On October 2nd LitHop PDX hosted a literary reading bar crawl in the streets of Portland—the event featured six venues and over fifty readers. Hosts included Bad Blood, Nows Ours, Tin House, YesYes Books, Sister Spit, and If Not For Kidnap. The whole thing occurred over an intense three-hour evening up and down a stretch of Hawthorne Boulevard in Portland.

LitHop PDX had been in the making for the past three years. Kevin Sampsell, PDX producer and guest curator of Wordstock, said of the endeavor: “I think in the past three years especially, Portland has become a supportive place full of reading series of all kinds. I always thought the San Francisco LitCrawl event sounded really fun and I knew that Portland could easily hold one—even if it was just local writers. This town is lousy with writers! You can't swing a cat without hitting one and knocking their glasses off.” Though business owners originally felt dubious about the popularity of such an event, the growing literary scene in Portland prevailed and LitHop came together. The hope is that the literary bar crawl can happen twice a year, the next one scheduled for spring 2014.

Source: Portland Mercury