Free Events In-person
Slamlandia
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
45 events found.
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 community space and bookstore at 716 SE Grand Avenue, Portland, OR, online, and at partnering venues across Portland and Oregon.
In-person Writing Classes
Write with Emily
Join novelist Emily Chenoweth for an afternoon of writing and community. Participants will spend time writing to a variety of prompts, sharing their work with classmates, and learning tips and
Bookstore Free Events
AVERY AND THE FAIRY CIRCLE: Plant Journaling with Local Author Rowan Kingsbury
Join local author and illustrator Rowan Kingsbury to celebrate her debut graphic novel, Avery and the Fairy Circle, the story of a girl and her fairy friend exploring the local
In-person Writing Classes
Advanced Fiction Workshop Intensive
In this six-week, workshop-meets-craft class, we'll dissect three different short stories and figure out: How did the writer do that? We’ll then apply some of those same literary tools to your own stories. This class for writers with some experience includes a workshop component.
Bookstore Free Events
THE HOLLOW HALF: Sarah Aziza in conversation with Omar El Akkad
Join us in welcoming Sarah Aziza and Omar El Akkad for a conversation on Sarah's new memoir, The Hollow Half. About the book: A brush with death. An ancestral haunting.
Bookstore Free Events In-person
Think Out Loud: Leah Sottile’s BLAZING EYE SEES ALL
From crystals to cults, Leah Sottile's Blazing Eye Sees All is an investigation into American New Age spirituality and the ways it helps and hurts people. Exploring themes of extremism,
Online Class Writing Classes
Yallah! Muslims Write
Yallah! Muslims Write is a monthly workshop with the expressed intent to foster a joyful, supportive, and courageous space for self-identifying Muslim artists.
Bookstore Free Events
Incite: Queer Writers Read
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
Bookstore Free Events
Healing Ourselves & Each Other with Susan Lieu
Literary Arts and The Dougy Center present Susan Lieu, a Vietnamese-American author, playwright, and performer. Her works include her solo show "140 LBS: How Beauty Killed My Mother” and memoir The Manicurist’s Daughter.
Free Events Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships Oregon Book Awards Author Tour
OREGON BOOK AWARD AUTHOR TOUR: Jaclyn Moyer
A talk with Jaclyn Moyer, author of On Gold Hill: A Personal History of Wheat, Farming, and Family, from Punjab to California at the Monmouth Public Library. On Gold Hill
Bookstore Free Events
AAPI Heritage Month Author Reading and Community Celebration with APANO
Literary Arts and APANO are so excited to invite four incredible writers to read from their work and celebrate community during AAPI Heritage Month. Light refreshments will be served, and
Bookstore Free Events
Creative Mornings: Janice Lee & Lidia Yuknavitch
Registration for the event opens on Friday, May 23 at 9:00 a.m. Tickets are free but capacity is limited. Register here. Agenda 🎶 Music from Joe Kye 💜 Janice Lee
Bookstore Free Events
Story time with Tom Toro
Join us for a very special story time reading and illustration demo with visiting author/illustrator Tom Toro to celebrate his newest book, Crocodiles Need Friends, Too! Tom Toro is
Bookstore Free Events
FUTBOLISTA!: Jonny Garza Villa
Join us in celebrating Jonny Garza Villa's latest, Futbolista! A classmates-to-friends-to-lovers romp that is equal parts raunchy and heartfelt. About the book: A classmates-to-friends-to-lovers romance that's equal parts raunchy, heartfelt,
Bookstore Free Events
GLASS CENTURY: An Evening with Ross Barkan and Gabriel Kahane
Join us for a night of music and literary conversation with Gabriel Kahane and Ross Barkan, celebrating Glass Century. About the book: It's 1973 and Mona Glass is a 24-year-old
Free Events In-person
One Page Wednesday – June
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
Bookstore Free Events
Portland Book Week
Literary Arts is thrilled to be a part of Portland Book Week 2025! Come on down to the store, buy a Portland Book Week tote bag, and check some items
Online Class Summer 2025 Writing Classes
Grief and the Lyric Essay: SUMMER
Lyrical writing prioritizes music, rhythm, and emotion over the narrative arc. In this course, we will find entry into writing through reading, conversation, and various prompts and exercises to catalyze memory and insight.
Online Class Summer 2025 Writing Classes
Found Poetry: A Poetry Workshop
Poetry can be found anywhere and be created from anything. To create found poetry, we rely on a preexisting text like news articles, published poems, or excerpts from legal and government documents, to rediscover ways in which we as writers rely on language to create art.
Local KidLit Social at Literary Arts
Join us at Literary Arts for a social event to meet local children's authors and learn about their work! It's the middle of Portland Book Week AND The American Booksellers
Bookstore Free Events
Local KidLit Social at Literary Arts
Join Literary Arts for a social mixer event to meet local children's authors and learn about their work! It's the middle of Portland Book Week AND The American Booksellers Association's
Online Class Summer 2025 Writing Classes
WRITE THE SELF: 8 weeks intensive
This course is for all levels of writers and readers. We will read and discuss excerpts from contemporary authors who write the self (or write from the basis of personal experience), in addition to weekly craft essays on various genres (memoir, personal essay, autofiction).There will be an opportunity to submit either one or two short excerpts of your writing (can be from a short story or novel-in-progress) to be workshopped during the class.
Delve Readers Seminars In-person
Annie Dillard: Holy the Firm
Known for her “fearless and unbridled” writing about the natural world, Annie Dillard’s first three non-fiction books conjure lyrical insights so vivid that they seem to burn. So much more than a “nature writer,” Dillard’s observations of whatever she’s looking at—the transient effects of an eclipse viewing in a small town, a near-deadly airplane crash on an island in the Pacific Northwest, the unraveling of a tangled snake-skin she finds wandering through the woods—reveal the living textures of things: their ordinary strangeness and transcendent beauty.
