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.
Are you writing a novel? Do you want company? Writing a novel is an intensive and often lonely experience. This course brings novel writers at all stages of the process together to support each other for 8 weeks.
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
A reading featuring some of the 2026 finalists in Creative Nonfiction: Judith Barrington, Karleigh Frisbie Brogan, Wayne Scott and Lidia Yuknavitch
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is excited to welcome Graywolf Press for a special discussion on non-profit and independent publishing in the modern age. This event will feature Carmen Giménez and Serena Chopra in conversation. About Graywolf Press Graywolf Press is a nonprofit literary publisher of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and work in translation.
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is pleased to welcome Emergency Horse for the launch of their latest issue. Join us for an evening of readings and celebration. This event is free and open to all. About Emergency Horse The relaunch of the magazine happened this past September. Emergency Horse #8 featured an interview of
In this three week class, participants will diversify approaches to place-based writing by following the auditory threads within their poems and worlds alike. Each week, we’ll identify and write with sound-oriented devices to channel the sensuous qualities of our chosen environments.
Does what you write or how you write it change with the seasons? In these quarterly gatherings we’ll meet to be inspired by the turn of the world.
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe cordially invites you to the first annual meeting of the Dead Poets Society, an open mic for dead people and their enthusiasts. This National Poetry Month, we’re celebrating the voices of poets from the past. Join us to celebrate the work of your favorite dead poet by sharing it
Try a tarot reading for a character or write a poem inspired by tarot images! Tarot is both deeply symbolic and highly narrative, creating a system that can inspire and guide many forms of writing. This multigenre workshop will introduce techniques for using tarot in one’s writing practice.
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is thrilled to welcome Robyn Saunders Wilson to celebrate her debut, Junkyard Princess! Saunders Wilson will be in conversation with Michelle Kicherer. About Junkyard Princess The year is 1983. It’s a time of both mullets and glam, Bowie and the Smiths, and for twelve-year-old Robyn: rusty old vehicles, terrifying
Join us to hand-sew decorative plush to celebrate the rain! Sew felt raindrops, umbrellas, crows, and more. ✨ Bring a friend! Make a friend! Grab a beverage, browse the books, and gather round to sew some righteously rainy things to celebrate the equinox! Traceable templates & embroidery stitch print-outs provided. This event is self-guided and
In this one-day class, we will learn about the history of the sijo, its relevance to Korean literature, and the unique sensibilities and affordances of the form, while also getting several opportunities to write our own with guided instruction.
In this four-hour workshop, we'll mine minutia. Everyday moments, half-remembered anecdotes, passing observations using them as raw material for telling personal stories that resonate. What makes a story feel big or important? Together, we’ll test that question by looking closely at how you move through your life: the choices you make, the risks you avoid or take, the mistakes you repeat, the things you long for, and the decisions that reveal what matters to you.
David Foster Wallace was uniquely prophetic in his ability to diagnose the ills of America and where they were headed in the early 2000s. Toxic masculinity, mental illness, authenticity, empathy, and dopamine exhaustion though media are constants in his work and are best showcased through his short fiction and nonfiction.
Join us at the Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe for our monthly write-in. April is National Poetry Month, so we are celebrating our poets. Whether you write poetry, prose, or something in between, all stories welcome! Our Food and Beverage Assistant Manager, Miah, cooked up a new special, the Sigh Swoon Sigh; a tangerine ginger
Join the team behind the popular NPR podcast Planet Money to celebrate the publication of their new book, PLANET MONEY: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life. Book author and longtime Planet Money contributor Alex Mayyasi and host Kenny Malone will bring Planet Money’s signature brand of storytelling to the stage and discuss some highlights from the
The three novels in this seminar all overlap in time and space with the mid-twentieth-century world of Gilead, while offering whole other stories and lives that offer perspectives on the great themes of race and racism, faith and family, punishment and reconciliation, love and loss and forgiveness. Set in the American past, Robinson’s novels nevertheless offer challenging insights and hope for today—hope for art, for the nation, for each other and individual selves.
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is excited to welcome local poets Rebecca Clarren, Margot Kahn, and Daniela Naomi Molnar for an evening of readings and conversation!
Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month at Literary Arts, on the third Thursday. 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 safe space for poets to read their
Join us for an evening honoring our state's most accomplished writers in the genres of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, young readers, and graphic literature.
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is thrilled to welcome Kanako Nishi, author of the Japanese language novel Sakura and Allison Markin Powell, the English translator of the best-selling novel. This event will be moderated by Jay Boss Rubin and feature musical guest Gabriella Page-Fort. About the book: Available in English at last, the international
Patrick Radden Keefe appears at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on April 23, 2026, as part of the Portland Arts & Lectures series.
Join us for a day of giveaways, free workshops, food and drink specials, and more as we celebrate indie bookstores! Saturday, April 25, is Independent Bookstore Day! Come celebrate with us at 716 SE Grand Avenue from 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m for a day full of books, community, festivity, and surprises! 🎧 Libro.fm Golden
Participants in this one day class will read, draft, and collaborate in revising letter poems that balance the public with the private, the close-to-bone with the common. Through generative, constraint-based prompts, participants will explore the tension between forms of direct address and forms of poetic allusion to speak to, or point towards, what’s been left unsaid in their poems.
