Each month, Literary Arts staff will round up news, events, and more happening in Portland, and beyond. Let us know in the form below the blog if you have any events or news to share.
EVENTS
Bard Bingo (Wonderwood Springs)
Tuesdays, 7:00–9:00 p.m. | Wonderwood Springs, 8811 N Lombard St, Portland, OR 97203 | $5
Bard Bingo at Portland Artist Mike Bennett’s Wonderwood Springs is a lively bingo event hosted by a traveling bard’s musical musings. Held every Tuesday night, this event features four exciting rounds with cards priced at $5 each. It’s cash-only, offering chances to win various prizes such as original artwork, stickers, gift cards, lawn signs, and the coveted jackpot.
CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS
Resonate: A BIPOC Writing Circle (Write Around Portland)
2nd & 4th Thursdays of the month | 4:00–5:30 p.m. | Online via Zoom
Led by a Write Around Portland facilitator of color, Resonate consists of writing, sharing, and giving strengths-based feedback to each other. No preparation or experience in writing is required! Resonate is a great way to unlock your creativity, build or maintain a writing practice, and get some writing done! REGISTER HERE.
RESOURCES & OPPORTUNITIES FOR ARTISTS AND WRITERS
The Lascaux Prize in Flash Fiction (Lascaux Review)
Deadline: June 30, 2025 | Prize: $1,000 | Fee: $15
All genres and styles are welcome. Judges are the journal’s editors. Writers retain all rights to their work at all times. Because editors are dispersed geographically the review is unable to accept submissions via postal mail.
PEN America U.S. Writers Aid Initiative (Pen America)
Deadline: July 1, 2025
The U.S. Writers Aid Initiative is intended to assist fiction and nonfiction authors, poets, playwrights, translators, and journalists in addressing short-term financial emergencies. To be eligible, applicants must be professional writers based in the United States, and be able to demonstrate that this one-time grant will be meaningful in helping address a short-term emergency situation. The fund is limited, and not every application can be supported.
BLR Prizes (Bellevue Literary Review)
Deadline: July 1, 2025 | Prize: $1,000 | Fee: $20
The BLR Prizes award outstanding writing related to themes of health, healing, illness, the mind, and the body. Winners are published in the spring issue of Bellevue Literary Review.
The Spark Award for Oregon Artists (The Miller Foundation)
Deadline: July 2, 2025 | Fee: $135
The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation has funded the arts in Oregon for over two decades, primarily by supporting arts organizations. In 2024 we launched the Spark Award for Oregon Artists, a three-year pilot program that provides direct support to individual working artists. Over the pilot’s three years, the Foundation will support 60 individual artists (20 artists per year) across artistic disciplines with grants of $25,000 each.
FSG Writer’s Fellowship (FSG)
Deadline: July 7, 2025 | Prize: $15,000
A prize of $15,000 will be given annually to an emerging poet, fiction writer, or creative nonfiction writer from an underrepresented community who has not published and is not under contract to publish a book in any genre.
Blessing the Boats Selections (BOA Editions)
Deadline: July 14, 2025 | Honorarium: $2,500
The Waterston Desert Writing Prize (the Prize) was established in 2014 and inspired by author and poet Ellen Waterston’s love of the High Desert, a region that has been her muse for more than 40 years. Waterston was named Oregon Poet Laureate in August 2024 for a two-year term. The Prize provides financial and other support to writers whose work reflects a similar connection to the desert, recognizing the vital role deserts play worldwide in the ecosystem and the human narrative.
IN THE NEWS
Author of the Year 2025 | (The Bookseller)
Oregon Book Awards: Literary Arts Recognizes Genre Standouts and Reading Advocates | (Portland Mercury)
Ada Limón closes her tenure as U.S. Poet Laureate with May 20 appearance at Sitka Center for Art + Ecology | (Oregon ArtsWatch)
‘Solito’ author Javier Zamora will speak Wednesday at Linfield University on migration, identity, and memory | (Oregon ArtsWatch)
Portland author Kimberly King Parsons’ debut novel and other works win Oregon Book Awards | (Portland Mercury)
RECOMMENDED READING
Queer Joy, for all ages | (Multnomah County Library)
Books on Immigration | (Multnomah County Library)
Staff Picks | (The Bookstore at Literary Arts)
Community News Submissions
Let us know if you have any events, news to share, or opportunities for writers for the In the Community blog and we will consider adding it to the next blog post!
