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 class, held outdoors at Hoyt Arboretum, will guide you in practicing skills associated with shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing—a gentle, meditative approach to being with nature. The class will include
Questions about applying to this year's Oregon Literary Fellowships? Join us at this information session! Drop-in anytime between 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. Register in advance for this meeting here. Please contact Susan Moore (susan@literary-arts.org) or Jessica Meza-Torres (jessica@literary-arts.org) if you have any questions.
Incite: Queer Writers Read is a curated, bimonthly reading series for Queer writers. Incite’s hope is to create conversation, connection, and greater understanding both within the Queer community and with other communities. Hosted by Vinnie Kinsella and Jennifer Perrine. This event will take place in-person at Literary Arts' downtown center. Please review our Covid-19 guidelines. The theme
As modern life and literature focus more on material gains and martial conflicts, the work of Ursula K. Le Guin stands out for her commitment to depicting pacifism and environmentalism in her speculative fiction. Join Becky Chambers (A Prayer for the Crown-Shy), Juhea Kim (Beasts of a Little Land), and Michelle Ruiz Keil (Summer in
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 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
Questions about applying to this year's Oregon Literary Fellowships? Join us at this information session! Drop-in anytime between 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. Register in advance for this meeting here. Please contact Jessica Meza-Torres (jessica@literary-arts.org) if you have any questions.
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
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
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
Apply online for 2023 Oregon Literary Fellowships. Deadline to apply is Friday, August 5, 2022. Literary Arts will award 12 fellowships in the amount of $3,500. One of these fellowships is specifically for a writer of color. Three of these fellowships are funded by the Oregon Arts Commission. Applicants submit an application form, any addendums
Tarot, the ancient card system, is having a 21st century renaissance. With more and more artists improving upon the medieval straight, white, thin and able-bodied imagery, today everyone can find
Literary Arts has partnered with Pickathon to feature author readings and a live recording of our radio show and podcast, The Archive Project. Authors featured on the Windmill Stage, Sunday, August 7 from 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Omar El Akkad WHAT STRANGE PARADISE Santi Elijah Holley MURDER BALLADS Michelle Ruiz Keil SUMMER IN THE CITY Jules
Join us for a conversation with Adam White and Justin Taylor, moderated by S. Tremaine Nelson of the Northwest Review. This event is in-person at Literary Arts. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination required for entry. Please see our guidelines here.
Etgar Keret is one of the most important Israeli authors alive today. He has mastered the genre of short fiction with a witticism that uses humor and farce to make readers step outside of their comfort zone and view things from the perspective of the absurd. In doing that, Keret brings a fresh, comical, and
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
Emily Dickinson has achieved the rarest of distinctions for a nineteenth-century poet (and a female one at that): lasting, evolving fame. Having escaped the confines of academic study and school syllabi, Dickinson has become a popular figure beloved by a wide and varied readership and the subject of films, television programs, and fan clubs. She
This bimonthly reading series is intended to prioritize the safety, creativity, and stories of Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color. Come listen to our featured readers, or sign up to share your work in our open mic. Readings will be followed by a short community discussion. The theme for August is "CRUSH." Our
One Page Wednesday is back in-person at our downtown center! 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. Our host this
Friday, September 9, is the deadline for submission to the 2023 Oregon Book Awards and Special Awards. Books published between September 1, 2021 and August 31, 2022 are eligible. Complete Oregon Book Awards guidelines are here, and guidelines for the Special Awards are here.
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
Literary Arts is thrilled to announce the lineup of authors appearing at this year's Portland Book Festival, presented by Bank of America, which will take place on Saturday, November 5, 2022. Passes to Portland Book Festival will also go on sale at this time.
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
Incite: Queer Writers Read is a curated, bimonthly reading series for Queer writers. Incite’s hope is to create conversation, connection, and greater understanding both within the Queer community and with other communities. Hosted by Vinnie Kinsella and Jennifer Perrine. The theme for September is Speculate. Our featured readers are Wendy Wagner, Christopher Rose, and Lydia Rogue.
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
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
The Alano Club of Portland's Artists in Recovery series and Literary Arts are thrilled to welcome Hanif Abdurraqib, Kaveh Akbar and Leslie Jamison to Portland for a reading and conversation
A reading with Hanif Abdurraqib, poet, essayist, and cultural critic. He is the author of the poetry The Crown Ain't Worth Much and the essay collection They Can't Kill Us
“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
When was the last story you read that really changed you? Maybe you thought about it for days, weeks, you’ve re-read it over the years. And maybe you said to
This event is part of our 38th season of Portland Arts & Lectures. Subscriptions for the five-part lecture series are on sale now. All lectures will be held in person
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
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
In 1889 Henri Bergson's (1858-1941) bestseller Time and Free Will inaugurated a vast revolution of the understanding of time in world philosophy that was a keystone in the literature, art,
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
This weekend intensive is designed for writers who have written at least the first two chapters of a novel. Limited to 8 students, each participant will have their work discussed,
Delve for Writers is a new, occasional Delve series that offers seminars that focus on close readings of narrative, form, and stylistic choices that writers can incorporate into their own
“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
One Page Wednesday is back in-person at our downtown center! Here is an opportunity to share or listen to one page of work in progress from talented writers from everywhere.
Literary Arts is proud to invite you to Bookmark: A Benefit for Literary Arts, a showing of essential support for and celebration of the stories in our community and the essential
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
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
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
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
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