Nonfiction Portland Book Festival
An American Martyr in Persia: Reza Aslan
Reza Aslan share the story of Howard Baskerville, whose story is widely known in Iran but mostly unknown in the United States. Aslan will be interviewed by Andrew Proctor.
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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.
Fiction Poetry Portland Book Festival
Still Life: John Freeman & Meng Jin
Poet John Freeman and short story writer Meng Jin explore the isolation and search for connection of the past few years. Moderated by Mindy Nettifee.
Cover to Cover Free Events
PBF Cover to Cover: This Is Portland: An Evening of Poetry & Music
This is Portland brings together creativity across medium, making for a multi-genre experiential performance. Words will be the backbone, with multiple local writers taking the mic to share short-form work.
Cover to Cover Free Events
PBF Cover to Cover: Mapping Home: An Evening with Corporeal Writing & Autofocus Lit
Join Corporeal Writing and Autofocus Lit for an inspiring evening of reading! Featuring performances from Yashwina Canter, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Marissa Korbel, Ryan Rivas, Marisa Siegel, and Kristen Millares Young. Hosted by Genevieve Hudson.
In-person Portland Book Festival Writing Classes
The Unique Art of Autofiction
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
In-person Portland Book Festival Writing Classes
Writing Food
Explore the role of food in storytelling, and how it can shape, define, and give insight into our characters’ deeper desires. Particpants will examine the language of food, and talk
In-person Portland Book Festival Writing Classes
“The Most Important Element”: Plot in Literary Fiction
“Plot-driven” has become a code word for commercial (aka “lesser”) fiction. But plot has always been what defines a good story. In this workshop, we will examine the centrality of
In-person Portland Book Festival Writing Classes
Kick-Start Your Picture Book
This class will take you from idea to rough draft in four hours. Picture books are so much more than stories with short text for young readers. We’ll study the
Cover to Cover Ticketed Events
PBF Cover to Cover: Film & Discussion: Art and Krimes by Krimes with Mitchell S. Jackson
Join us for a film screening and discussion with author, Mitchell S. Jackson.
Cover to Cover Free Events
PBF Cover to Cover: Write a Renga, Save the World
Renga is a form of collaborative Japanese poetry whereby multiple poets create and respond in turn. Join our group of poets from Portland and abroad for an afternoon of renga writing that examines some of today's most pressing concerns - bodily autonomy, religious extremism, and imminent environmental ruin.
Cover to Cover Free Events Ticketed Events
PBF Cover to Cover: Voices Like Thunder: An afternoon of poetry with the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation
Join us for the release of NACF’s first published anthology "The Larger Voice - Celebrating Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Literature Fellows."
Cover to Cover Free Events
PBF Cover to Cover: Tin House Autumn Workshop Showcase
Join Tin House as they celebrate their Autumn Workshop faculty with an evening of readings and merriment. Featured readers will include Carolina De Robertis, Lydia Kiesling, Kimberly King Parsons, and Morgan Talty. Please note that masks will be required.
Cover to Cover Free Events
PBF Cover to Cover: Lit-Mondo
Lit-Mondo is an improv comedy show inspired by prose, poetry, and other writing by local and traveling authors. A team of experienced improv comedians listen to short readings by authors and pull from the themes and ideas in their work to create hilarious original comedy scenes on the spot!
Cover to Cover Ticketed Events
PBF Cover to Cover: SPEKTRUM Tea Service
The live presentation of the book "SPEKTRUM" is a tea service that occurs in small rooms across the country.
online class Writing Classes
Recharge Your Writing Life: Experiments & Strategies
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
Free Events In-person
Incite: Queer Writers Read – November
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 November is "Afterglow." This event will take place in-person at Literary Arts' downtown center.
For BIPOC writers Free Events In-person
Oregon BIPOC Publishing Event: Pitching, Submitting, & Proposing
Literary Arts, Ooligan Press, and Portland State University’s English Department partner to present the Oregon BIPOC Writers Publishing Event. This event is designed for writers who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color to connect to the publishers and authors seeking to hear their voices. Pitching, Submitting, & Proposing: How to Make Money as a
online class Poetry Writing Classes
Advanced Poetry Workshop
Poesis,” in ancient Greek, means “making.” What would it mean to make poetry a daily part of your life? How might this re-make your understanding of poetry, your life, and
Portland Arts & Lectures
Portland Arts & Lectures 2022/23: Anthony Doerr
This event is part of our 38th season of Portland Arts & Lectures. Four-part subscriptions to the lecture series are on sale now. We will not be selling single tickets
BIPOC writers Writing Classes
BIPOC Writing Workshop: November
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
For BIPOC writers Free Events
Oregon BIPOC Publishing Event: What to Expect When You’re Expecting (a Book!)
Literary Arts, Ooligan Press, and Portland State University’s English Department partner to present the Oregon BIPOC Writers Publishing Event. This event is designed for writers who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or
online class Writing Classes
Writing Dynamic Dialogue
Dialogue is like music: on the page it may look great, but what it’s like when you hear it aloud? This workshop will examine what dialogue does, how to write
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 will be announced on our web site on January 24, 2023. Oregon Book Award winners will be announced at the Oregon Book Awards ceremony on
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
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
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,
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.
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