All events and classes take place at Literary Arts, 716 SE Grand Ave., Portland, OR, unless otherwise noted.
One Page Wednesday – April [FREE]
Wednesday, April 1, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
Here is an opportunity to share or listen to one page of work in progress from talented writers from everywhere. Come with a single page of work and sign up to read – or come to listen and prepare to be inspired. Our host is the one and only Emme Lund. The featured reader for April is Genevieve DeGuzman.
Nonprofit Publishing in an Era of Authoritarianism with Graywolf Press [FREE]
Thursday, April 2, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is excited to welcome Graywolf Press for a special discussion on non-profit and independent publishing in the modern age. This event will feature Carmen Giménez and Serena Chopra.
Emergency Horse Magazine Launch [FREE]
Friday, April 3, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is pleased to welcome Emergency Horse for the launch of their latest issue. Join us for an evening of readings and celebration.
Dead Poets Society: Open Mic [FREE]
Tuesday, April 7, 6:30–8:00 p.m.
This National Poetry Month, we’re celebrating the voices of poets from the past. Join us to celebrate the work of your favorite dead poet by sharing it with a crowd—or sit quietly and soak up the vibes.
Robyn Saunders Wilson in conversation with Michelle Kicherer [FREE]
Wednesday, April 8, 6:30–8:00 p.m.
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is thrilled to welcome Robyn Saunders Wilson to celebrate her debut, Junkyard Princess!
April Hand-Sewing Social with SCRAP PDX [TICKETED EVENT]
Thursday, April 9, 5:00–7:00 p.m.
Join us to hand-sew decorative plush to celebrate the rain! Sew felt raindrops, umbrellas, crows, and more.
April Write-In: Poetry [FREE]
Tuesday, April 14, 5:30–8:00 p.m.
Join us at the Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe for our monthly write-in. April is National Poetry Month, so we are celebrating our poets. Our Food and Beverage Assistant Manager, Miah, cooked up a new special, the Sigh Swoon Sigh; a tangerine ginger latte topped with cinnamon, complementing April showers, or flowers. Hot or iced, this drink will have you swooning.
Mud & Cherry Blossoms: Poems for a Messy Season[FREE]
Wednesday, April 15, 6:30–8:00 p.m.
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is excited to welcome local poets Rebecca Clarren, Margot Kahn, and Daniela Naomi Molnar for an evening of readings and conversation!
Slamlandia [FREE]
Thursday, April 16, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month at Literary Arts, on the third Thursday. This mic provides a creative, fun, and welcoming space for all literary communities in Portland. We encourage poets, new and old, to share their work. We strive towards a safe space for poets to read their own poetry, witness others, and participate in community. Hosted by Julia Gaskill. March’s featured poet will be announced soon!
Sakura: Kanako Nishi and Allison Markin Powell [FREE]
Tue, April 21, 6:30–8:00 p.m.
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is thrilled to welcome Kanako Nishi, author of the Japanese language novel Sakura and Allison Markin Powell, the English translator of the best-selling novel. This event will be moderated by Jay Boss Rubin and feature musical guest Gabriella Page-Fort.
BIPOC Reading Series [FREE]
Wednesday, April 29, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
Hosted by Kyle Yoshioka and Jessica Meza-Torres, this monthly reading series is intended to prioritize the safety, creativity, and stories of Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color.
Sign up for our dedicated bookstore and cafe email list to be the first to hear about events at Literary Arts, new book releases, food and drink specials, and more.
Writing Classes
Short Story Intensive: Advanced Workshop
Wednesdays, April 1 through June 17, 4:00–6:00 p.m.
In this 12-week workshop-meets-craft class, we’ll read and dissect several short stories together and look at how those stories were made, then apply some of those tools to our own stories.
Instructor: Michelle Kicherer
THRUSH NOTES: Place-Based Writing and Poems
Saturdays, April 4-18, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
In this three-week course, participants will diversify approaches to place-based writing by following the auditory threads within their poems and worlds alike.
Instructor: Sam Olson
Writing with the Seasons: Spring
Saturday, April 4, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. | One session
From autumn leaves to springtime flowers, rain and snow and sun, we’ll consider nature’s shifts and how we can incorporate them into our writing practice. We’ll also reflect on the impact of climate change on our seasonal rhythms and on our writing. Through brief readings, writing prompts, and generative exercises, we’ll welcome in and attune our writing to the time of year.
Instructor: Miranda Schmidt
Writing with Tarot
Wednesdays, April 8-29, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
This multigenre workshop will introduce techniques for using tarot in one’s writing practice. We’ll use tarot cards to generate new ideas and new writing through writing exercises; practice character, story, and image development using tarot symbols; learn how tarot can help us plumb the depths of our ideas; and discover how to work with the Tarot from generation through revision.
Instructor: Miranda Schmidt
Haunted and Hybrid: Exploring Occult Ecopoetics
Thursdays, April 9 through May 14, 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
In this generative writing class, poet Joyelle McSweeney’s vivid notion of the Necropastoral will guide us into creative engagement with environmental writing, mortality, spells, and unconventional poetics.
