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 community space and bookstore at 716 SE Grand Avenue, Portland, OR, online, and at partnering venues across Portland and Oregon.
This will be a generative writing lab where we will read poems together and then write poems together. Be prepared to write and have fun and experiment in new ways.We will go from one set of poems and writing exercises to the next with some time at the end to share what we’ve written. Come to this workshop with a big imagination, an open mind, a laptop and/or a notebook.
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
Explore the necessary elements of writing a nonfiction book proposal from outline to “comp titles”, how to use them effectively, and where you can let your personal style shine through.
Learn new techniques for maintaining inspiration, overcoming self-doubt, and establishing sustainable writing habits, and stay focused and motivated on your writing goals.Explore the tools and mindset needed to persevere through challenges.
In this workshop, we will explore an expansive approach to the multi-voice novel. Taking inspiration from recently published works, we will consider how to decide which of your novel’s characters get to tell a story, and the manner in which they do so, and forms of narration that utilize the supernatural.
Instructor: Amy Minato Grades 9-12 In this workshop, we’ll discover parallels between visual and written art drawing inspiration from pieces in the museum collection. We’ll practice imagery, form, metaphor, and
Instructor: Damien Miles-Paulson (Grades 9-12) Write about your life … as a zombie! In this workshop, you’ll take a normal day and turn it into an imaginative story where you
Let’s play at the intersection of language and visual art! In this pop-up class, we’ll capture the image as it appears and disappears through ekphrastic writing and erasure.
The goal with stories, usually, is to keep us immersed in the plot line. So how do we make funny little tangents smoothly, without distracting the reader? This session will look at some examples of great transitions and practice making great little tangents of your own.
Instructor: Nicky Nicholson-Klingerman Grades 9–12 This workshop will explore the healing and performative aspects of spoken word poetry. Students will engage with spoken word poets from Gwendolyn Brooks to
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
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
Sometimes we become so focused on productivity or “doing it right” that we stifle our creativity. In this class we’ll focus on one of the hardest parts of writing: writing.
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.
Through a variety of prompts, we’ll create new work every week and practice tools for expanding existing projects and unblocking writer’s block.
In this six-week class, we will enter the zone of play with our writing as we work on personal essays. We will explore different forms and structures that can give our writing lift, and also play with constraints that can lead to new discoveries.
Sometimes our literary voice can be hazy even after we have refined and shaped the plot and narrative arc. In this fast paced six-week class, participants will generate a 2–6-page fictional narrative and develop it through two drafts with a keen eye on voice and tone. Simultaneously, we will work on character development and pacing and observe how they can support literary voice. Ideal for writers both in the process of a draft or just starting a new project.
Over the course of this six-week workshop, writers can expect to generate four new poetry experiments, one complete visual poetry project, and leave the workshop with a working knowledge of this exciting genre.
Equal parts strategic reflection, community building, generative writing, and experimental writing, this class will help writers deepen self-knowledge and spark curiosity and 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, simple rituals that refill the well, and ways to make time for creativity in a busy world. Each session will offer prompts for reflection, literary tinctures, and creative practices that unite body, heart, and intellect.
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