The Portland Book Festival reports general admission passes sold out early for 2026. Starting November 2 and running through November 8, the festival has grown from its Wordstock origins to embrace the city with multiple ways for readers, writers, and booksellers to connect. Tickets are still available for the November 6 “Reader’s Night” early access to the exhibition and free walk-up tickets for kid’s events at the Judy will be available on November 7.

Additional events throughout the week hosted by Portland bookstores and galleries are still available. On November 3, the Lincoln High School Romance Book Club offers a way to skip the stress of doom scrolling on election night by discussing romance book in their “Vote for Love” event. On November 4, Broadway Books celebrates Wandering Aengus Press with their editor and writers. More can be found on the festival’s Cover-to-Cover calendar: https://pdxbookfest.org/bio/cover-to-cover/.

In Seattle, the Short Run Comix Festival returns on Saturday, November 7. More than 200 small press comix and book artist-exhibitors from 27 states and 5 countries are expected including Swedish alternative comics publisher Lystring. This year’s festival takes place at Seattle Design Center and admission is free.

Emphasizing that they are not a corporate “comic-con,” Short Run offers a full slate of talks ranging from creative conversations to the history of comics revealed by the Library of Congress collection. Additional readings and art shows will be held in conjunction with the festival. A complete calendar of events can be found at: https://shortrun.org/festival-programming-schedule/