• April 1, 2024
          Creative Nonfiction Workshop
          April 1, 2024
          Finalists reading: Creative Nonfiction, Fiction and Poetry
          April 3, 2024
          One Page Wednesday: APRIL
          April 4, 2024
          Everybody Reads 2024: Gabrielle Zevin
  • Box Office
  1. Events
  2. Writing Classes

Events, Classes, and Seminars

Our events, classes, and seminars bring the community together to hear, learn, and discuss the most compelling issues and ideas of our day. We hope you will join us in our downtown Literary Arts space, online, and at partnering venues across Portland and Oregon.

Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Wednesday

Jul 19

Saturday

Jul 22

Wednesday

Jul 26

Tuesday

Aug 22

Saturday

Aug 26

Wednesday

Sep 6

Wednesday

Sep 6

Saturday

Sep 9

Tuesday

Sep 12

Wednesday

Sep 13

Fall 2023   Novel   online class   Writing Classes  

Nine-Month Novel Intensive: Wednesday

This course for dedicated writers is designed to guide you through the writing and/or revising of your novel. It runs from September through May. You’ll read excerpts from published novels by authors including Han Kang, Tommy Orange, Lina Meruane, Mitchell S. Jackson, Deborah Levy, and Susan Steinberg, as well as craft essays by authors including

Find out more
Thursday

Sep 14

Fall 2023   Novel   online class   Writing Classes  

Nine-Month Novel Intensive: Thursday

This course for dedicated writers is designed to guide you through the writing and/or revising of your novel. It runs from September through May. You’ll read excerpts from published novels by authors including Han Kang, Tommy Orange, Lina Meruane, Mitchell S. Jackson, Deborah Levy, and Susan Steinberg, as well as craft essays by authors including

Find out more
Tuesday

Sep 19

Saturday

Sep 23

Fall 2023   In-person   Writing Classes  

Autofiction Weekend Intensive

During this weekend autofiction intensive, we will take a deep dive into the unique art of autofiction. Autofiction combines the disciplines of autobiography and fiction. It can be written like memoir or like fiction, but it generally comes down to style: autofiction is often highly introspective and mainly focuses on interior life. For this course,

Find out more
Saturday

Sep 23

Monday

Sep 25

Free Events   online class   Writing Classes  

The Break with Kaveh Akbar

Event Series The Break with Kaveh Akbar

In partnership with Alano Club of Portland, "The Break is a monthly virtual gathering of writers and artists lead by Kaveh Akbar, celebrating amongness, collaboration, and interdisciplinary creative experimentation. Though many of the activities and discussions orbit or are inflected by recovery themes (Akbar has been in active recovery for eight years), participants are not

Find out more
Tuesday

Oct 3

Fall 2023   In-person   Writing Classes  

Pushing Through: Carrying Your Manuscript Over the Finish Line

This six-week course is designed to help students finish a draft of a fiction or non-fiction manuscript. We'll read craft essays about drafting a book, set aside time each week to discuss problems we're having with manuscripts, and design a schedule for each student to ensure everyone addresses the issues specific to their draft. This

Find out more
Sunday

Oct 8

Saturday

Oct 14

Saturday

Oct 21

Friday

Oct 27

Fall 2023   online class   Writing Classes  

Grief and the Lyric Essay

Throughout history, writers have used lyrical techniques to access states of consciousness we associate with grief. Lyrical writing prioritizes music, rhythm, and emotion over the narrative arc. The goal of this course is to find entry into writing through reading, conversation,and various prompts and exercises to catalyze memory and thinking. We will consider how writers

Find out more
Saturday

Oct 28

Monday

Oct 30

Tuesday

Oct 31

Wednesday

Nov 1

Fall 2023   online class   Portland Book Festival   Writing Class   Writing Classes  

STYLE AND THE SENTENCE

When it comes to writing short fiction and novels, the ideas we’ve absorbed about narrativizing from our outside lives often don’t apply. Even the most thrilling story, if written without a reverence to form, loses its audience quickly. In this seminar on literary style, we’ll study the most minute of authorial choices, coming to understand how subjectivity comes through on the subconscious level of the sentence.

Find out more
Wednesday

Nov 1

Thursday

Nov 2

Saturday

Nov 4

Saturday

Nov 4

Saturday

Nov 4

Saturday

Nov 4

Saturday

Nov 4

In-person   Portland Book Festival   Writing Class   Writing Classes  

The Unique Art of Autofiction

This is a three-hour, one-day intensive discussion on the unique genre of autofiction. This course will provide insight into the many nuances of autofiction, or autobiographical fiction. This “genre” involves writing that is based on real life experiences, but also utilizes fictional literary devices, making it  a very unique form.

Find out more
Sunday

Nov 5

Tuesday

Nov 7

Fall 2023   online class   Writing Classes  

Recharge Your Writing Life: Experiments & Strategies

Equal parts strategy, community, generative writing, and experiment, this class will help writers spark curiosity and deepen self-knowledge while crafting artistic habits that nourish. A good fit for writers who want to reimagine their creative life. We’ll discuss methods for working through blocks and rejection, rituals that refill the well, and ways to make time

Find out more
Thursday

Nov 9

Fall 2023   In-person   Writing Classes  

Finders, Keepers: Reclaiming Agency through Erasure and Collage

The hybrid genre of erasure and collage often exists between and because of two different mediums: text and image. Through obscuring a pre-existing text using various methods, an original work is created. Like erasure and collage, we as writers and community members exist between and because of various factors and people. What we amplify in

Find out more
Monday

Nov 13

Fall 2023   online class   Writing Classes  

Essaying the Essay

While we may know of essays as personal narratives crafted with creative storytelling techniques, essay as a verb means an attempt. In this six-week series, we’ll explore a variety of essays under the creative nonfiction umbrella in an attempt to expand our entry points to writing and in an attempt to build community. Our evenings

Find out more
Wednesday

Nov 15

Wednesday

Jan 17

Wednesday

Jan 17

Monday

Jan 22

Tuesday

Jan 23

Wednesday

Jan 24

Thursday

Jan 25

Tuesday

Jan 30

Saturday

Feb 3

Monday

Feb 26

Wednesday

Mar 13

Thursday

Mar 28

Filters

Changing any of the form inputs will cause the list of events to refresh with the filtered results.