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.
Some stories call for a breaking of boundaries, others for a union of text and image or visual form. In this generative course, we’ll experiment with different ways of looking and create image/text hybrids, concrete poems, and docupoetic essays. We’ll read works by Don Mee Choi, Dao Strom, CA Conrad, Renee Gladman, and others, and
In this supportive workshop, you will learn creative process skills for sticking with a writing project from initial idea to completion. If you dream of writing that novel or finishing that poem, but you feel scattered, overwhelmed, or stuck with many beginnings but no finished product, this workshop will offer you gentle and effective ways
Questions about applying to this year's Oregon Literary Fellowships? Join us at this information session! Drop in anytime between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m. Register in advance Please contact Jessica Meza-Torres (jessica@literary-arts.org) if you have any questions.
In this class we will delve into the complexities of knowing ourselves when our histories and lineages are fragmented. We will explore how we can create a sense of unity and connectedness in a self that contains not only multitudes, but buried and forgotten histories. Through writing exercises, visioning, and ritual, we will work to
If you allow them to, ideas for art and writing can come from absolutely anywhere. This creative generation class will put that theory to the test, through a series of experiments in creative problem-solving, spontaneous and chance-based play, and other exploratory prompts that challenge you to work outside your normal modes and investigate how the
Proust’s magnum opus is often considered to be the greatest novel of the 20th century. It richly repays the careful attention it demands, and becomes unforgettable. First-time readers, however, may find the style and size of the work daunting. This seminar is intended for participants who have always wanted to read Proust, but who would
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. Our featured reader is Leni
Apply online for 2023 Oregon Literary Fellowships. Deadline to apply is Friday, August 4, 2023.
For a second year, Literary Arts has partnered with Pickathon music festival to feature author readings at the event.
Blending the novel and the short story format, Tower satirically examines modern life through six interconnected stories that all take place in a 674-story skyscraper. Bae Myung-hoon is one of the most famous sci-fi writers in Korea, and this is the first of his novels to be translated into English. I’m Waiting for You has
Reviewing A.S. Byatt’s Possession in The New York Times, Jay Parini declared it “a tour de force that opens every narrative device of English fiction to inspection without, for a moment, ceasing to delight.” Readers agreed. The novel was a surprise bestseller and was awarded the 1990 Booker Prize. It was subsequently adapted as a
This course will take a close look how to effectively use the child narrator when writing personal narrative or fiction. Using textual examples, we’ll look at what kinds of situations or scenes are best told from the child’s point of view, and examine how to keep the child’s voice authentic. We’ll experiment with how to
This six-month class is designed for memoirists in the early to mid stages of their memoir writing journey looking for consistent, in-depth feedback on their work. We will study four different memoirs in this class, along with several excerpts and essays. This course provides weekly accountability, short exercises, a regular review of your work, along
This class, in the words of Nikki Finney, is about having and keeping a beautiful mind -- which is essential to building an art practice that can change or deepen how we see the world and who we are inside of it. We’ll begin by cataloguing our obsessions, and open into various texts and writing
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. Our featured reader is Alle
Join us for a special event with award-winning author Ann Patchett in celebration of her forthcoming novel Tom Lake.
T he Oregon Book Awards program honors the state’s finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in the genres of poetry, fiction, graphic literature, drama, literary nonfiction, and literature for young readers. The finalists for the 2024 Oregon Book Awards will be announced in January 2024, and the winners will be announced at the Oregon
As part of the Oregon Book Awards, Literary Arts offers three awards that recognize significant contributions to Oregon’s literary culture: • The Charles Erskine Scott Wood Distinguished Writer Award is presented to an Oregon author in recognition of an enduring, substantial literary career. Past recipients include George Hitchcock, Ken Kesey, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Barry Lopez.
Oregon Book Award winner Casey Parks author of Diary of a Misfit and a reporter for the Washington Post, will speak in Astoria Sept. 8 at a reading and reception hosted by the Writer’s Guild of Astoria and Peace First Lutheran Church as part of the Oregon Book Awards Author Tour The free event will
In this generative workshop, we’ll look at examples by writers who use fragments in various ways, and try inventive writing exercises and strategies for creating a memoir from fragments. Fragments can stand on their own as micro-memoirs or be woven together into a larger work. This class is for writers at all levels. Access Program
Writing can be emotionally exhausting. It can have a substantial physiological effect on the body: as you imagine an emotional scene, your body will sometimes go through the experience as if it were happening. And on top of that there's the anxiety, self-doubt, and judgment that many writers struggle with. In this 8 week course
Zadie Smith is a critically acclaimed fiction writer, essayist, and playwright, whose work includes the novel White Teeth, winner of the Guardian First Book Prize, and On Beauty, winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction. This four-week Delve will focus on her new novel The Fraud, based on historical events from the 1800's. From the
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 by authors including Han Kang, Tommy Orange, Lina Meruane, Mitchell S. Jackson, Deborah Levy, and Susan Steinberg, as well as craft essays by authors including
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