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.

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Wednesday

Sep 24

Writing Classes   In-person  

Scene Writing for Memoir

This eight-week memoir workshop teaches writers how to transform personal experiences into compelling scenes that captivate readers. Students will learn to craft authentic moments from memory, weave reflection seamlessly into narrative, and build scenes that invite readers into their lived experiences while revealing deeper emotional truths.

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Saturday

Sep 27

Thursday

Oct 2

Online Class   Writing Classes  

The Finish Line: Weekly Accountability

This eight-week class is focused on helping each writer push one story, essay, or poem through the drafting and revision stages and over the finish line. We’ll meet weekly to share accountability updates, read some work-in-progress with the group, set or revise goals for your weekly writing practice, and share successes and challenges with fellow writers. You’ll also learn strategies for keeping focused and staying on track. All genres welcome.

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Sunday

Oct 5

Monday

Oct 6

Writing Classes   In-person  

Nonfiction Book Pitches That Sell: Writing a Winning Proposal

In this focused workshop, you’ll learn the key components of a compelling book proposal—from crafting a powerful overview and defining your audience to identifying comps and writing a sample chapter that shines. Ideal for nonfiction writers with a solid book concept who are pursuing traditional publishing and want to create a professional, pitch-ready proposal.

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Monday

Oct 6

Writing Classes   In-person  

Stealing from the best: A fiction writing technique class

In this six-week class, using 2024’s Best American Short Stories as our guide, we’ll explore a selection of contemporary fiction—deemed this year’s best—with an eye to steal from them. This year’s guest editor, Lauren Groff, writes that these stories “buzz with their own strange logic.” We’ll examine the inner workings of these stories to decipher some of that strange logic, but more pointedly, we’ll focus each week on one technique, discuss how the author is achieving a desired effect, and practice employing it in our own writing.

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Tuesday

Oct 7

Online Class   Writing Classes  

Nature Writing Seminar

Throughout this eight week course, students will look at the many ways in which humans are connected to our natural surroundings, both urban and remote. Weather, soil, plants, wildlife, changing systems, and more will all be explored. By delving into the inherent close relationship humans have with the natural world, each student’s path to writing their own stories using the natural world as scaffolding will emerge.

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Wednesday

Oct 15

Delve Readers Seminars  

Carl G. Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Psychology wouldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung. Ever curious about the depths and machinations of the psyche, he developed an intellectual life and therapeutic practice based in a profound abiding with the human soul. In his singular memoir Memories, Dreams, Reflections, written in his later years, we’re treated to a panoply of reminisces, revelations, and personal myths.

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Thursday

Oct 16

Thursday

Oct 16

Tuesday

Oct 21

In-person   Writing Classes  

Tools for Nonfiction Narrative Writing

Learn the craft of narrative writing. Participants will learn to write perceptively – deploying their five senses and delving into feelings as they write. They will learn how to leverage narrative distance, writing between their ideas and the immediacy of their experiences to see how distance can affect the emotional weight of the work. They will learn how to use metaphors as a means of discovery, to harness verbs, and to modify sentences for focus and impact.

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Wednesday

Oct 22

Delve Readers Seminars   Delve for Writers  

Five Decades of Short Stories: The 70s thru 2010s

This six-week seminar is designed for writers interested in doing deep reads of contemporary literature from a craft perspective. We will dissect the structure and language from five very different short stories so that we can apply some of the same tools these writers use in their work to our own. Delve for Writers is an occasional series of seminars designed to help writers improve their craft through close readings of contemporary poetry and prose.

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Thursday

Oct 23

Thursday

Oct 30

Thursday

Oct 30

Writing Classes   Online Class  

Building worlds of Wonder: Speculative Fiction

In this class we’ll study and practice specific techniques used by established speculative fiction authors such as N.K. Jemisin and Nalo Hopkinson. We’ll examine examples of “worldbuilding in small doses” and try our hands at it. We’ll discuss the merits of creating worlds from the inside out versus going from the outside in. We’ll cover viewpoint, voice, neologisms, “found” texts, and other elements of this aspect of writing with exploratory and generative exercises.

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Saturday

Nov 1

Writing Classes   Online Class  

Prompts and Play

In this six-week class we will explore prompt and nurture creative ideas to create a dossier of possibilities for further development. Participants can expect to take home 5-10 new ideas for creative works-in-progress and strategies for infusing more joy and authenticity in their writing practice.

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Tuesday

Nov 4

Writing Classes   In-person  

WRITING EKPHRASTIC POETRY

In this four-week class, we’ll read and discuss ekphrastic poems by a wide selection of writers, creating our own definition of ekphrasis, pushing the boundaries of what an ekphrastic poem can be. We’ll engage with several essays by poets to get us asking questions and diving deeper into our craft.

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Wednesday

Nov 12

Wednesday

Nov 12

Sunday

Nov 16

Thursday

Jan 15

Thursday

Feb 12

Thursday

Apr 23

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