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.
This 8-week class is focused on holding yourself and your classmates accountable to your writing goals. Each week, plan to share your work-in-progress with the group, set or revise goals for your weekly writing practice, and share successes and challenges with fellow writers. You’ll also learn strategies for keeping focused and staying on track. Occasional
Creative nonfiction utilizes non-linear structures to “think” into complex or ambiguous subjects. In this class, we will explore the relationship between form and content in memoir, deepening our practice by working with a draft of a story or essay. Outside reading assignments and in-class writing and revision exercises will encourage experimentation and writing play. We will
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, makingit a very unique form. I will provide craft essays and
It’s all about the relationship! In this workshop you’ll learn when and how to search for an agent, what you need for a powerful query letter, and the nuts and
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
Can we “chase” our imagination to its source? Where does creativity happen in the mind? These are some of the questions Lynda Barry explores in her book Syllabus, which describes
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
Do you think in lengthy narrative strands, elegantly formed with a beginning, middle and an end? I don’t. I flit from image, to feeling, to recrimination, to joy. Light flickers over my memories, both happy and hard. I call these messy memories ‘stamps,’ events or moments that have imprinted upon me in unshakeable ways. In
This class begins in September, with the goal of finishing a complete draft of a memoir by June. Participants do not need to be published writers; however, they should have some experience with elements of memoir, including character, setting, dialogue and scene, and have a clear project in mind that they will devote nine months
This 8-week class is focused on holding yourself and your classmates accountable to your writing goals. Each week, plan to share your work-in-progress with the group, set or revise goals for your weekly writing practice, and share successes and challenges with fellow writers. You’ll also learn strategies for keeping focused and staying on track. Occasional
“Your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone’s.” -Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux, The Poet’s Companion What we know in our personal worlds contain essential truths of the larger world. The challenge we face as poets is how to transform our lived experiences–creatively and imaginatively–into art that can be
Searching for a space to create new work with fellow BIPOC writers? This two-hour workshop meets on Zoom. A variety of prompts will be presented as avenues for generating and sharing new work in an informal setting. Open to BIPOC writers at all levels writing in poetry, fiction, or nonfiction. Access Program We want our
The world is a weird place, and we’re just here to document it. This course is for the scribes, the armchair historians, the miners of weird information — all of you aspiring nonfiction writers who aren’t sure what to do with your ideas, or budding freelance journalists looking to turn your ideas into sellable stories.
If a story leads exactly where you would expect it to go, then both the writer and the reader have discovered nothing. How do we expand our well-behaved, satisfying stories to fully burst into the mystery and unpredictability of human experience? This discussion class will give participants the tools to examine great stories for the
We're all familiar with satisfying story shape, the arc of a story that follows the pattern of jokes and sex—the inciting incident, rising action, crisis and the falling action. Yet sometimes this pattern can leave a story flat, without room for wonder. If a story leads exactly where you would expect it to go, then
This course is for all levels of writers and readers; the only requirement is a desire to take a deep dive into the unique art of autofiction (autobiographical fiction). We
In this online three-part workshop, participants will explore various methods of using the Tarot and other simple forms of divination as prompts for poems. We will allow ourselves to be
There is a great temptation to airbrush ourselves on the page, to fill in the pockmarks of our flaws—and yet this leaves us not only less trustworthy, but less interesting.
This generative workshop will focus on the skills involved in creating and sustaining vibrant and complex characters. Through a series of in-workshop prompts and exercises participants will create and bring
How do the big questions of our time--from climate change to racism--inhabit the stories of our lives? And what does it look like on the page to tell exquisitely personal
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
Poesis,” in ancient Greek, means “making.” What would it mean to make poetry a daily part of your life? How might this re-make your understanding of poetry, your life, and
Dialogue is like music: on the page it may look great, but what it’s like when you hear it aloud? This workshop will examine what dialogue does, how to write
"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by play." —Carl Jung For a creative twist, some prose writers impose unique conditions on their work
This class is for experienced writers who are dedicated to starting the first draft of a story collection over the course of six months. Participants should have experience writing stories
In this intensive workshop, students will write and revise their short stories focusing on craft elements such as characters, voice, subtext, and story structure. At the end of the six
“Screenplays…are primarily a narrative blueprint for cinematic interpretation. They require certain beats, certain layouts, and certain terminology to communicate the visual and audio needs of an eventual production — a
Autofiction is a unique genre (or non-genre) that combines the autobiographical with the fictional. In this course, we will take a close look at the craft of autofiction. We will
Writers often use musical 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
In 2020, Perrin offered a class with Literary Arts on writing about joy inspired by Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights. She's back in 2023 with a “take two” on
This unique course is designed for creative aspiring writers with no prior experience, as well as those with screenwriting experience, wishing to break into television writing. Learn in an interactive
Searching for a space to create new work with fellow BIPOC writers? This two-hour workshop meets on Zoom. A variety of prompts will be presented as avenues for generating and
In this six-week class, students will work on creating a narrative structure that will allow them to embark on the journey of the creation of their memoir. Through short and
The world is a weird place, and we’re just here to document it. This course is for the scribes, the armchair historians, the miners of weird information — all of
In this class, we will drop all worry about being “writers”. Instead, we will simply use writing as a means of grounding our own attention. We will be prompted by
“When I sit down and start writing, I feel the given world recede, and I can just play.” —Sam Lipsyte Remember when you were a little kid, playing on the
How do I decide what to write about? What if my memory is flawed? How much research do I need to do? What details are the most important? What’s the
The lyric essay is a form that allows many small fragments to be drawn together to create a whole. A lyric essay might hold memories, research, a bit of poetry,
Some stories call for a breaking of boundaries, others for a union of text and image or visual form. In this generative course, we’ll experiment with different ways of looking
If you allow them to, ideas for art and writing can come from absolutely anywhere. This creative generation class will put that theory to the test, through a series of
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
This six-month class is designed for memoirists in the early to mid stages of their memoir writing journey looking for consistent, in-depth feedback on their work. We will study four
This class, in the words of Nikki Finney, is about having and keeping a beautiful mind -- which is essential to building an art practice that can change or deepen
In this generative workshop, we’ll look at examples by writers who use fragments in various ways, and try inventive writing exercises and strategies for creating a memoir from fragments. Fragments
Writing can be emotionally exhausting. It can have a substantial physiological effect on the body: as you imagine an emotional scene, your body will sometimes go through the experience as
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