A Poetry Festival In A Trailer Park and 4 Other Must See Book Events Happening This Fall

Salman Rushdie
For a while, there was a price on Salman Rushdie's head throughout the Muslim world—he's presumably now considered only mildly distasteful. His newest book, The Golden House, challenges an altogether different irrational piety: the alternative facts set loose in the world of Trump. He'll appear on OPB's Live Wire! alongside musician Dave Depper and a comedian from Comedy Central. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., livewireradio.org. 7:30 pm Thursday, Sept. 14. $15-$60.

George Saunders
George Saunders is a master of the short-story form—he's the sort of guy who had a story pulled out of the slush pile of submissions by The New Yorker, which has published pretty much every single one of his stories since. With Lincoln in the Bardo, he's added novelist to his list of achievements, and his political commentary during the Trump campaign bypassed anger for understanding and heartbreak. He'll be speaking here Oct. 12 as part of the subscription-only Portland Arts & Lectures series. You should maybe find a way to cadge a ticket from a member. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 503-248-4335, literary-arts.org. 7 pm Thursday, Oct. 12.

Airstream Poetry Festival
Mother Foucault's Bookshop will take over the Sou'wester coastal lodge and trailer park in Seaview, Wash., for a whole weekend of grill-outs, readings, workshops, potential karaoke and other writerly things, with many authors and publishers in attendance. Admission costs just the normal price of lodging ($35-$100 per person). Call 503-236-2665 or 719-232-1485 to hook up, or mail three poems to Mother Foucault's, 523 SE Morrison St., by Sept. 15 for a chance to win a free week's residency. Sou'wester Lodge & Cabins, 3728 J Place, Seaview, Wash. Oct. 20-22.

Kate Carroll de Gutes: The Authenticity Experiment
The Oregon Book Award-winning author of Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear—about the transformational qualities of bow ties and her painful divorce from her wife—is back with The Authenticity Experiment, a book about the year she spent being utterly truthful on social media at a time her world was falling apart: Her mother, her editor and her best friend all died within months of each other. Powell's City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., powells.com. 7:30 pm Sunday, Oct. 29. Free.

Wordstock
Wordstock is a full day of running pell-mell through the Portland Art Museum, the surrounding churches and the entire Center for the Performing Arts. And for what? A shit ton of novelists and comic-book writers and poets and biographers, whether legends or celebrities or cult figures or the occasional talented nobody. Nearly 10,000 people are expected to come. What a city, in which this is so. Nov. 11. See literary-arts.org for tickets and a list of authors.