Stories. Poems. Voices Worth Sitting Still For.
Music fills the forest all weekend long. On Sunday, the words take center stage.
LIT Sunday returns to Pickathon with an afternoon devoted to stories in all their forms—poetry that lingers, authors reading from work both intimate and expansive, and storytellers turning lived experience into something unforgettable.
Across two stages, celebrated writers join emerging voices, award-winning performers, and longtime community builders for three thoughtfully curated programs. Whether you stay for an hour or settle in for the afternoon, LIT Sunday offers something increasingly rare: the chance to stop moving, listen closely, and let language do what only language can do.
This is a small pause in a long, good day.
The Programs
LIT Sunday isn’t just a lineup. It’s three thoughtfully assembled programs shaped by artists who have spent years building literary communities in Portland and beyond.
Poetry
11:00 AM–12:00 PM • Windmill Stage
Former Oregon Poet Laureate, two-time National Poetry Slam champion, and one of the country’s most beloved live performers, Anis Mojgani curates and hosts this year’s poetry gathering, bringing together four remarkable voices whose work explores identity, ancestry, humor, grief, resilience, and joy. Gather beneath the trees for an hour of language that invites you to slow down, look a little closer, and experience poetry the way it was meant to be heard: aloud.
Author Readings
11:00 AM–12:00 PM • Woods Stage
Performer, producer, writer, and founder of BACKFENCE Storytelling, Frayn Masters curates and hosts this year’s Author Readings, assembling a tantalizing spectrum of voices—from Oregon Book Award winners and nominees to memoirists, investigative journalists, reading series founders, and one of Portland’s most exciting emerging writers.
Each author will read an eight-minute selection before sharing a brief true story about music: a first concert, favorite song, unforgettable musician, or another memory that reminds us why literature belongs at a music festival.
Storytelling
12:00–1:30 PM • Woods Stage
Writer, performer, and storyteller Patricia Wheeler curates and hosts an afternoon of unforgettable true stories featuring nationally recognized performers alongside Portland favorites.
Funny, heartbreaking, surprising, and deeply human, each storyteller takes the stage with nothing more than a microphone and a lived experience worth sharing, proving that some of the best stories are the ones told face to face.
Featured Participants
Each curator brings their own perspective, creating distinct experiences that complement one another while sharing a common spirit of curiosity, generosity, and connection.
Poetry
Anis Mojgani (Curator & Host)
Anis Mojgani served two terms as Oregon’s 10th Poet Laureate and is a two-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam. Projects have included the opera libretto for Sanctuaries, Oregon’s poetry telephone line, and the ongoing series: Poems at sunset out a window. Anis is the author of six books of poetry, his latest being The Tigers, They Let Me, and his first children’s book is forthcoming from Holiday House/Neal Porter Books. Originally from New Orleans, Anis lives in Portland, OR.
Instagram: @thepianofarm | Website
Beth Piatote
Beth Piatote is a Nez Perce scholar, playwright, poet, and associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Her published work includes, The Beadworkers: Stories, the play, Antikoni, and the poetry collection, Distant Water, published in 2026 by Milkweed Editions. An enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Piatote is devoted to the study of her heritage language of Nez Perce and is an Indigenous language revitalization activist, living in Berkley, California.
Instagram: @bethpiatote | Website
Marissa Yang Bertucci
Marissa Yang Bertucci is a writer, printmaker, and youth mental health worker. Marissa is a mixed Korean dyke, daughter of Yang Meehwa, and granddaughter of Yang Won-Dal and Lee Youngja. Originally from the Bay Area, Marissa is the founder of CHARIOT, a QTBIPOC-focused poetry reading series in Portland, OR. Their poetry and calligraphy have appeared in Discount Guillotine, Creature Comfort, Stone of Madness, Art of Nothing, and Ritual Dagger.
Instagram: @marissayangbertucci | Website
Mindy Nettifee
Dr. Mindy Nettifee is a poet, artist-educator, and somatic trauma therapist. She has published three full-length poetry collections and the how-to book on writing poetry Glitter in the Blood. Her latest collection is Open Your Mouth Like a Bell (Write Bloody). She also writes a Substack about the moon – In the River of What’s Happening Now – and teaches classes in poetry, storytelling, and somatic depth psychology from her home of Portland, Oregon. Find all of her things at thecultofmindy.com.
