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Featured Events
Saturday, November 9, 2019
The Moth Mainstage in Portland
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Everybody Reads 2020: Tommy Orange
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Portland Book Festival
Claim your Friend of the Festival Tickets now to ensure a VIP experience on November 9! The Festival author lineup will be announced on September 5.
Friend of the Festival Tickets
Portland Book Festival Writing Workshops
Festival admission is included in your tuition
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Writing Classes
Join a community of writers who are serious about their craft. Our writing classes for adults are taught by talented working writers, many of them Oregon Book Awards authors. Classes are small and focused on accomplishing specific writing goals in a supportive and welcoming setting.
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Fall 2019: I Contain Multitudes: Using Persona to Reveal Our Many Selves
October 13-27, 2019
Sundays, 5:30-7:30 p.m. (3 sessions)
Class meets at Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington
Instructor: Jennifer PerrineLimited to 10 students
In “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman wrote, “I am large, I contain multitudes.” We’ll follow in Whitman’s footsteps by reading and writing poems that explore the multiple people we have been, are, and could be. We’ll also blend autobiographical and fictional details and invite in personae—selves who seem vastly different from us—to discover new strategies for writing from the fullness of our messy, contradictory lives.
$135.00Read More- Sold Out
Fall 2019: October Writer of Color Sunday Morning Workshop
Sunday, October 20, 2019
10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.Searching for a space to create new work with fellow writers of color? This two-hour workshop meets once a month on Sundays. Writers can register for one or more sessions. A variety of prompts will be presented as avenues for generating and sharing new work in an informal setting. Open to writers of color at all levels writing in poetry, fiction, or nonfiction. You can also bring your own prompts and questions about the writing process, and explore them with the group.
$15.00Read More- Sold Out
Fall 2019: Fiction Revision Master Class
Saturday, October 26, 2019
10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Instructor: Zulema Renee SummerfieldYou’ve got a piece of writing that you love, but you know it needs some work. It’s got all the potential to be a great piece, but no matter your efforts you can’t figure out how to revise it. Every time you go back in, you spend hours fixating on a period or a comma and not making any real changes. You put the story away and start a new one. Same thing: great potential, uneasiness, tinkering, stalling. Wash, rinse, repeat.
In this one-day revision class, students will learn to break out of this vicious cycle by gaining tips and tricks for revision. Most writers (even professional ones) face blocks when it comes time to revise, and together we will learn some tried and true methods that actually work.
We’ll get into the nitty-gritty of trusted revision techniques and learn how to apply these techniques to our own work. This class is ideal for those writers who are great at starting stories but not finishing them, or for those to whom “revision” is a scary word. Together, we’ll learn that revision doesn’t have to be terrifying—that in fact, revision is where some of the best work happens.
$110.00Read More- Sold Out
Fall 2019: The True, Brilliant You: Master Class
Thursday, November 7, 2019
6:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Instructor: Brenda ShaughnessyIn this workshop you will read poems (to fill up on wonder and beauty and weirdness and resilience) workshop poems, (to re-see ourselves and hear each other), and generate poems (to open up to the new brilliant truth in us.) This class is for experienced poets. To apply for this class, please e-mail three poems in a single document by October 15, 2019 to Susan Moore at susan@literary- arts.org. Work e-mailed as the manuscript submission will be shared among registered students and discussed in this three- hour workshop.
Brenda Shaughnessy is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently The Octopus Museum. Her book Our Andromeda was a New York Times Notable book and a finalist for the Griffin International Prize and the Kingsley Tufts Prize. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Harper’s, The Nation, The New Yorker, O Magazine, Paris Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013 and is Associate Professor in the MFA program at Rutgers University-Newark.
$125.00Read More
Fall 2019: Storytelling Intensive: Stories of Healing/Healing our Stories
November 6 – December 4, 2019 (3 sessions plus a storytelling performance on December 4)
$175.00
Wednesdays, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Instructor: Mindy Nettifee
Limited to 10 students
For storytellers at all levels
Fall 2019: Talking Back: Poetry In Conversation With Other Texts
November 10 – 24, 2019
Sundays, 5:30-7:30 p.m. (3 sessions)
Class meets at Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington
Instructor: Jennifer PerrineLimited to 10 students
We all know that words carry weight, but some words—especially those in political speeches, sacred texts, and canonical literature—can seem overwhelming in their authority. We’ll choose texts that have influenced us—for better or for worse—and use them as scaffolding for constructing our own poems. In the process, we’ll see what happens when we give our words just as much heft as the texts that matter most to us. All levels
$135.00- Sold Out
Fall 2019: November Writer of Color Sunday Morning Workshop
Sunday, November 17
10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.Meets at Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington
$15.00
Instructor: Emilly Prado
For writers of color at all levels
Searching for a space to create new work with fellow writers of color? This two-hour workshop meets once a month on Sundays. Writers can register for one or more sessions. A variety of prompts will be presented as avenues for generating and sharing new work in an informal setting. Open to writers of color at all levels writing in poetry, fiction, or nonfiction. You can also bring your own prompts and questions about the writing process, and explore them with the group.Read More- Sold Out
Fall 2019: December Writer of Color Sunday Morning Workshop
Sunday, December 8, 2019
10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.Meets at Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington
$15.00
Instructor: Emilly Prado
For writers of color at all levels
Searching for a space to create new work with fellow writers of color? This two-hour workshop meets once a month on Sundays. Writers can register for one or more sessions. A variety of prompts will be presented as avenues for generating and sharing new work in an informal setting. Open to writers of color at all levels writing in poetry, fiction, or nonfiction. You can also bring your own prompts and questions about the writing process, and explore them with the group.Read More
Winter 2020: Building A Writing Habit
January 5 – February 9, 2020
$275.00
Sundays, 10 a.m. to noon (6 class meetings)
Meets at Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington
Instructor: Kristina Tate
For writers at all levels
Winter 2020: Elements of Story
January 11–February 15, 2020
Sundays, 10:00 a.m. –12:30 p.m. (six sessions)
Instructor: Zulema Summerfield
for writers with some experienceThis workshop is ideal for writers with an early draft of a story, an in-progress story that has stalled, or an idea for a story that hasn’t quite found its form. We’ll take in-depth looks at basic elements of craft, from plot and dialogue to point of view and voice, exploring ways to weave these elements into our own work. Each week, we will share our stories in a supportive, creative workshop setting, with an eye towards exploratory revision and eventual publication.
