Free Events In-person
One Page Wednesday- September
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.
Loading view.
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.
Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships
Oregon Book Award Submission Deadline
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
online class Writing Classes
To Agent Or Not to Agent
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
Portland Book Festival
Portland Book Festival Author Announcement
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,
online class Writing Classes
Nine-Month Novel Intensive: Wednesday
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
Free Events In-person
Incite: Queer Writers Read – September
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 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.
online class Writing Classes
The Notebook: Your Creative Process
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
online class Writing Classes
Nine-Month Novel Intensive: Thursday
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
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
Free Events
Hanif Abdurraqib, Kaveh Akbar, and Leslie Jamison
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
Free Events In-person
Hanif Abdurraqib
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
Fiction In-person Writing Classes
Refuse the Given World: Breaking Blocks Through Play
“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
In-person Writing Classes
Exploring Fiction Narratives: How’d They Do That?
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
Portland Arts & Lectures
Portland Arts & Lectures 2022/23: Abdulrazak Gurnah
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
online class Writing Classes
Stamp Collecting: Another Approach to Memoir Writing
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
Memoir online class Writing Classes
Nine-Month Memoir Intensive
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
Delve Readers Seminars In-person
Henri Bergson and the Revolution in Time
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,
online class Writing Classes
Weekly Check-In: Getting the Work Done
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
Fiction In-person Writing Classes
Where Do I Go From Here: Writing the Novel
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 Delve Readers Seminars In-person Writing Classes
Delve for Writers: Joan Didion and Durga Chew-Bose
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 writing practice. Creative nonfiction is the perfect place to find voice, ideas and perspective – and nobody does it better Joan Didion and contemporary groundbreaker
online class Poetry Writing Classes
Speaking Beyond the Self in Poetry
“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 essential truths of the larger world. The challenge we face as poets is how to transform our lived experiences–creatively and imaginatively–into art that can be
Free Events In-person
One Page Wednesday: October
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
Free Events
Bookmark: A Benefit for Literary Arts
Featured
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 ideas and issues they raise. Join us on Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 5:30 p.m. (PT) for a special pre-show in advance of the 6:00
BIPOC writers online class Writing Classes
BIPOC Writing Workshop: October
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
online class Writing Classes
Writing the Weird and Wonderful: Nonfiction
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 you aspiring nonfiction writers who aren’t sure what to do with your ideas, or budding freelance journalists looking to turn your ideas into sellable stories.
Fiction online class Writing Classes
Leave the Door Open on the Way Out: Endings in Fiction
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 to fully burst into the mystery and unpredictability of human experience? This discussion class will give participants the tools to examine great stories for the
Fiction online class Writing Classes
Leave the Door Open On The Way Out: Endings in Fiction
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 sometimes this pattern can leave a story flat, without room for wonder. If a story leads exactly where you would expect it to go, then
For BIPOC writers Free Events In-person
Kundiman Reading Salon
Kundiman creates a space where Asian Americans can explore, through art, the unique challenges that face the new and ever changing diaspora. We see the arts as a tool of empowerment, of education and liberation, of addressing proactively the legacy we will leave for our future. In partnership with Literary Arts, Kundiman brings you a
Free Events In-person Oregon Book Awards Author Tour
Oregon Book Awards Author Tour: Enterprise
Literary Arts and Fishtrap are pleased to announce that the Oregon Book Award Author Tour will travel to Wallowa County on Friday, October 21 at 7:00pm as part of Fishtrap’s season of readings in their new event space at 107 W. Main Street in Enterprise. The event will feature Oregon Book Awards authors Vanessa Veselka
Delve Readers Seminars Online
Orhan Pamuk’s Nights of Plague: Fairy Tale, History, Allegory
In this seminar we will explore Orhan Pamuk’s new novel, Nights of Plague, an epic narrative which depicts the outbreak of the bubonic plague in the late Ottoman era during the reign of the despotic Sultan Abdülhamid II. The stage of the epidemic is the fictional island Minger in the Levant, and the year is
Fiction online class Writing Classes
The Study and Practice of Autofiction
This course is for all levels of writers and readers; the only requirement is a desire to take a deep dive into the unique art of autofiction (autobiographical fiction). We will read and discuss excerpts from contemporary authors who write within the genre, such as Lucia Berlin, Tao Lin, Edouard Louis, Chris Kraus, Garth Greenwell,
For BIPOC writers Free Events
BIPOC Reading Series- October
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 up to share your work in our open mic. Readings will be followed by a short community discussion. The theme for October is "Shadow." Our
Ticketed Events
Pop-Up Magazine: Love Stories
Featured
An unforgettable live multimedia experience. “Sweeping the nation with live performances of human interest stories…like an emotionally intellectual rock concert.”—Playbill Pop-Up Magazine is the acclaimed live magazine show, featuring original and unforgettable true stories, art, music, and performance from the world’s great and emerging storytellers and journalists, accompanied by illustration, animation, film, photography, and an original
Portland Book Festival
TAP@PBF: Keep Swimming
Karen Eva Carr and Bonnie Tsui in conversation, moderated by OPB's Paul Marshall.
