Events, Classes, and Seminars
We have moved many of our offerings online! We hope you will join us.
Featured Events
December 2020
Free Events
One Page Wednesday: December
Wed, December 2 from 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm PST
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! Hosted by Natalie Serber. December's featured reader is Ellen Michaelson. Ellen is the author of The Care of Strangers. She is a physician in Portland and an MFA graduate from Pacific University. She is currently an assistant professor…
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Free Events
Hugo Moreno and Guadalupe García McCall
Thu, December 3 from 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm PST
Join us for a reading with two Oregon authors. Hugo Moreno, professor at Lewis & Clark college, will be reading from his new novel, Where The North Ends (Donde se acaba el Norte), and will be joined by Guadalupe García McCall, author of several books for young adult readers. Presented in partnership with Reed College and Lewis & Clark College. This event will take place on Zoom. Register in advance for this event: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUtdOGpqzwoGNMGCwzVcC6cwQlo8SZZqePL .
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Winter 2021 Writing Classes
Writing Flash Prose
Sat, December 5 from 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm PST
In this 2-day intensive participants will create a mini scrapbook of vibrant vignettes, short short stories that tell tall tales. Mini epics. Through a series of experimental exercises focusing on key literary and poetic devices, students will bust through standard forms to draft vivid snapshots of life. We will also dig deep. Go behind the scenes, explore and bring to light what lies beneath. This is a generative workshop for flash fiction or non fiction. All genres welcome. Access Program…
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Ticketed Events
The Moth Virtual Portland Mainstage
Sat, December 5 from 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm PST
Each year, The Moth and Literary Arts team up to present the Portland Mainstage, and this year we are bringing it to you virtually. The Moth is true stories, told live and without notes. The Moth celebrates the ability of stories to honor both the diversity and commonality of human experience, and to satisfy a vital human need for connection. It seeks to present recognized storytellers among established and emerging writers, performers and artists and to encourage storytelling among communities whose stories often…
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Fall 2020 Free Events Writing Classes
An Appointment with Emily and Your Chair: Free Writing Session
Mon, December 7 from 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm PST
An event every week that begins at 7:00 pm on Monday, repeating until Mon, Dec 21, 2020
Writing, even on a good day, is hard. So how do we do it on the not-good days, on the days when it feels like the world is upside-down? “Butt in chair” is the simple answer. We make ourselves sit down, and we don’t get up until we’ve gotten a few sentences down at the very least. But sometimes it feels impossible to even get to the chair. We’d honestly rather throw the chair out the window than sit in…
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Free Events Youth Events
WITS Writer Winter Reading
Thu, December 17 from 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm PST
Join Writers in the Schools (WITS) as we close out this year in community for our annual WITS Writer Winter Reading. Although we'd normally gather in the library at Literary Arts, we invite you to cozy up from the comfort of your own spaces and listen to literary excellence at this virtual reading held via Zoom. This free public event will feature WITS writers Brian Benson, CJ Wiggan, Matt Smith, Meg E. Griffitts, Valarie Pearce, and others. -- RSVP HERE:…
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Free Events
Slamlandia: December
Thu, December 17 from 7:00 pm PST
Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month. This mic provides a creative, fun, and welcoming space for all literary communities in Portland. We encourage poets new and old to come share their work. We strive towards a safer space for poets to read their own poetry, witness others, and participate in community. If you have any questions, please contact slamlandia@gmail.com or jessica@literary-arts.org.
Find out moreJanuary 2021
Winter 2021 Writing Classes
Intermediate Poetry Workshop
Wed, Jan 6, 2021 from 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm PST
An individually focused poetry workshop designed to give committed writers a chance to meet, connect, and give and get feedback in a supportive, guided environment. Our focus: Personalized assignments and feedback suited to each poet’s needs. Reading recommendations and assignments, both from contemporary poets and essays on craft. Weekly in-class writing exercises. An understanding of what it’s like to make things and how writers tend to get stuck (and unstuck). A community of others committed to doing this strange and…
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Delve Readers Seminars Winter 2021
Nigerian Authors: Abi Dare and Akwake Emezi
Wed, Jan 13, 2021 from 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm PST
This seminar focuses on two Nigerian authors who rely on the use of foreign languages in their work. In The Girl With the Louding Voice, Abi Dare’s pidgin(broken English) is used in the narrator’s voice throughout the story. Discussions will include topics around class, race and the roles of children as domestics in African culture. In The Death of Vivek Oji, by Akwake Emezi, we will explore the story about the freedom of expressing one’s sexuality as it pertains to…
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Winter 2021 Writing Classes
Intersections of Identity and Experience, History and Imagination
Sat, Jan 16, 2021 from 10:00 am - 12:00 pm PST
In this webinar, open to prose writers and poets of all ages and backgrounds, participants will use freewriting, revision, and in-depth feedback as tools to create work that can spark new writing possibilities or build on an existing project. The class will address these types of questions: How do we synthesize our experiences and histories with acts of imagination? How do we break silences and heal from trauma through storytelling? How do we write about intersections between race, gender, sexuality,disability,…
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Winter 2021 Writing Classes
Building a Writing Habit
Sun, Jan 17, 2021 from 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm PST
For writers at all levels Using The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron as a resource, this workshop gives writers the tools to establish a disciplined writing practice full of healthy habits so they can keep writing. Class time will be spent in discussion, writing and learning strategies for establishing a consistent writing practice. Access Program We want our writing classes to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that our tuition structure can present obstacles for…
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Delve Readers Seminars Winter 2021
The “Middle space between languages”: Julia Alvarez and Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Sun, Jan 17, 2021 from 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm PST
This seminar will be an exploration of what Ingrid Rojas Contreras so accurately refers to as, “the middle space between languages,” in her essay, Translation as an Arithmetic of Loss. We will discuss the ways in which the characters in the two novels, Afterlife by Julia Alvarez and Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras, as well as the speakers in the additional poems, navigate the in-betweenness of being bilingual. Each text is a discovery of the ways…
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Winter 2021 Writing Classes
Writing the Non-Fiction Book Proposal
Tue, Jan 19, 2021 from 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm PST
This six-week class will take you step-by-step through the major parts of the nonfiction book proposal: the query letter, overview, competitive analysis, marketing and promotion, author background, outline and sample chapter. Bring an idea, and be ready to write. The class includes extensive handouts and questionnaires to guide your work.
