recently unclassified documents from his presidential library, Bird delivers a profoundly thorough, clear-eyed evaluation of a president whose legacy has been debated, dismissed, and misunderstood. The Outlier is this generation’s definitive account of an enigmatic presidency — both as it really happened and as it is remembered in the American consciousness. Bird will be joined in conversation by T. J. Stiles, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America and The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
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Thursday, June 24 @ 5pm (PT)
The Hollywood Spiral (Grand Central) is the darkly comic, long-awaited literary return of Paul Neilan, author of the critically acclaimed cult classic, Apathy and Other Small Victories. In the near future, after the Internet grinds to a halt amid a wave of cyber-attacks, a company named Zodiac steps in to replace it with an evolved, augmented-reality version called the Grid. Harrigan, a hard-drinking private detective living as off-Grid as possible, is about to be evicted from his apartment when a stranger shows up asking for his help in finding Anna, an escort who's absconded with more than just his heart. Turns out that through Harrigan's new client, Anna has come into possession of a program/entity called Mirror, Mirror, which has the capacity to merge the Grid and reality, bending both to the whims of the program's user. Soon, Harrigan finds himself up against the last surviving organized crime gangs in Los Angeles, Zodiac's mercenaries, and a mysterious group called the First Church Multiverse, all of whom are hot on the trail of Mirror, Mirror — if the comet rapidly approaching Earth doesn't kill them all first. Neilan will be joined in conversation by Marissa Levien, author of The World Gives Way.
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Wednesday, June 30 @ 5pm (PT)
In the series of linked stories at the heart of Filthy Animals (Riverhead), set among young creatives in the American Midwest, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship, forcing him to weigh his vulnerabilities against his loneliness. In other stories, a young woman battles with the cancers draining her body and her family; menacing undercurrents among a group of teenagers explode in violence on a winter night; a little girl tears through a house like a tornado, driving her babysitter to the brink; and couples feel out the jagged edges of connection, comfort, and cruelty. One of the breakout literary stars of 2020, Brandon Taylor has been hailed by Roxane Gay as “a writer who wields his craft in absolutely unforgettable ways.” With Filthy Animals, he renews and expands on the promise made in Booker Prize finalist Real Life, training his precise and unsentimental gaze on the tensions among friends and family, lovers and others. Psychologically taut and quietly devastating, Filthy Animals is a tender portrait of the fierce longing for intimacy, the lingering presence of pain, and the desire for love in a world that seems, more often than not, to withhold it. Taylor will be joined in conversation by Phil Klay, author of Missionaries and Redeployment.
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Tuesday, July 6 @ 5pm (PT)
Inspired by the Greek myth of Iphigenia and the Grimm fairy tale “Brother and Sister,” Michelle Ruiz Keil’s second novel follows two siblings torn apart and struggling to find each other in early ’90s Portland. All her life, 17-year-old Iph has protected her sensitive younger brother, Orr. But this summer, with their mother gone at an artist residency, their father decides it’s time for 15-year-old Orr to toughen up at a wilderness boot camp. When their father brings Iph to a work gala in downtown Portland and breaks the news, Orr has already been sent away against his will. Furious at her father’s betrayal, Iph storms off and gets lost in the maze of Old Town. Enter George, a queer Robin Hood who swoops in on a bicycle, bow and arrow at the ready, offering Iph a place to hide out while she tracks down Orr. Orr, in the meantime, has escaped the camp and fallen in with The Furies, an all-girl punk band, and moves into the coat closet of their ramshackle pink house. In their first summer apart, Iph and Orr must learn to navigate their respective new spaces of music, romance, and sex-work activism — and find each other before a fantastical transformation fractures their family forever. Told through a lens of magical realism and steeped in myth, Keil’s Summer in the City of Roses (Soho Teen) is a dazzling tale about the pain and beauty of growing up. Ruiz will be joined in conversation by Laini Taylor, author of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy.