Instagram: @thecultofmindy | Website
Author Readings
Frayn Masters (Curator & Host)
Frayn Masters is a performer, speaking / performance coach, producer, director, and writer. She is the creator and host of BACKFENCE Storytelling — including the BACKFENCE Unhinged podcast with co-host, Andrew Dickson. She is a former host and producer for The Moth. Her writing has appeared in places like Little Engines, Hobart, Forest Avenue Press, and McSweeney’s. Currently, she is working on the live talk/variety show and Substack called Let’s Get Lonely and its accompanying podcast, The Pod is a Lonely Hunter, which she co-hosts and co-created with author and performer Beth Lisick. She is also the co-star of the upcoming film, The Bend, and can hardly wait for its release in late 2026. A spooky ghost story written by NYT best-selling author, Chelsea Cain.
Instagram: @bfmasters | Website
Genevieve Hudson
Genevieve Hudson is the author of Boys of Alabama, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, shortlisted for the Stonewall Book Award, and was named a Best Book of the Month by Apple Books. She’s also the author of the story collection Pretend We Live Here, which was a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and the micro-memoir A Little in Love with Everyone. Her second novel, Headfirst, is forthcoming with Roxane Gay Books in early 2027. Genevieve’s work has appeared in Elle, Oprah Magazine, McSweeney’s, BOMB, Bookforum, Lit Hub, and Electric Literature, and was featured in Edge of the World: An Anthology of Queer Travel Writing. She was the recipient of a Creative & Performing Arts Fulbright to Amsterdam and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from MacDowell, Ucross Foundation, Caldera Arts, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Vermont Studio Center, and elsewhere. Genevieve lives in Portland, Oregon, with her wife and their two dogs.
Kaya Noteboom
Kaya Noteboom is a writer in Portland, OR. In 2025, she graduated from PNCA with a Master’s in Critical Studies. She now co-facilitates ACCESS CODE, a cultural criticism reading group, and hosts a monthly open mic for writers in or affected by recovery. Her reviews have been published in Variable West and Oregon Arts Watch; her essays have been featured in Public Parking, Initial Magazine, and Portland Tennis Quarterly; her poetry and short-fiction can be found in Buckman Journal and Charm School. You can follow her work on her Substack, Love is Nucking Futs.
Instagram: @kayanoteboom
Kevin Maloney
Kevin Maloney is the author of Horse Girl Fever, The Red-Headed Pilgrim, and Cult of Loretta. His writing has appeared in Fence, HAD, Forever Magazine, and a number of other journals and anthologies. He is the co-founder and fiction editor of Pool Party, which he runs with his wife, writer and artist Ryan-Ashley Anderson Maloney. They live together in Portland, Oregon, with their one-eyed dog and three cats
Instagram: @kevinmaloney | Website
Leah Sottile
Leah Sottile is a journalist, essayist and the author of the books When the Moon Turns to Blood and Blazing Eye Sees All, which won the 2026 Oregon Book Award for General Nonfiction. Her longform journalism has been published widely, from The New York Times Magazine to the BBC, and she is the host of the podcasts Hush, Burn Wild, Two Minutes Past Nine, and Bundyville. She is the co-founder of investigative outlet The Western Edge, and she authors the popular newsletter The Truth Does Not Change According to Our Ability to Stomach It.
Instagram: @leah.sottile | Website
Olufunke Grace Bankole
Olufunke Grace Bankole is the author of The Edge of Water, Winner of the Westport Prize for
Literature and the Ploughshares John C. Zacharis First Book Award, a Best Book of the Year at TIME Magazine, Apple Books, Electric Literature, Chicago Review of Books, Debutiful, Well-Read Black Girl, and more. The Edge of Water was also Longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and named Finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, the New American Voices Award, the CLMP Firecracker Award, the Pacific Northwest Book Awards, and the Oregon Book Awards. It has been widely praised, including by Oprah Daily, Goodreads, Ms. Magazine, Book Riot, Brittle Paper, The Root, and The Lagos Review. A graduate of Harvard Law School and a Soros Justice Advocacy Fellow, Bankole’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including Ploughshares, Glimmer Train Stories, AGNI, Michigan Quarterly Review, New Letters, and The Antioch Review. She won the Glimmer Train Short-Story Award for New Writers, and has received honors and support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Oregon Literary Fellowship Program, and the Sitka Center for Artand Ecology. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her family.
