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.
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
How do we process, reflect, embody grief in our writing? We will consider how lyric, narrative, discursive writing, research, fragmentation and silence play different roles in lyric essays, memoir, and
Springfield Public Library hosts the Oregon Book Awards author tour. The day starts with two free workshops and ends with a reading and discussion. All events are free and open
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
This writing class will briefly examine how race and racism has been used to oppress the lives of Black, Indigenous and other racialized peoples. Participants will also explore how the
Rescheduled from September 25. 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
On Monday, October 7, Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble will host a preview event of Playing With Words featuring a discussion between writers Stephanie Adams-Santos, Josephine Woolington, and Waka T. Brown
Amy Tan joins Literary Arts' 40th anniversary season of Portland Arts & Lectures on Wednesday, October 9, 2024.
In this experimental writing class, we will wrench as many possibilities as possible out of one piece of writing, seeing what our various changes – subtle, extreme, and chance-based –
Ready to dive deeper into your picture book writing journey? In this course, designed for continuing students who have taken “Crafting Your Picture Book,” we’ll spark your creativity with unique prompts each week, along with template suggestions to help structure your stories. As we progress, you’ll have the chance to workshop what you’ve been writing, receiving feedback to refine and polish your work. This course is perfect for those looking to push their storytelling further and bring their picture book ideas closer to completion.
Literary Arts is honored to present #1 New York Times bestselling author, Pushkin Industries co-founder, and Revisionist History podcast host, Malcolm Gladwell, in conversation about his new book, Revenge of the Tipping Point.
THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT Please be aware that third-party sellers often re-sell tickets to our events. Unless you purchased your tickets directly through Literary Arts or Portland'5, we cannot
It’s Literary Arts’ 40th anniversary—and we want to celebrate this transformational moment with you! Mark your calendars and join us as we turn the page and begin the next chapter
This will be a generative writing lab where we will read poems together and then write poems together. Be prepared to write and have fun and experiment in new ways.We will go from one set of poems and writing exercises to the next with some time at the end to share what we’ve written. Come to this workshop with a big imagination, an open mind, a laptop and/or a notebook.
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
Explore the necessary elements of writing a nonfiction book proposal from outline to “comp titles”, how to use them effectively, and where you can let your personal style shine through.
Learn new techniques for maintaining inspiration, overcoming self-doubt, and establishing sustainable writing habits, and stay focused and motivated on your writing goals.Explore the tools and mindset needed to persevere through challenges.
Celebrate 10 years of Literary Arts hosting Portland Book Festival by joining us on the evening of Friday, November 1, for an exclusive preview of the exhibitor fair. Enjoy complimentary drinks
Six Oregon Book Award authors inspire new jazz compositions in Playing With Words. Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble (PJCE) and Literary Arts will present six commissioned works of music inspired by
Portland Book Festival, presented by Wells Fargo, returns Saturday, November 2 to ten stages at six partner venues in downtown Portland’s south Park Blocks. General Admission Festival passes* are $18
In this workshop, we will explore an expansive approach to the multi-voice novel. Taking inspiration from recently published works, we will consider how to decide which of your novel’s characters get to tell a story, and the manner in which they do so, and forms of narration that utilize the supernatural.
Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco discusses her picture book, Show Up and Vote, with OPB journalist Prakruti Bhatt. Note: This event requires an add-on ticket in addition to the General Admission Festival Pass
Instructor: Amy Minato Grades 9-12 In this workshop, we’ll discover parallels between visual and written art drawing inspiration from pieces in the museum collection. We’ll practice imagery, form, metaphor, and
Instructor: Damien Miles-Paulson (Grades 9-12) Write about your life … as a zombie! In this workshop, you’ll take a normal day and turn it into an imaginative story where you
Let’s play at the intersection of language and visual art! In this pop-up class, we’ll capture the image as it appears and disappears through ekphrastic writing and erasure.
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Richard Powers discusses his new novel, Playground, with Andrew Proctor, executive director of Literary Arts. Note: This event requires an add-on ticket in addition to the General Admission Festival Pass (wristband)
The goal with stories, usually, is to keep us immersed in the plot line. So how do we make funny little tangents smoothly, without distracting the reader? This session will look at some examples of great transitions and practice making great little tangents of your own.
Instructor: Nicky Nicholson-Klingerman Grades 9–12 This workshop will explore the healing and performative aspects of spoken word poetry. Students will engage with spoken word poets from Gwendolyn Brooks to
Abraham Verghese joins Literary Arts' 40th anniversary season of Portland Arts & Lectures on Tuesday, November 19, 2024.
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
Join us between the hours of 10 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. for the grand opening of our new permanent headquarters and independent bookstore at 716 SE Grand Avenue, Portland, OR
Literary Arts and The Moth are bringing a new lineup of storytellers to Portland. The Mainstage is the quintessential Moth experience, a two-act show—featuring a musical act—where the storytellers and a notable host share true personal stories, without notes
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
Sometimes we become so focused on productivity or “doing it right” that we stifle our creativity. In this class we’ll focus on one of the hardest parts of writing: writing.
Each week we’ll use new prompts and guided activities to inspire new creation. We’ll look at the work of writers we admire and ask: how’d they do that? As they say, writing is a muscle, and no matter what your experience level, you have to continually exercise that muscle and practice new tools to keep your writing nimble and moving.
Through a variety of prompts, we’ll create new work every week and practice tools for expanding existing projects and unblocking writer’s block.
In this six-week class, we will enter the zone of play with our writing as we work on personal essays. We will explore different forms and structures that can give our writing lift, and also play with constraints that can lead to new discoveries.
Sometimes our literary voice can be hazy even after we have refined and shaped the plot and narrative arc. In this fast paced six-week class, participants will generate a 2–6-page fictional narrative and develop it through two drafts with a keen eye on voice and tone. Simultaneously, we will work on character development and pacing and observe how they can support literary voice. Ideal for writers both in the process of a draft or just starting a new project.
No exploration of Tolstoy is complete without a reading of his best short stories. In four sessions we will look at a few of the small masterpieces from his later
Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin is considered by some to be her magnum opus, yet somehow it remains one of her most overlooked texts. Sometimes reading more
Strange and surreal, mysterious and dream-like, when “the supernatural” is conjured in story we find ourselves lifted out of the ordinary, material world and into more spectacular realms. In this seminar we’ll read novels that embrace this otherworldliness, stretching the familiar first into the unknown, then to the far reaches of personal and collective transformation.
Timothy Egan joins Literary Arts' 40th anniversary season of Portland Arts & Lectures on Thursday, January 16, 2025.
Over the course of this six-week workshop, writers can expect to generate four new poetry experiments, one complete visual poetry project, and leave the workshop with a working knowledge of this exciting genre.
Equal parts strategic reflection, community building, generative writing, and experimental writing, this class will help writers deepen self-knowledge and spark curiosity and 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, simple rituals that refill the well, and ways to make time for creativity in a busy world. Each session will offer prompts for reflection, literary tinctures, and creative practices that unite body, heart, and intellect.
Explore a survey of long fiction pieces, and examine the many threads that hold them together. We will discuss the state of longform writing in today’s literary landscape, and use generative prompts and in-class writing time to liberate ourselves from word counts in order to write toward whatever length our stories need to be. Students will finish the course with the beginnings of at least one longer piece of prose.
Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remains one of the most widely read and studied texts in the American literary canon, as well as the subject of recent reappraisals in
In this combination workshop and craft class, we’ll examine several short stories together and look at how those stories were made. With that inspiration, we’ll look at our own stories and figure out how to get unstuck and what kinds of tweaks our stories could use.
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