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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
As many of us now know, traumatic memory doesn’t always function linearly. There is no clear beginning or end, as trauma literally relives itself in the brain. Because of this,
The Left Hand of Darkness, The Word for World is Forest, & The Dispossessed are three of the most iconic novels by the legendary author Ursula K. Le Guin. Written within less than five years of each other, these novels all occur in the same science fiction universe that is most often referred to as
During this weekend autofiction intensive, we will take a deep dive into the unique art of autofiction. Autofiction combines the disciplines of autobiography and fiction. It can be written like
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
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
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
Nathaniel Hawthorne marveled at Anthony Trollope’s talent for conveying the truth of human experience, declaring his fictional world to be “just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth, and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting
This six-week course is designed to help students finish a draft of a fiction or non-fiction manuscript. We'll read craft essays about drafting a book, set aside time each week
Published in 1990, Omeros is the masterwork of the Nobel Prize winning Saint Lucien writer Derek Walcott, a book-length epic poem that invites comparisons with Homer while also probing the history and culture of his island home, the "Helen of the West Indies," and his own life as a well travelled writer. Divided into seven
Join us on Thursday, October 5, 2023, at the Portland Art Museum for Bookmark, our annual fundraising gala. Bookmark gathers our most passionate supporters who elevate our mission to engage readers, support writers, and inspire the next generation. Join us in celebration of the words and stories that inspire, connect, and transform communities.
In his 1974 book, Working, Studs Terkel begins by saying, “This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence—to the spirit as well as to the body.”
Please note: this event is sold out! Literary Arts is thrilled to present An Evening with Barbara Kingsolver, author of The Poisonwood Bible and, most recently, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel Demon Copperhead. Kingsolver will be joined in conversation by award-winning author Jess Walter. Tickets at the $85 level include front-of-hall seats and a hardcover copy of Demon Copperhead. About Demon
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,
Throughout history, writers have used lyrical techniques to access states of consciousness we associate with grief. Lyrical writing prioritizes music, rhythm, and emotion over the narrative arc. The goal of
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 novella has its own parameters, intricacies, and rewards. Together we’ll look at the novella’s histories, jewels, origins, and how its varying structures still feed into the overall design. Students can use this experience to either enhance their own novellas, or learn more about this fascinating literary form.
How and why do we write about non-human animals, and how might we write about them in new ways? Through discussion, short readings, and writing exercises, we will explore varying approaches to writing about other species in our time of mass extinction and global warming. No experience necessary.
When it comes to writing short fiction and novels, the ideas we’ve absorbed about narrativizing from our outside lives often don’t apply. Even the most thrilling story, if written without a reverence to form, loses its audience quickly. In this seminar on literary style, we’ll study the most minute of authorial choices, coming to understand how subjectivity comes through on the subconscious level of the sentence.
The lyric essay is a form that allows many small fragments to be drawn together to create a whole. A lyric essay might hold memories, research, a bit of poetry, a bit of imagination; it celebrates mixing genres. In this workshop, we will write a series of fragments in response to prompts, and then braid
Together, we will delve into the intimate sensory memories that food evokes. How can writing about food open up evocative spaces of comfort, family, memory, shared rituals, and desires? How can writing through and about food radically strengthen our communities and open up our creative craft?
Bring one or two of your most promising poems-in-process, and we will work through ways to make them more like what they want to be. This will not be a critique session, but a workshop in generative revision.
Portland Book Festival will return to the Portland Art Museum and neighboring venues on Saturday, November 4, 2023. This daylong event features author discussions, pop-up readings, writing workshops for youth and adults, kids’ story time, an extensive book fair, local food trucks, and more! Learn more at pdxbookfest.org
Viet Thanh Nguyen will be joined in conversation with Tommy Orange. This is a special event at Portland Book Festival which requires an add-on ticket to attend. With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging
This is a special event at Portland Book Festival which requires an add-on ticket to attend. From the #1 best-selling author of The Big Short and Flash Boys, the story of FTX’s spectacular collapse and the enigmatic founder at its center. When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and
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 writing that is based on real life experiences, but also utilizes fictional literary devices, making it a very unique form.
Let's spend a few hours together exploring the practice of revision! Too often revision is just a fancy word for copy-editing. But it can be more. In this three hour class we will explore different revision exercises using a recent poem and how we can break old revision habits and constructs.
Catherine Sloper is young—not clever, not quick, not ugly—and rich. Into her life in New York City’s fashionable Washington Square comes Morris Townsend—“the most beautiful young man in the world.” Her aunt Lavinia is impressed but Dr. Sloper, Catherine’s father, is not. Is Morris in love with Catherine, or merely after her money? In only
Equal parts strategy, community, generative writing, and experiment, this class will help writers spark curiosity and deepen self-knowledge while crafting artistic habits that nourish. A good fit for writers who want to reimagine their creative life. We’ll discuss methods for working through blocks and rejection, rituals that refill the well, and ways to make time
The hybrid genre of erasure and collage often exists between and because of two different mediums: text and image. Through obscuring a pre-existing text using various methods, an original work is created. Like erasure and collage, we as writers and community members exist between and because of various factors and people. What we amplify in
While we may know of essays as personal narratives crafted with creative storytelling techniques, essay as a verb means an attempt. In this six-week series, we’ll explore a variety of essays under the creative nonfiction umbrella in an attempt to expand our entry points to writing and in an attempt to build community. Our evenings
“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
Join us at Literary Arts for a panel discussion featuring local independent publishers, Buckman Journal, Lurch Zine, and Provecho Magazine. Hosted by Michael Kurt and Wesley Mueller of Berm Magazine.
The Moth returns to Portland on Tuesday, December 12. This extraordinary performance sells out quickly, so reserve your seats early and experience unforgettable stories told live! Literary Arts and The
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