Free Events Oregon Book Awards Author Tour
OREGON BOOK AWARD AUTHOR TOUR: WILLY VLAUTIN
On June 13, Coos Bay Public Library, in partnership with Literary Arts, will host a Writing Workshop With Willy Vlautin from 4:00pm-5:30pm and an Author Reading at 6:00pm. Join us
Bookstore Free Events
Literary Arts Cafe Opening
Join us on Saturday, June 14 to celebrate the opening of the Literary Arts Cafe! We will be open all day, but between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. we will
Bookstore Free Events
Bad Creek: Book Launch with Peyton June
Literary Arts welcomes Peyton June to celebrate her debut young adult horror, Bad Creek. Peyton will be joined by fellow debut novelist Isa Aganjanian, the author of Modern Divination, for
In-person Summer 2025 Writing Classes
Creative Clarity, Focus and Momentum
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 to work through creative blocks so you can finally share your creative expression with your readers.
Delve Readers Seminars In-person
Orhan Pamuk’s Nights of Plague: Fairytale, History, Allegory
Explore Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk’s Nights of Plague (2022), an epic narrative which depicts the outbreak of the bubonic plague in the late Ottoman era. The stage is the fictional island Mingheria in the Levant, and the year is 1901.
Online Class Writing Classes
Yallah! Muslims Write
Yallah! Muslims Write is a monthly workshop with the expressed intent to foster a joyful, supportive, and courageous space for self-identifying Muslim artists.
Bookstore Free Events
Theory of Water: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson in conversation with Trevino Brings Plenty
About the book: A genre-bending exploration of that most elemental force–water–through Indigenous storytelling, personal memory, and the work of influential artists and writers For many years, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Summer 2025 Writing Classes
Write with Rachel
Join Rachel Attias for an afternoon of writing. Participants will spend time writing to a variety of prompts, sharing their work with classmates.Writers of fiction, memoir, and poetry are all welcome for this fun, focused afternoon.
PNCA Low Res Reading
Join the Pacific Northwest College of Art writers Stephanie Adams-Santos author of Dream of Xibalba, Megan Milks author of Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body, Poupeh Missaghi author
Bookstore Free Events
Defiant Moments: Unyielding Queer Voices, Unstoppable Change
Literary Arts welcomes Our Bold Voices founder Paul Iorrobino and readers from the new Defiant Moments anthology: Noah Grabeel, Kyle Lang, Brandy Penner and Scott Strickland.
Free Events Oregon Literary Fellowships
Oregon Literary Fellowships Online Information Session
Featured
Questions about applying to this year's Oregon Literary Fellowships? Join us at this information session! Drop-in anytime between 3:00-4:00 p.m. Register in advance for this meeting here. Please contact Alexa
In-person Summer 2025 Writing Classes
Experiments in Fiction
In this six-week generative course we will read, watch, and listen to a wide range of sources—from traditional short stories to anonymous online forum posts, podcast excerpts, and short videos of people arguing at home or in the street. Each week we’ll discuss what story lives inside our experimental source, and will then come up with a prompt based on that source together.
For BIPOC Writers Free Events In-person
BIPOC Reading Series – June
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
Free Events In-person
Slamlandia
Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month, on the third Thursday (although this month is an exception, meeting on the fourth Thursday!). This mic provides
Bookstore Free Events
Motherhood in Recovery
Join Claire Bernardo, Chelsea Bieker, and Meg Lucero for a conversation about the joys and challenges of motherhood and recovery.
Bookstore Free Events
ACCESS: Rebecca Grant in conversation with Zoë Carpenter
Join us for a timely conversation with two local journalists Rebecca Grant and Zoë Carpenter about Grant’s forthcoming title, Access: Inside the Abortion Underground and the Sixty-Year Battle for Reproductive
Bookstore Free Events
One Page Wednesday – July
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
Bookstore Free Events Oregon Literary Fellowships
Oregon Literary Fellowship Reading
Please join us for a special reading event featuring recipients of the 2025 Oregon Literary Fellowships. This event is free and open to the public. Featuring . . . Zoë Ballering Iván Cantú Villarreal Brittney Corrigan Katherine Cusumano jessamyn duckwall Amelia Díaz Ettinger Jordan Jacks Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong Alfred Jung Lee Fuente Fountain Press Some
In-person Summer 2025 Writing Classes
Leading with Suspense: writing the unputdownable story
In this eight-week workshop, we will focus on leading with suspense to evoke curiosity and engagement. In our first class, we’ll discuss the craft of making big and little promises to the reader and fulfilling them in fresh but satisfying ways. Sterling examples of engaging openings from the canon will provide fodder for our discussion of how to captivate a reader. In our subsequent classes, we’ll workshop two student submissions per each class.
Bookstore Free Events
Drag Story Time with Starri Merryweather!
The Literary Arts bookstore is excited to welcome Starri Merryweather for a very special drag storytime! From the imagination of multi-hyphenate performance artist Sonnei Verbena, Starri Merryweather brings whimsy, heart
In-person Summer 2025 Writing Classes
PUTTING YOUR CREATIVITY FIRST
Putting Your Creativity first will feature a talk, writing prompts and group write-along, followed by a Q&A on the creative process, writing community, and business of art.
Bookstore Free Events
A REASON TO SEE YOU AGAIN: Jami Attenberg in Conversation with Genevieve Hudson
Join us for a conversation between Jami Attenberg and Genevieve Hudson, discussing Jami's novel A Reason to See You Again.
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Literary Arts716 SE Grand Ave
Portland, Oregon 97214
- 503.227.2583
- 503.241.4256 fax
- la@literary-arts.org
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