Writers will work with a variety of prompts and in-class exercises to amplify the character development of their fictional characters.
Join us at The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe on Independent Bookstore Day for a special storytime featuring local author Leslie Barnard Booth. Saturday, April 25, is Independent Bookstore Day! Come celebrate with us at 716 SE Grand Avenue from 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m for a day full of books, community, festivity, and surprises!
Come celebrate Independent Bookstore Day at Literary Arts and take part in a free, two-hour condensed version of Miranda Schmidt's Writing With Tarot class.
This class is for anyone ready to take a personal 5-minute story and actively shape it for an audience. You’ll work hands-on with one story. Drafting, refining, and testing it aloud. We’ll focus on structure, pacing, and point of view, helping you find the spine of the story and decide what belongs in this particular version of the story and what doesn’t.
The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe is excited to welcome Literary Arts board member Priscilla Bernard Wieden for a special reading from her poetry collection, Solitary Light. Priscilla will be in conversation with Oregon's former poet laureate, Kim Stafford. About the book: Poetry is a conduit for communicating our shared experiences and broadening our understanding
This monthly 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. Hosted by Kyle Yoshioka and Jessica Meza-Torres. The featured reader
Read Willima Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, both of which consider the many scars, healed and not, caused by enslavement and the Civil War. Thinking about history, memory, and what Morrison calls “rememory,” we’ll consider what it means to live in a nation, to inherit its past, and to fight for a better future.
Explore what it means to be a witness as a writer — to our own lives, to others’ lives, to the natural world, to our nation’s life.
Verselandia! is the annual youth poetry slam championship presented by Literary Arts. It is the Grand Slam for the winners from individual school slams hosted by public high school librarians across the Portland region. Finalist poets compete for five great prizes. Members of the public are invited to cheer on the youth poets as they
In this class, we examine how hybrid memoirists strategize to tell stories that diverge from conventional forms of memoir and essay writing. In addition to practicing various poetic and nonfiction forms, participants will have the opportunity to deep dive into topics that interest them, such as art, literature, history, theory, myth, film, fashion, erotics, music, science, and more.
The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe is excited to welcome poet Erin L. McCoy to celebrate her debut novel, Underlake. McCoy will be in conversation with Erica Berry. About the book: Twelve years ago, Otta escaped her small town, determined to become a marine biologist. Now she’s returned, carrying the guilt of a friend’s disappearance
Wallace Stevens is one of the most distinctive and extravagant voices in American poetry, an orator of the imagination and eloquent observer of the world's beauty. Beginning with the appearance of the astonishing Harmonium in 1923, Stevens published seven volumes of poetry while living an 'ordinary' life as an insurance executive in Hartford, Connecticut. His Collected Poems is a book of wonders, one of the landmarks of American literary modernism, and his poems are admired and studied for their lustrous language, their philosophical profundity, and their commitment to the importance of poetry in our everyday lives.
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 is the one and only, Emme Lund. The featured reader for May is
The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe is thrilled to partner with SCRAP PDX for monthly crafting events. Stay tuned for details on this month's crafts! Hand-sew decorative plush to celebrate the most important meal of the day... BREAKFAST! Sew felt eggs, pancakes, waffles, bacon, coffee, and more. ✨ Bring a friend! Make a friend! Grab
M.L. Herring, Born of Fire and Rain, Journey into a Pacific Coastal Forest
Jamie Mustard, Child X: A Memoir of Slavery, Poverty, Celebrity, and Scientology
Jennifer Perrine, Beautiful Outlaw
M.L. Herring, Born of Fire and Rain, Journey into a Pacific Coastal Forest
Jamie Mustard, Child X: A Memoir of Slavery, Poverty, Celebrity, and Scientology
Jennifer Perrine, Beautiful Outlaw
In this free, hands-on zine workshop, participants will use writing, drawing, and collage to creatively explore what they would like to see celebrated and remembered in Portland. Comics journalist and zine-maker Shay Mirk will lead this playful 90-minute workshop reflecting on Portland’s existing monuments and will lead the group through prompts to collaborate on a
In this free, hands-on zine workshop, participants will use writing, drawing, and collage to creatively explore what they would like to see celebrated and remembered in Portland. Comics journalist and zine-maker Shay Mirk will lead this playful 90-minute workshop reflecting on Portland’s existing monuments and will lead the group through prompts to collaborate on a
Join us at the Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe for our monthly write-in. At last, the long night has ended, and we're ready for Spring! With a bookseller-curated mix of songs featuring sunlight and brightness, we'll be channeling brighter days as we lock-in for a focused writing session. Our Food and Beverage Assistant Manager, Miah,
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is excited to welcome Stephanie Fairyington to celebrate their book Ugly. Fairyington will be joined in conversation by Neil Cochrane. About the book: A tender, moving, and insightful account of queer motherhood and an interrogation of life on the margins of American culture as a self-described “ugly” woman Ugly
Join us at the Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe for a staged reading of Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them by A. Rey Pamatmat, directed by Terry Kitagawa. This event is free and open to the public. If you plan to attend, RSVP on Eventbrite here. About the book: Filipino-American siblings Edith and Kenny are
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