• 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
          April 8, 2024
          2024 Oregon Book Awards Ceremony
  • Box Office

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.

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Wednesday

Mar 30

Monday

Apr 4

Delve Readers Seminars  

Freud to W.G. Sebald: Narratives of Trauma, Trauma of Narrative

In this seminar, we will explore Sebald’s final novel, Austerlitz (2001), and the narrative “Max Ferber” from The Emigrants (1992), as literary representations of trauma. Sebald unfolds his concept of trauma through a myriad of themes and tropes, such as, intermingled identities of survivor and victim, speaker and listener; displacement; exile; individual and collective trauma;

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Tuesday

Apr 5

Delve Readers Seminars   In-person  

Middlemarch

Virginia Woolf described George Eliot’s Middlemarch as “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.” Widely considered Eliot’s masterpiece, the novel follows the interwoven lives of the inhabitants of a provincial English town. Threading together stories of love, betrayal, failed marriages, romantic idealism, and frustrated ambition, Eliot creates a microcosm of nineteenth-century life

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Wednesday

Apr 6

Wednesday

Apr 6

Delve Readers Seminars   In-person  

James Joyce’s Ulysses

February 2, 2022, marks the 100th anniversary of the publication in Paris of James Joyce's Ulysses, long considered one of the most important works of modernist literature and a uniquely challenging and rewarding book. Based in part on Joyce's lifelong interest in Homer's Odyssey, and set in Dublin, "the great Hibernian metropolis," Ulysses also represents

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Sunday

Apr 10

Tuesday

Apr 12

Thursday

Apr 14

Saturday

Apr 16

Wednesday

Apr 20

online class   Writing Classes  

Creative Nonfiction Memoir: Workshop & Revision 

Creative nonfiction utilizes non-linear structures to “think” into complex or ambiguous subjects. In this class, we will deepen our practice with the form by working with a new or established draft of a story or essay. Writing prompts and drafting techniques will allow students to experiment with structure and voice. Outside reading assignments and in-class

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Wednesday

Apr 20

Thursday

Apr 21

Friday

Apr 22

online class   Writing Classes  

Writing Grief, Writing Trauma: An Entry

Since antiquity, poets have used lyrical techniques to access states of consciousness we associate with grief and trauma. 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

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Monday

Apr 25

Wednesday

May 4

Friday

May 6

Saturday

May 7

Sunday

May 8

Sunday

May 15

Thursday

May 19

Friday

May 20

Saturday

May 21

online class   Writing Classes  

Where Do You Start: Writing Beginnings

The  first sentences of a work can connect instantly to your character and their dilemma so that your reader is immediately hooked into your story. In this 3 hour class, we'll unpack the beginnings from our favorite books and movies to understand how everything you release in the first paragraphs is vital for your story arc.

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Sunday

May 22

Thursday

May 26

Saturday

May 28

online class   Writing Classes  

Getting Published: Literary Magazines

How do you find literary magazines that want your work? What's the best way of getting an editor's attention? This workshop will give you the tools to set up your submission process so you can easily track submissions, learn when to follow up, and how to improve your chances of being published. Access Program We

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Monday

May 30

online class   Writing Classes  

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

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Tuesday

May 31

Delve Readers Seminars   Online  

Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, and a Room of One’s Own

One of the most talented and prolific writers of her (or any) generation, Virginia Woolf published novels, short stories, plays, essays, reviews, a biography (of Roger Fry), and an impressionistic, vividly realized memoir. She is a central figure of modernism, admired for her innovative style and attention to craft. In this seminar we will read

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Wednesday

Jun 1

Wednesday

Jun 8

online class   Writing Classes  

Creative Nonfiction I

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 best way to give and receive feedback to writers in a workshop setting? This class invites you to explore the fundamentals of creative nonfiction, including

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Wednesday

Jun 15

Delve Readers Seminars   In-person  

White Teeth

Written when she was only 25 years old, White Teeth catapulted Zadie Smith into renown as one of the most exciting authors in the English language. This profound & humorous novel revolves around two families living as neighbors in Willesden, London: the English/Jamaican Jones family & the Bangladeshi Iqbal family. The families initially become intertwined

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Thursday

Jun 23

Monday

Jun 27

Tuesday

Jun 28

Wednesday

Jun 29

Wednesday

Jun 29

BIPOC only   Delve Readers Seminars   Online  

Signs. Spoken. Memory. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee

This seminar is for BIPOC participants only Celebrating the 40th anniversary of this seminal publication, we will study Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee along with some of its academic critique. This work in many ways defies categorization--with its mixture of French and English, text and images, and the poetic and political. Though it has been described

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