Instagram: @olufunke.grace.bankole
Imagine Storytelling
Patti Wheeler (Curator & Host)
Patti Wheeler is a writer and storyteller from Hell, Michigan. Her work centers on the importance of finding community and loving deeply. She recently sold her house in Detroit and bought a minivan and a historic home in the suburbs in the same month. She lives there with her partner Evan, their two amazing kids, and two perfect dogs.
Instagram: @patticakespatticakes | Website
Kevin McGeehan
Kevin McGeehan is an award-winning storyteller, including 10 Moth StorySlams and the 2019 New York Moth GrandSlam Championship. He worked as an actor, writer, and teacher for Chicago’s famed Second City theater for over 20 years. His autobiographical stories can be heard on The Moth Radio Hour, seen on YouTube, and read in The Moth’s 20th anniversary book, All These Wonders.
Instagram: @mcgeehankevin
Terri Knight (20-minute teller)
Terri Knight is an Oregon native and a fan favorite of Pants on Fire show. She has performed on the Mainstage with 7 Deadly Sins and is a featured teller on the “Backfence Unhinged” podcast. You can also catch her in the short films “Zombie Intervention”, “Birthday Boss”, and “Eyes of our Lord.”
Ron Turker (10-minute teller)
Ron Turker started in the ’80s as a standup comic and medical student. Through a series of nonlinear events, he became a pediatric surgeon by day and an unrelenting writer by night. Thirty years of caring for kids at home and worldwide have shaped, sharpened, and ground his sensibilities into a witty voice for health care equity here and abroad. He is the author of the award-winning medical satire, “The Wandering Jew of St. Salacious.” A love letter to Medicine written with a very sharp pen.
Instagram: @ronturker.writer | Website
Rae Trotta (10-minute teller)
Rae Trotta (they/them) loves storytelling- they think it’s utter magic to be witnessed and to witness others. They tell stories around Portland including The Moth, BackFence, Mantis, Porch Hang, and more. On their creativity off hours;), they work for a national nonprofit in housing and homelessness – a field they’ve dedicated their mind and heart to for the past 18(!?) years. Upon special request they also lend a listening ear, which at current looks like supporting agencies to better their Trans and LGBQ+ inclusion. Originally from bucolic Southern Oregon, they now call Portland home alongside their super kind and wicked smart wife, Dr. Sarah. Together they raise two exuberant and free kiddos, ages 7 and 10. Their first Pickathon was in 2011! They will never forget Ms. Mavis Staples’ way of saying “Pick uh thhon Pick uh thhhhon!”- anybody else remember that? Pictured in their arms you will find their fam’s most recent addition- Honey Bunz.
Instagram: @raeraetrot
Katie Morris Henson (10-minute teller)
Katie Morris Henson is a Portland-based storyteller, speaker, and workshop facilitator, originally from a small town in East Texas. Known for finding hopefulness and meaning in everyday moments, she shares stories about family, belonging, unlikely lessons, and the community she found among the crows, squirrels, and pigeons in her front yard. Previously a mental health therapist, trainer, and youth advocate, her stories share how much more alike folks really are, using a blend of candor, humor, heart, and curiosity about what connects us.
Instagram: @katie_ville | Website
Slow Down. Stay Awhile.
Music may be what brings you to Pickathon. But every year, LIT Sunday reminds us that stories are another way we gather.
Come for a single reading or stay for the afternoon. Wander between the Woods Stage and Windmill. Discover a new favorite writer, hear a story that stays with you, or simply find a quiet hour in the middle of a beautiful festival day.