$335.00
Winter 2020: Collisions: Short Story Workshop
January 14–February 18, 2020
Tuesdays, 7:00–9:00 p.m. (six sessions)
Instructor: Josha Nathan
For writers at all levelsIn this fiction workshop, we will explore how to use all manner of combustible collisions, both small and large, as generative fuel. Have a slew of disparate ideas stewing in your brain? We’ll investigate the power of unexpected pairings—how colliding seemingly unrelated images or ideas can spark something entirely original and point your work forward. You will build your own stories and receive the focused attention of a workshop environment. All levels
$275.00
Winter 2020: Exploring the Lyric Essay
February 2-23, 2020
Sundays, 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (4 class meetings)
Meets at Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington
Instructor: Miranda Schmidt
For writers at all levels
Instructor: Miranda Schmidt
Limited to 10 studentsA flexible, hybrid form, the lyric essay employs techniques from poetry, nonfiction, and fiction to create a single work. In this workshop, we’ll experiment with lyric essay techniques and structures, read a variety of examples that employ these techniques, and craft our own lyric essays on subjects of our choosing. You will also learn revision techniques you can implement as you continue to work with your pieces after the class has ended.
$275.00
Winter 2020: Short Story Intensive TWO
March 12-April 16, 2020
$410.00
Thursdays, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Class meets at Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington.
Instructor: Margaret Malone
Winter 2020: New Ecological Writing
March 8- 29, 2020
$275.00
Sundays, 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (4 class meetings)
Meets at Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington
Instructor: Miranda Schmidt
For writers at all levels
Instructor: Miranda Schmidt
Limited to 10 students
For writers at all levels.
Winter 2020: Creating Better Characters
April 5-26, 2020
$175.00
Sundays, 2:00–4:00 p.m (four sessions)
Instructor: David Ciminello
For writers at all levelsDelve Readers Seminars
Delve Readers Seminars engage readers in exploring challenging books in lively discussion-based seminars led by an experienced scholar.
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Oregon Book Awards Submission Fee
Pay the 2020 Oregon Book Award submission fee online. Be sure to indicate the title or titles you are paying the fee for.
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2019/2020 Portland Arts & Lectures Subscriptions
Please note that the Portland Arts & Lectures series is sold out at ALL LEVELS. Please call our Box Office at 503-227-2583 weekdays with any questions.
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Annual Fund
The generosity of individual donors enables our programs to serve readers and writers. Your donation will help engage readers through our Portland Arts & Lectures series and the Portland Book Festival, support writers through the Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships, and inspire the next generation with great literature through our Youth Programs.
Upcoming Events
PDX JAZZ: The Music and the Movement
October 23, 2019
The Music and the Movement will dive in to the inherent relationship…
2019/2020 Portland Arts & Lectures: George Packer (Sold Out)
October 24, 2019
The series will begin on October 24 with author and staff writer…
One Page Wednesday: November
November 6, 2019
Writers, escape the solitude of your desk. Readers, come hear great fresh…
2019 Portland Book Festival
November 9, 2019
Join Literary Arts for the annual Portland Book Festival, presented by Bank of…
The Moth Mainstage in Portland
December 10, 2019
The Moth returns to Portland this December! This extraordinary performance will sell…
Everybody Reads 2020: Tommy Orange
March 5, 2020
Literary Arts is proud to host an evening with award-winning author Tommy…
Latest Blog Posts
October 11, 2019
Go to PostOregon Book Awards authors Nick Dybek, John Larison and Emily Whitman visited Lake County, Oregon as part of the Oregon Book Awards Author Tour. The tour started in Silver Lake and Christmas Valley on October 3 and travelled to Paisley…
September 3, 2019
Go to PostLiterary Arts seeks two interns to assist at @Literary Arts events at our downtown center. Applicants from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply. Internships are four months, from October 2019 – January 2020. These internships will provide practical, hands-on experience…
July 1, 2019
Go to PostDuring our 2018/2019 season of events, we inspired more than 20,000 people to explore books, stories, and the important ideas and issues they raise. Our programs help Oregonians of all ages find and share their stories. From concert hall events…
Featured Lecture from the Archives
Chef Edward Lee
October 9, 2019
Go to LectureSam Sifton, food editor of the New York Times, interviews chef Edward Lee about his new book, Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting-Pot Cuisine.
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