The funds will support a new center for literature and community engagement and the future Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency.
Portland, Ore. (Feb. 12, 2025) — Literary Arts, the renowned nonprofit arts organization dedicated to supporting writers and readers, is thrilled to announce the successful completion of The Campaign for Literary Arts. The campaign was the largest capital campaign for the 40-year-old organization, raising $22.5 million in support of a new permanent headquarters and the future Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency.
The new Literary Arts headquarters, located in Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District, opened in December 2024 and is a vibrant hub for the community, with a main floor independent bookstore, classrooms for workshops and seminars, a podcast studio, staff offices, flexible event space, and a café coming soon. The historic building, renovated pro bono by partners Bora Architecture & Interiors and Edlen & Company, is named The Susan Hammer Center at Literary Arts after a transformative $3 million gift from the Susan Hammer estate that allowed Literary Arts to purchase the building in cash.
“Creating an inclusive and welcoming center for our community, where people can gather to tell and hear stories and exchange ideas freely, has long been our dream,” said Andrew Proctor, executive director of Literary Arts. “Susan’s gift, and the generosity of many other donors, enabled us to purchase the building outright, continuing our investment in Portland, a city that has been our home for four decades.”
The Campaign for Literary Arts, which officially kicked off in 2021, drew support from a diverse range of individual donors, foundations, state and local government, and corporate sponsors whose generosity will help to sustain Literary Arts’ core mission to engage readers and writers of all ages for decades to come. In addition to Bora Architecture & Interiors, Edlen & Company and the Susan Hammer estate, other key contributors included Ginnie Cooper and Rick Bauman, Joan Cirillo and Roger Cooke, Jan and Steve Oliva, Theodore and Nancy Downes-Le Guin, Josie G. Mendoza and Hugh Mackworth, The Standard, and Priscilla Bernard Wieden, in memory of Dan Wieden. Individual community members contributed to the campaign, with 57% of the gifts received under $1,000 and an average gift of $245.
Throughout the process, Literary Arts committed to ensuring its campaign and the building of its new space reflected its existing equity framework, and that its new headquarters expressed those values in the physical space. As a result of its commitment to environmental, design and economic justice goals, 35% of total capital project spending went to BIPOC-owned firms, with an additional 15% going to minority, women-owned and emerging small businesses. Additionally, the project removed all fossil fuels from the historic building, investing in an all-electric system with rooftop solar panels to be installed.
In addition to the organization’s new permanent headquarters, the campaign will fund the new Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency in the former home of one of Portland’s most celebrated literary figures. The residency will provide writers with an opportunity to focus on their craft in a calm, supportive environment. The residency is open to writers of all genres with a mission to cultivate diverse voices in the literary world, just as Le Guin did throughout her life.
About Literary Arts
Literary Arts is a community-based nonprofit arts organization located in Portland, Oregon, with a 40-year history of serving the state’s readers and writers. Our programs include Portland Arts & Lectures, one of the country’s largest lecture series; Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships, which celebrates Oregon’s writers and independent publishers; the Portland Book Festival; and Writers in the Schools, which hires professional writers to teach semester-long creative writing workshops in Portland’s public high schools. Literary Arts’ new headquarters—The Susan Hammer Center—features an independent bookstore, a podcast studio, staff offices and community spaces. For more information, please visit literary-arts.org.
