READING THE ROOM Literary Arts’ investment in the Central Eastside is part of a bold expansion for the organization. BY CHRISTEN McCURDY Andrew Proctor wants to know what you’re reading. Oregon Business’ hardhat tour of the under-construction building now owned and soon to be inhabited by Literary Arts —the nonprofit Proctor has directed since 2009 — begins with Proctor asking me what I’m reading, which colleagues tell me later is a common conversation opener for him. The rest of the conversation is peppered with thoughts on books and writers — the writers who’ve spoken in Portland at Literary Arts’ invitation, the writers who sparked Proctor’s imagination as a young reader, and the way the organization is including space to read and browse books as part of its new headquarters in the Central Eastside of Portland. “Literature was totally electrifying and felt really radical when I read it [growing up], and seemed at once so innocuous, this little book sitting on the table,” Proctor says. “That it could be so radical was a complete surprise to me, and I kind of love that about the way that literature operates. On the one hand, it looks like this conservative art form, it’s not particularly flashy. But, you know, every idea in the world that’s ever mattered is between the covers of a book.” Proctor has served as the executive director of Literary Arts since 2009, after working at PEN America as membership and operations director and as an associate editor at HarperCollins; his résumé also includes work for the arts and culture sector overseas, including stints in London and for the Canadian Cultural Affairs Office, now known as the Department of Canadian Heritage. This year he is shepherding Literary Arts through a major physical expansion as the organization departs downtown for a new location on the inner East side. The new location is larger —14,000 square feet, a 170% increase in space — and will be a public gathering and event space, in addition to offices for Literary Arts’ staff. “The way this whole project unfolded was a little strange, but that may actually have been a strength in the end,” Proctor says. In 2018, Proctor says, there was a “general idea” that Literary Arts was going to go through a transformation, but exactly what that transformation would look like was not clear. The board began developing a plan over the next two years, but then COVID-19 hit and, according to Proctor, the plan was shelved. Then in the summer of 2020, longtime board member Susan Hammer met with Proctor to discuss a “transformational gift” to the organization. Hammer passed away later in 2020, leaving $3 million to Literary Arts. The organization used those funds to launch its Vision Plan capital campaign, with the goal of raising $22.5 million. When OB spoke with Proctor in August, the organization had raised $21.5 million. By early October, he said it was 5% from meeting that goal. He says there’s no easy way to prove this, but he suspects it’s one of the largest-known capital campaigns for a literature- focused nonprofit in the U.S. Some of that money went toward the purchase and renovation Bora Architecture rendering of the new building BORA ARCHITECTURE 31
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