Praise for Pickathon takes on many exclamatory descriptives and tags, and for good reason. The long-running music and arts festival has transformed the paradigm of what a summer festival can and should be, thanks to the tedious and visionary efforts of its organizers. Amongst the many evolutions that Pickathon has proffered across its 26 years has been the introduction of the LIT Sunday sessions in 2022, which feature writers, poets, and storytellers congregating beneath a canopy of trees, giving the ringing in attendees’ ears from the evening prior a chance to abate.
Pickathon founder Zale Schoenborn and festival director Ryan Stiles hatched LIT Sundays to offer a counterpoint to the predominant focus of a loud, busy music festival. Within the confines of the shady Windmill Stage and the lushly forested Woods Stage, the sessions feature poetry readings, author readings, and storytelling, each curated by a different host, and all of which offer attendees the perfect respite from the noisier aspects of Pickathon.
“Music is such a visceral, immersive experience, and I love that the literary series gets to be immersive in its own way—just through a contemplative lens instead of a physical one,” explains Schoenborn. “It’s grown into one of the truest connections we have to Portland’s creative community, through writing and spoken word.”
The writers for this year’s author readings were organized by BACKFENCE Storytelling creator Frayn Masters in a returning curation role. Corralling a formidable lineup of Oregon Book Award winners and nominees like Leah Sottile (whose OBA-winning 2025 nonfiction book Blazing Eye Sees All is wild), Olufunke Grace Bankole, and Kevin Maloney (both of whom were finalists in the 2026 OBAs for fiction), Masters’ goal was to create a mixtape of authors from the Pacific Northwest, a region with a long history of the literary world and the music world being intertwined.
“I wanted to cover the gamut of that style, and for the readings to appeal to different people’s sensibilities and to nod to the whole festival,” says Masters. “It’s like your Sunday sweet lullaby under the trees.”
The poetry portion of LIT Sunday is curated this year by former Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani, with the storytelling section helmed by story coach Patricia Wheeler. For Mojgani, the opportunity to help bridge music and poetry is a boon to the entire Pickathon aura. It’s also an opportunity for writers and readers of all backgrounds to experiment with the kind of work they share, this being a more unique environment than your typical bookstore or coffee shop setting.
“I think particularly with doing poems at a place like Pickathon—outside, daylight, a festival, non-centered around literature—that it’s important to find flexibility with sharing work, not just what poems I choose, but also how they are offered up to folks in that setting and time,” he says.
“This may be the only time in my life when I get to read a story to an audience on a stage in the woods,” concurs Maloney. The story he’s reading, “King of the Pit,” is from his new short story collection Horse Girl Fever, which takes place during Alice in Chains’ set at Lollapalooza in 1993.
“I thought it would be fun to read a story about a music festival at a music festival,” says Maloney, “although I imagine the vibe at Pickathon will be quite a bit different from the mosh pit at Portland Meadows in the mid-’90s.”
Sottile, in keeping with the music vibe, is mining an epistolary piece she published a decade ago—a letter to Metallica—with an addendum.
“It’s a story of big moments in my life and how I’ve shared those with Metallica’s music,” explains Sottile. “It’s supposed to be kind of funny, but also sort of sad. Kind of like Metallica.”
Overall, the LIT Sunday sessions enhance the artistic sphere of Pickathon’s immersive wonderworld, with the chance for attendees to engage with some of the best writers in the world, let alone the Pacific Northwest. Past visits to this shady escape zone have yielded memorable readings from Willy Valutin, Jon Raymond, and immersive storytelling from Andrew Dickson. Artistic diversity is at the center of the curation, in much the same way that the music lineup comes together. It’s especially rewarding to witness hungover all-night Galaxy Barn partiers emerge from tents for coffee and become enraptured by the intimate forest recitations. The attendee who’s ready to go ape at the front of the stage for the Acid King set and the attendee who’s psyched to hear Bankole read from her revered debut novel, The Edge of Water, aren’t really so far apart.
“It’s meaningful that the literary series is part of the festival’s programming because music, in all its various forms, is essentially an artist telling a story,” says Bankkole. “So it makes absolute sense.”
The Pickathon LIT Sundays sessions take place Sunday, August 2 at the Windmill Stage and Woods Stage at Pendarvis Farm from 11 am to 1:30 pm. For more info on the series and its participants, check out pickathon.com/lineup/literary.