Cover to Cover Free Events
PBF Cover to Cover: A Page from a Traveling Bookstore: The Portland Community Book
Visit St. Rita's Amazing Traveling Bookstore and create a page about your Portland community.
Cover to Cover Free Events Ticketed Events
PBF Cover to Cover: Art Inspired by Books
Join us at Gallery Go Go from 10am-6pm to see the work of 14 artists make art in response to books.
online class Portland Book Festival Writing Classes
Poetry Through Divination
In this online three-part workshop, participants will explore various methods of using the Tarot and other simple forms of divination as prompts for poems. We will allow ourselves to be
Cover to Cover Free Events
PBF Cover to Cover: Book Launch for A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788–1940
More than forty years after its original publication, A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788–1940, remains the most comprehensive chronology of Black life in Oregon. Join us for the official book launch, hosted by Third Eye Books Accessories and Gifts, Portland’s only black-owned bookstore.
Delve Readers Seminars In-person
An Intensive Study of Totality: Jorge Luis Borges
The Argentine genius Jorge Luis Borges explored every facet of the word during his lifetime of writing. From sonnets about dream tigers to stories about detectives in Buenos Aires to
Cover to Cover Free Events
PBF Cover to Cover: Powell’s Books Presents Katherine Dunn Tribute Event with Naomi Huffman & Lydia Kiesling
This special book launch event will feature a conversation between Toad editor Naomi Huffman and Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State. This event is cosponsored by Lewis & Clark Special Collections and Archives.
Portland Book Festival
TAP@PBF: Oregon Symphony
A conversation between Oregon Symphony creative chair Gabriel Kahane and author Karen Russell.
Cover to Cover Free Events
PBF Cover to Cover: PCC’s Carolyn Moore Book Launch with YesYes Books
Join us at 6:30 PM at the Cascade Campus of Portland Community College in North Portland (Terrell Hall 122) as we celebrate this fantastic collection by late local poet Carolyn Moore, whose estate gave rise to PCC's Carolyn Moore Writing Residency. Readers will include Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani; poet Shelley Wong, whose debut As She Appears won the Pamet Prize from YesYes Books and was recently longlisted for the National Book Award; Carolyn Moore Writing resident Baruch Porras-Hernandez; and PCC's 2022-23 HARTS Writer-in-residence, Karah Kemmerly.
Cover to Cover Free Events Ticketed Events
PBF COVER TO COVER: WORD PLAY! A WRITE AROUND PORTLAND MINI-WORKSHOP
Write Around Portland presents Word Play, a community writing frenzy featuring prompts and exercises from our renowned workshop model rooted in respect, writing, and community.
Cover to Cover Free Events
PBF Cover to Cover: Oregon Humanities Live
Join the editors of Oregon Humanities magazine for an evening featuring Sallie Tisdale, Daniela Molnar, Paul Susi, and Laura Gibson, and other recent contributors reading essays and poems.
Free Events In-person
One Page Wednesday- November
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 is
Newsletter Signup
Follow
Contact
Literary Arts925 SW Washington Street
Portland, Oregon 97205
- 503.227.2583
- 503.241.4256 fax
- la@literary-arts.org
Literary Arts, Inc. is a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Copyright © 2023 Literary Arts
Made by Needmore Designs
Literary Arts appreciates the continuing support of…