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Wednesday, July 7 @ 5pm (PT)
A Black man’s life, told in scenes — through every time he’s been called nigger. A Black son who visits his estranged white father in Los Angeles just as the ’92 riots begin. A Black Republican, coping with a skin disease that has turned him white, is forced to reconsider his life. A young Black man, fetishized by a married white woman he’s just met, is offered a strange and tempting proposal. The nine tales in Chris Stuck’s Give My Love to the Savages (Amistad) illuminate the multifaceted Black experience, exploring the thorny intersections of race, identity, and Black life through an extraordinary cast of characters. From the absurd to the starkly realistic, these stories take aim at the ironies and contradictions of the American racial experience. Stuck traverses the dividing lines, and attempts to create meaning from them in unique and unusual ways. Each story considers a marker of our current culture, from uprisings and sly and not-so-sly racism, to Black fetishization and conservatism, to the obstacles placed in front of Black masculinity and Black and interracial relationships by society and circumstance. Ultimately, Give My Love to the Savages is the story of America. With biting humor and careful honesty, Stuck riffs on the dichotomy of love and barbarity — the yin and yang of racial experience — and the difficult and uncertain terrain Black Americans must navigate in pursuit of their desires. Stuck will be joined in conversation by Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light.
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Thursday, July 8 @ 5pm (PT)
Comedian and television writer Tom Scharpling is good at being funny, which is a miracle, considering what he's survived. Like hitting a deer and narrowly escaping with his life on the night of the 2016 election. But that's nothing compared to the struggles he had earlier in his life. It Never Ends (Abrams) is his memoir of a life writing comedy amidst a lifelong struggle with mental illness, a story he has never told before. It’s the heartbreaking account of his intense coming-of-age, and the lengths he's undertaken to pull away from the brink of self-destruction. Scharpling brought himself back to life first with punk zines and NBA coverage, then through the world of comedy, writing and executive producing Monk, and creating one of the most beloved, longest running comedy radio broadcasts/podcasts, The Best Show. Of course, there are also the tangents into auditioning for The New Monkees, why Billy Joel sucks, the siren call of the Sex and the City slot machines, and how he made a fool of himself in an elevator with Patti Smith. Tom is the quintessential underdog, and he wears that status on his sleeve as a badge of honor. With his memoir, he lifts the curtain to let the light in on the turmoil that still follows him, even as he racks up accolades and achievements. But most importantly, he reminds us that while many of us carry trauma and shame, we are not alone. It Never Ends is about rising above whatever circumstance you find yourself in and getting the most out of your life, while steamrolling the chumps along the way. Scharpling will be joined in conversation by comedian, actor, and author Patton Oswalt.
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Wednesday, July 14 @ 5pm (PT)
Throughout her career, spanning more than two decades, Jessica Hopper, a revered and pioneering music critic, has examined women recording and producing music, in all genres, through an intersectional feminist lens. The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic (MCD x FSG) features oral histories of bands such as Hole and Sleater-Kinney, interviews with the women editors of 1970s-era Rolling Stone, and intimate conversations with iconic musicians such as Björk, Robyn, and Lido Pimienta. Hopper journeys through the truths of Riot Grrrl's empowering insurgence; decamps to Gary, Indiana, on the eve of Michael Jackson's death; explodes the grunge-era mythologies of Nirvana and Courtney Love; and examines the rise of emo. The collection also includes profiles and reviews of some of the most-loved, and most-loathed, women artists making music today: Fiona Apple, Kacey Musgraves, M.I.A., Miley Cyrus, and Lana Del Rey. In order for the music industry to change, Hopper writes, we need “the continual presence of radicalized women… being encouraged and given reasons to stay, rather than diminished by the music that glues our communities together.” The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic — reissued now with new material and an introduction by Samantha Irby — is a rallying cry for women-centered history and storytelling, and a groundbreaking, obsessive, razor-sharp panorama of music writing crafted by one of the most influential critics of her generation. Hopper will be joined in conversation by Ann Friedman, co-author of Big Friendship and co-host of the Call Your Girlfriend podcast. This event is presented in partnership with Third Place Books.