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Delve Readers Seminars Winter 2021
Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia Butler
Tue, Jan 26, 2021 from 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm PST
“The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren't any other kind and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees.” Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower “You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed When the unimaginable is occurring, how do we navigate…
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Winter 2021 Writing Classes
Essay Intensive: Lyric and Personal
Tue, Jan 26, 2021 from 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm PST
In this eight-week intensive workshop, we will generate writing to prompts, finding our way into some lyric or personal essays. Participants will share drafts for focused feedback on specific craft issues and overall essay structure. The first four weeks will focus on one project, the second four weeks on another. Join this class to produce and workshop two essays and deepen your understanding of the essay form. I'm a strong believer in writing together and the kind of alchemy that…
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Portland Arts & Lectures
2020/21 Portland Arts & Lectures: Madeline Miller
Thu, Jan 28, 2021 from 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm PST
Madeline Miller is the author of The Song of Achilles (2011) and Circe (2018). Writing in a genre Miller refers to as “mythological realism,” these titles reimagine ancient Greek myths for the modern reader. The Song of Achilles won the 2012 Orange Prize (now The Women’s Prize for Fiction), was a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, and was praised by acclaimed author Ann Patchett as “a book I could not put down.” Circe was a #1 New York Times bestseller…
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Portland Arts & Lectures
Portland Arts & Lectures 2020/21 Season
Thu, Jan 28, 2021 from 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm PST
One event on Tue, May 18, 2021 at 7:30 pm
One event on Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 7:30 pm
One event on Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 7:30 pm
One event on Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 7:30 pm
Literary Arts is pleased to announce the author line-up for the 2020/21 Season of Portland Arts & Lectures. Subscriptions start at just $90 for the series. Subscribe today! At this time, all lectures are scheduled to take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
Find out moreFebruary 2021
Delve Readers Seminars Winter 2021
A Different Sort of Gilead: Marilynne Robinson
Tue, Feb 2, 2021 from 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm PST
Marilynne Robinson’s first novel, Housekeeping, was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1982. In 2005, she was awarded the Pulitzer for her second novel, Gilead. In this seminar we will read both novels; a subsequent seminar will focus on Robinson’s third and fourth novels, which take up and expand upon the story told in Gilead. All novels are concerned with questions of family, home, memory, and the often fraught nature of human relationships. In Housekeeping, two sisters struggle…
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Portland Arts & Lectures
2020/21 Portland Arts & Lectures: Ibram X. Kendi
Thu, Feb 18, 2021 from 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm PST
Ibram X. Kendi is a New York Times bestselling author and the founding director of The Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. A professor of history and international relations, Kendi is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of The Black Campus Movement and Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Kendi was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship and he was honored on The Root…
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Delve Readers Seminars Winter 2021
Dystopias of Turkish Modernity: Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book and Bilge Karasu’s Night
Thu, Feb 25, 2021 from 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm PST
This Delve seminar looks at two acclaimed authors of modern Turkish literature and their dystopian novels, The Black Book and Night. Dystopian narratives portray oppressive systems, and they display a deep suspicion of power structures and their alliance with scientific progress and technology. Published in 1985 in the aftermath of a brutal military coup in Turkey, Night depicts a violent secretive regime set out to murder its dissidents. Dystopian imagery of an unnamed city is permeated with dismembered bodies, silence,…
Find out moreApril 2021
2020/21 Portland Arts & Lectures: Joy Harjo
Tue, Apr 20, 2021 from 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm PDT
Joy Harjo is a renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and was named the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States in 2019. Harjo is the author of nine books of poetry—most recently An American Sunrise—several plays and children’s books, and a memoir, Crazy Brave. She has received numerous prominent awards, including the 2017 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize and 2015 Wallace Stevens Award. The Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, says: “Her work powerfully connects us to the…
Find out moreMay 2021
Portland Arts & Lectures
Portland Arts & Lectures 2020/21 Season
Tue, May 18, 2021 from 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm PDT
One event on Tue, May 18, 2021 at 7:30 pm
One event on Thu, Jan 28, 2021 at 7:30 pm
One event on Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 7:30 pm
One event on Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 7:30 pm
Literary Arts is pleased to announce the author line-up for the 2020/21 Season of Portland Arts & Lectures. Subscriptions start at just $90 for the series. Subscribe today! At this time, all lectures are scheduled to take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
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Portland Arts & Lectures
2020/21 Portland Arts & Lectures: Yaa Gyasi (RESCHEDULED)
Tue, May 18, 2021 from 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm PDT
Yaa Gyasi is the author of the forthcoming novel, Transcendent Kingdom (Knopf, August 2020). Her best-selling debut novel, Homegoing (2016), is an intergenerational saga following two split branches of a Ghanaian family through three hundred years of history. Homegoing won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for best first book, was shortlisted for the British Book Award – Debut of the Year, was named a New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book, and…
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