Free Events In-person
One Page Wednesday- December
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.
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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.
Free Events In-person
Where We Call Home: Josephine Woolington & Kristin Thiel in Conversation
In partnership with Ooligan Press. Join us in celebration of the launch of Where We Call Home: Lands, Seas, and Skies of the Pacific Northwest, an essay collection by Josephine
In-person Writing Classes
Submission Party
Bring a story, essay, nonfiction, hybrid piece - anything you feels is ready to submit. We'll review how submission works, how to research the literary magazines that might be a
online class Writing Classes
Writing With Constraints: Free Your Creativity
"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
Ticketed Events
The Moth: Mainstage in Portland
The Moth returns to Portland on Tuesday, December 13. This extraordinary performance sells out quickly, so reserve your seats early and experience unforgettable stories told live! Literary Arts and The
Free Events In-person
Slamlandia
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
Free Events 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
Delve Readers Seminars In-person Winter 2023
Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (“A Novel without a Hero”), by William Makepeace Thackeray (1848), belongs on the same shelf with other towering novels of the Victorian age: Bleak House, Middlemarch, Jane Eyre,
Free Events In-person
One Page Wednesday- January
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.
online class Writing Classes
Six Month Short Story Intensive
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 and familiarity with the elements of literary short fiction including scene, character, conflict, place, and revision. We will study individual stories by authors, read craft
Free Events In-person
Incite: Queer Writers Read – January
Featured
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
Free Events In-person
Ruby McConnell and Char Miller
Join us for an evening with Ruby McConnell and Char Miller discussing their latest books, Ground Truth: A Geological Survey of Life and Natural Consequences: Intimate Essays for a Planet
online class Writing Classes
Mastering the Short Story
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 weeks, students will have created a dossier of up to 20 pages of new work and received detailed feedback from the instructor. Access Program We
Delve Readers Seminars In-person Winter 2023
The Feminine Gothic: Victorian and American Horror
Novels of ghosts and haunted landscapes can open the door to discussions of sociology and repression, trauma, and the cathartic function of horror. In this seminar, we will examine themes of possession, repression, haunting, and the mad woman in the attic in three Victorian and American horror novels from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries:
Portland Arts & Lectures
Portland Arts & Lectures 2022/23: Lauren Groff
This event is part of our 38th season of Portland Arts & Lectures. Subscription sales to the lecture series have now closed. All lectures will be held in person at The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in downtown Portland, OR. For more information on the season, please see our FAQs or reach out to us at
online class Writing Classes
Six Month Screenwriting Intensive
“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 production that hundreds of professionals will collaborate on.” - Ken Miyamoto, Screencraft “The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take
Delve Readers Seminars In-person Winter 2023
Plato On Love
The Symposium by Plato asks: what is love? It is the story of a banquet in classical Athens, attended by Socrates and his friends, at which each person tells a story about the origin of Love. These stories are full of deep psychological insight, powerful mythic imagination, and profound philosophical reflection that have made The
Delve Readers Seminars In-person Winter 2023
The Brothers Karamazov
The American novelist Walker Percy described The Brothers Karamazov as “maybe the greatest novel of all time . . . . almost prophesies and prefigures everything—all the bloody mess and the issues of the 20th century.” It’s fair to extend Percy’s observation to include the mess of the present century as well. The Brothers K
Free Events Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships
2023 Oregon Book Awards Finalists announcement
The Oregon Book Awards honors the state’s finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in genres of poetry, fiction, graphic literature, drama, literary nonfiction, and literature for young readers. Finalists
Free Events online
Joy Castro & S. Tremaine Nelson
Join us for a conversation with Joy Castro, author of One Brilliant Flame, and S. Tremaine Nelson of the Northwest Review. This is a virtual event. Click here to register
online class Writing Classes
Writing the Autofiction Novella: twelve week intensive
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 read novel excerpts, short stories and novellas. We will also look at craft essays on the form. The goal over the twelve weeks is to
online class Writing Classes
Grief, Lyrically
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 is to find entry into writing through reading, conversation,and various prompts and exercises to catalyze memory and thinking. We will consider how writers crafting stories
BIPOC only Delve Readers Seminars Winter 2023
Language as resistance, words as collage: Don Mee Choi and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Though published many decades apart, these two texts share similarities both in their subject matter and their experimental qualities. Just as Dictee cannot be merely labeled as a memoir and DMZ Colony cannot be labeled purely as a poetry collection, both texts expand our understanding of genre by weaving together prose, poetry and photographs. Moreover,
Ticketed Events
An Evening with Amor Towles
Featured
Literary Arts is proud to present an evening with #1 New York Times bestselling author Amor Towles (Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow) in celebration of his third novel, The Lincoln Highway. COMMUNITY TICKETS: Free and reduced-priced tickets are available to this event. Learn more here. Praise for The Lincoln Highway: “Towles’ third
Free Events
Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb
Literary Arts and Sony Pictures Classics invite you to a special screening of the new documentary Turn Every Page.