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Wednesday, July 21 @ 5pm (PT)
After a childhood marked by neglect, poverty, and periods of homelessness, and raised by a mother who believed herself to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, Carrot Quinn moved out on her own. She found a sense of belonging among straight-edge anarchists who taught her how to traverse the country by freight trains, sleep in fields under the stars, and feed herself by foraging in dumpsters. Her new life was one of thrilling adventure and freedom, but still, she was haunted by the ghosts of her lonely and traumatic childhood. The Sunset Route (Dial Press) is a powerful and brazenly honest adventure memoir set in the unseen corners of the United States — in the Alaskan cold, on trains rattling through forests and deserts, as well as in low-income apartments and crowded punk houses — following a remarkable protagonist who has witnessed more tragedy than she thought she could ever endure and who must learn to heal her own heart. Ultimately, it is a meditation on the natural world as a spiritual anchor, and on the ways that forgiveness can set us free. Quinn will be joined in conversation by Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby.
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Thursday, July 22 @ 5pm (PT)
Patrick Wyman, creator of the hit podcast series Tides of History and Fall of Rome, explores the four explosive decades between 1490 and 1530, bringing to life the dramatic and deeply human story of how the West was reborn. In the bestselling tradition of The Swerve and A Distant Mirror, The Verge (Twelve) tells the story of a period that marked a decisive turning point for both European and world history. Here, Wyman examines two complementary and contradictory sides of the same historical coin: the world-altering implications of the developments of printed mass media, extreme taxation, exploitative globalization, humanistic learning, gunpowder warfare, and mass religious conflict in the long term, and their intensely disruptive consequences in the short term. As told through the lives of 10 real people — from famous figures like Christopher Columbus and wealthy banker Jakob Fugger to a ruthless small-time merchant and a one-armed mercenary captain — The Verge illustrates how their lives, and the times in which they lived, set the stage for an unprecedented globalized future. Over an intense 40-year period, the seeds for the so-called "Great Divergence" between Western Europe and the rest of the globe would be planted. From Columbus's voyage across the Atlantic to Martin Luther's sparking the Protestant Reformation, the foundations of our own, recognizably modern world came into being. For the past 500 years, historians, economists, and the policy-oriented have argued which of these individual developments best explains the West's rise from backwater periphery to global dominance. As The Verge presents it, however, the answer is far more nuanced. Wyman will be joined in conversation by Mike Duncan, creator and host of The History of Rome podcast and author of The Storm Before the Storm.
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Tuesday, July 27 @ 5pm (PT)
Like many of us, Lisa Wells has spent years overwhelmed by news of apocalyptic-scale climate change and a coming sixth extinction. She did not need to be convinced of the stakes. But what can be done? Wells embarked on a pilgrimage, seeking answers in dedicated communities — outcasts and visionaries — on the margins of society. Wells meets Finisia Medrano, an itinerant planter and misanthrope leading a group of nomadic activists to rewild the American desert. She finds a group of environmentalist Christians practicing "watershed discipleship" in New Mexico; another group in Philadelphia turning the tools of violence into tools of farming — guns into plowshares. She watches the world’s greatest tracker teach how to read a trail, and visits botanists who are restoring land overrun by invasive species and destructive humans. She talks with survivors of catastrophic wildfires in California as they try to rebuild in new ways that acknowledge the fires will come again. Blending reportage, memoir, history, and philosophy, Wells opens up seemingly intractable questions about the damage we have done and how we might reckon with our inheritance. “Brilliant in its quest…[and] an essential document of our time” (Charles D’Ambrosio), Wells’s new book, Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), demands transformation: If the Earth is our home, if our home is being destroyed — how then shall we live? Wells will be joined in conversation by Lydia Millet, author of A Children's Bible.