Instructor: Gabriela Denise Frank
Write More, Feel Better: Resources, Routines, and Accountability
Thursdays, April 9 through May 28, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
This eight-week seminar offers an in-depth exploration of how to optimize writing habits and routines for productivity and mental health. For Virginia Woolf, that meant “a room of one’s own.” For Honoré de Balzac, it meant fifty cups of coffee per day. What does it mean for you?
Instructor: Daniel Nieh
The Sijo: Crash Course in Traditional Korean Poetry
Sunday, April 12, 10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
In this one-day class, we will learn about the history of the sijo, its relevance to Korean literature, and the unique sensibilities and affordances of the form, while also getting several opportunities to write our own with guided instruction.
Instructor: David Seung
Small Stories, Big Meaning: a storytelling workshop
Sunday, April 12, 10:00 a.m.–2:30 p.m.
In this four-hour workshop, we’ll mine minutia. Everyday moments, half-remembered anecdotes, passing observations using them as raw material for telling personal stories that resonate. What makes a story feel big or important?
Instructor: Ash Allen and Frayn Masters
Get Writing: Unblocking Writer’s Block
Tuesdays, April 14 through June 3, 5:00–7:00 p.m.
Each week we’ll use new prompts and guided activities to inspire new creation. We’ll look at the work of writers we admire and ask: how’d they do that? As they say, writing is a muscle, and no matter what your experience level, you have to continually exercise that muscle and practice new tools to keep your writing nimble and moving.
Instructor: Michelle Kicherer
Epistolary Poems
Saturday, April 25, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Through generative, constraint-based prompts, participants will explore the tension between forms of direct address and forms of poetic allusion to speak to, or point towards, what’s been left unsaid in their poems.
Instructor: Sam Olson
Creating Vibrant Characters | Online via Zoom
Saturdays, April 25 through May 30, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Ideal for writers working on a short story or novel or just exploring the contours of a narrative. Participants can hope to take away 10-15 pages of refined prose and a dossier of take-home prompts
Instructor: Radhika Sharma
The Sijo: Poetry Workshop in Korean Traditional Form
Sundays, April 26 through June 14, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Writing in this discipline exercises several poetic skills that we will focus on and hone throughout this six-week workshop. This workshop invites poets of all levels to write outside their comfort zone. All students will have the opportunity to have at least two poems workshopped by the course with detailed instructor feedback.
Instructor: David Seung
Bring Your Story to the Stage
Sunday, April 26, 10:00 a.m.–2:30 p.m.
This class is for anyone ready to take a personal 5-minute story and actively shape it for an audience. You’ll work hands-on with one story. Drafting, refining, and testing it aloud. We’ll focus on structure, pacing, and point of view, helping you find the spine of the story and decide what belongs in this particular version of the story and what doesn’t. You’ll practice starting strong, building momentum, and landing the story with intention.
Instructor: Ash Allen and Frayn Masters
Writer as Witness | Online via Zoom
Thursdays, April 30 through May 21, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
Explore what it means to be a witness as a writer — to our own lives, to others’ lives, to the natural world, to our nation’s life. We will find ways to push back darkness with our own writing and testimony. During our time together, we will write to prompts, engage in peer feedback groups, and share our newly generated writing throughout our sessions. We will culminate by sharing a final short revised essay or set of poems.
Instructor: Perrin Kerns
Readers Seminar
Alone, Together: The Short Works of David Foster Wallace
Mondays, April 13 through May 18, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
David Foster Wallace was uniquely prophetic in his ability to diagnose the ills of America and where they were headed in the early 2000s. Toxic masculinity, mental illness, authenticity, empathy, and dopamine exhaustion through media are constants in his work and are best showcased through his short fiction and nonfiction. Probably best known for Infinite Jest, Wallace’s style changed substantially in the middle of his career away from the manic hyperreality of his early work into a more considered, humanistic, and philosophical approach, which is where our delve picks him up.
Guide: Andrew Maxwell
Marilynne Robinson: Home, Lila, and Jack
Wednesdays, April 15 through May 27, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
This Delve takes up the three novels in the series that follow Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer-Prize winning Gilead. The three novels all overlap in time and space with the mid-twentieth-century world of Gilead, while offering whole other stories and lives that offer perspectives on the great themes of race and racism, faith and family, punishment and reconciliation, love and loss and forgiveness.
Guide: Scott Korb
Faulkner and Morrison: Absalom, Absalom! and Beloved
Thursdays, April 30 through June 4, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
In this Delve, we’ll read William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! (1936) and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), both of which consider the many scars, healed and not, caused by enslavement and the Civil War. Thinking about history, memory, and what Morrison calls “rememory,” we’ll consider what it means to live in a nation, to inherit its past, and to fight for a better future.
Guide: Elizabeth Duquette
Classes and Readers Seminar schedules are subject to change.
For the most up-to-date information, check out our full events calendar.