online class Writing Classes
Continuing Delight: Approaching Joy
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 rich subject inspired this time by Ross Gay’s most recent book, Inciting Joy. This is a generative writing class where most of our time
In-person Memoir Writing Classes
Fiction Technique in Memoir
Memoir is a unique and exciting format in which the writer has the creative freedom to tell some portion of their life’s story in a captivating way. We don’t necessarily need to read your story from birth up to the present day but like any good novel, a good memoir should have a story arc,
Portland Arts & Lectures
Portland Arts & Lectures 2022/23: Patrick Radden Keefe
This event is part of our 38th season of Portland Arts & Lectures. Subscription sales to the lecture series have now closed. A limited amount of single tickets have been released for this lecture only. (Purchase tickets below). All lectures will be held in person at The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in downtown Portland, OR.
online class Writing Classes
Writing For Television: Where to Begin
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 environment the basics of creating, writing, and presenting your first television script for both drama and/or comedy, including how to take your idea to the
For Bipoc Writers online class Writing Classes
BIPOC Writing Workshop: February
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
For BIPOC writers Free Events online
BIPOC Reading Series- February
Featured
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
Free Events In-person
One Page Wednesday- March
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.
Free Events In-person
Mary Szybist & Laurel Nakanishi
Join poets Mary Szybist and Laurel Nakanishi for an interactive evening of poetry that will consider the concept of place. After a discussion and reading, the audience will be invited to
In-person Writing Classes
Craft Under the Microscope: The Micro-Essay
Micro-essays, much like poetry, rely on compression, constraint, and exacting language. In this generative course, participants will test the capacity of this miniature form, proving how much can be conveyed in a small space. Here, all the usual craft questions are present (what gets included, and what gets left out? Where to begin? How to
Ticketed Events
Storytelling for Change: Environmental Racism and Literature with Kiese Laymon & Imbolo Mbue, Sponsored by Literary Arts & The Lyceum Agency
Presented as part of the 2023 AWP Conference. A conversation on storytelling, environmental racism, and activism.
Delve Readers Seminars In-person Winter 2023
A Borderland Study: Who Drew This Line
What is a border? Who does it serve? Who gets to draw it? This seminar will interrogate our understanding of the border as a static entity by witnessing its creation, listening to those who have documented its development and studying how ever-changing policies continue to influence the lives of those on all sides of the
Free Events In-person
A Discussion with Kamala Sankaram & Susan Yankowitz
In partnership with the Portland Opera, join us for a discussion with Thumbprint composer Kamala Sankaram and librettist Susan Yankowitz, moderated by Portland Opera Artistic Director Priti Gandhi. This event is
Ticketed Events
Everybody Reads 2023: Ruth Ozeki
Featured
Celebrate the power of books to create a stronger community by attending the 2023 Everybody Reads author event with Ruth Ozeki! In partnership with Multnomah County Library and The Library Foundation, Literary Arts is proud to present a lecture by bestselling author Ruth Ozeki as the culminating event of Everybody Reads 2023. Everybody Reads is
online class Writing Classes
Jumpstart Your Memoir: Fundamentals and Strategies
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 long readings, the class will study and develop characterization, setting, and narrative voice besides learning to mine memory and research for detail. A 10–15-page project
Free Events In-person Oregon Book Awards Author Tour
JACOB DARWIN HAMBLIN
Jacob Darwin Hamblin, 2022 Oregon Book Award winner for The Wretched Atom, will be appearing at the Monmouth Public Library as part of the Oregon Book Award Author Tour. This
Free Events online Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships
OBA Finalists Reading: General Nonfiction
Join us for an evening with the 2023 Oregon Book Award finalists for the Frances Fuller Victor Award for General Nonfiction. Readings will be followed by an audience Q&A. This
Free Events In-person
Incite: Queer Writers Read – March
Featured
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
Free Events online Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships
Oregon Book Awards Finalists Panel: Drama
Join us for a panel discussion with the 2023 Oregon Book Award finalists for the Angus Bowmer Award in Drama. The panel will be moderated by Conor Eifler, the 2021
Free Events online Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships
OBA Finalists Reading: Creative Nonfiction
Join us for an evening with the 2023 Oregon Book Award finalists for the Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction. Readings will be followed by an audience Q&A. This is
Free Events online Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships
Children’s Storytime! with 2023 OBA Finalists
Join us for storytime with the 2023 Oregon Book Award finalists for the Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children's Literature. This is a virtual event. Click here to register in
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Literary Arts925 SW Washington Street
Portland, Oregon 97205
- 503.227.2583
- 503.241.4256 fax
- la@literary-arts.org
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