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Wednesday, July 28 @ 5pm (PT)
Karolina Waclawiak’s breakout novel, Life Events (Picador), follows Evelyn, who, at 37, is on the verge of divorce and anxiously dreading the death of everyone she loves. She combats her existential crisis by avoiding her husband and aimlessly driving along the freeways of California looking for an escape — one that eventually comes when she discovers a collective of “exit guides.” Evelyn enrolls in their training course, where she learns to provide companionship and a final exit for terminally ill patients seeking a conscious departure. She meets Daphne, a dying woman still full of life; Lawrence, an aging porn king; and Daniel, who seems too young to die and whom Evelyn falls for, despite knowing better, not to mention the exit guide code. Each client opens something new in Evelyn, allowing her a chance to access her own grief and confront the self-destructive ways she suppresses her pain. When Evelyn travels through the Southwest to an afterlife convention to further her death education, she must finally face her complicated relationship with her alcoholic father and reconcile her life choices. Sensitively observed and darkly funny, Life Events is a moving, enlivening story of the human condition: the doldrums of loneliness, the consuming regret of past mistakes, and the thrill, finally, of finding meaning — and love — where you least expect it. Waclawiak will be joined in conversation by Vanessa Veselka, author of The Great Offshore Grounds and Zazen.
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Thursday, July 29 @ 5pm (PT)
A family returns to their hometown — and to the dark past that haunts them still — in The Book of Accidents (Del Rey), a new masterpiece of literary horror by Chuck Wendig, bestselling author of Wanderers. Long ago, Nathan Graves lived in a house in the country with his abusive father — and has never told his family what happened in that house. Long ago, Maddie Graves was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t — and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures. Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania. Now Nate and Maddie are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver. And now what happened long ago is happening again… and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own, and a taste for dark magic. This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family — and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this fight: their love for each other. Wendig will be joined in conversation by Cassandra Khaw, game writer and author of Nothing but Blackened Teeth.
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Tuesday, August 24 @ 5pm (PT)
When Nick Flynn was seven years old, his mother set fire to their house. The event loomed large in his imagination for years, but it’s only after having a child of his own that he understands why. He returns with his young daughter to the landscape of his youth, reflecting on how his feral childhood has him still in its reins, and forms his memories into lyrical bedtime stories populated by the both sinister and wounded Mister Mann. With the spare lyricism and dark irony of his classic, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, Flynn excavates the terrain of his traumatic upbringing and his mother’s suicide. His searing new memoir, This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire (W. W. Norton), unravels the story of the fire that Flynn had to escape, and the ways in which, as an adult, he has carried that fire with him until it threatens to burn down his own house. Here Flynn confronts his failings with fierce candor, even as they threaten to tear his family apart. His marriage in crisis, Flynn seeks answers from his therapist, who tells him he has “the ethics of a drowning man.” This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire takes us on the journey of a man struggling to hold himself together in prose that is raw and moving, sharp-edged, and wry. Alternating literary analysis and philosophy with intimate memoir, Flynn probes his deepest ethical dilemmas. Flynn will be joined in conversation by Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood and Whip Smart.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do I attend a Powell’s virtual event?
You’ll be able to access our virtual event programming via your home computer, laptop, tablet, mobile phone, or other Internet-ready device. If you’re new to Zoom, please visit their Getting Started guide.
Are Powell’s virtual events free to attend?
As with our prior in-store programming, nearly all of our events are free to attend. On occasion, we will host a special event for which tickets or a book purchase are required for virtual admission — but details will be shared for those specific events separately.
How do I buy an event author’s new book?
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When will you have in-store events again?
We don’t yet know when we’ll be able to host authors in our stores again, but hope to do so as soon as we can. We are continuing to review CDC guidelines and evaluating the information shared by city and state officials regarding public events. Updates, when available, will be posted on our website.