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.

Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Wednesday

Jun 25

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.

Find out more
Wednesday

Jun 25

Thursday

Jun 26

Friday

Jun 27

Tuesday

Jul 1

Wednesday

Jul 2

Tuesday

Jul 8

Thursday

Jul 10

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.

Find out more
Friday

Jul 11

Saturday

Jul 12

Saturday

Jul 12

Tuesday

Jul 15

Monday

Jul 21

Tuesday

Jul 22

Wednesday

Jul 23

Wednesday

Jul 23

Bookstore   Free Events  

Queer Community Write-In

Write, mingle, and be merry - The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe are excited to welcome local authors from the LGBTQ+ community for an evening of co-writing and and delicious drinks! Come with your laptop or journal and a story to tell. We've got outlets, caffeine, and plenty of great books for inspiration. About write-ins:

Find out more
Thursday

Jul 24

Bookstore   Free Events  

Stafford Challenge Anthology Reading

Join us for a night of readings from this year's Stafford Challenge Anthology! About The Stafford Challenge The Stafford Challenge is a yearlong international poetry project inspired by the daily writing practice of poet William Stafford. Launched on January 17, 2024—Stafford’s birthday—by poet and storyteller Brian Rohr, the challenge invites participants to write a poem

Find out more
Wednesday

Jul 30

Wednesday

Jul 30

Free Events   For BIPOC Writers   Bookstore  

BIPOC Reading Series – July

Hosted by Kyle Yoshioka and Jessica Meza-Torres, this monthly reading series is intended to prioritize the safety, creativity, and stories of Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color. The featured readers for July are Jzl Jmz and Adolfo Cantú-Villarreal. This event is open to everyone, but only people who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color

Find out more
Monday

Aug 4

In-person   Summer 2025   Writing Classes  

The Art of the Gut Renovation: Revising as Rebuilding

This class is designed for nonfiction writers. Essayists, memoirists, and writers of literary reportage are all welcome. Please come with a complete early draft of a project — maybe it’s something fresh, or maybe it’s simply a piece on which you feel a bit stalled. By the end of the month, writers will emerge with a new set of revision strategies, and a clear path forward for revising their work-in-progress.

Find out more
Wednesday

Aug 6

Friday

Aug 8

Friday

Aug 8

Free Events   Bookstore  

Crafting Stories: Mark Roberts and Jon Raymond

Join two accomplished storytellers, Mark Roberts, whose work spans the stage to screen with credits including Mike and Molly, Two and a Half Men, as well as his acclaimed plays, and Jon Raymond, known for his novels, teleplays and screenplays including Mildred Pierce, Meek’s Cutoff and Wendy and Lucy, for an in-depth conversation on the art of crafting stories for both screen and stage.

Find out more
Saturday

Aug 9

Saturday

Aug 16

Saturday

Aug 16

Wednesday

Aug 20

Thursday

Aug 21

Friday

Aug 22

Monday

Aug 25

Wednesday

Aug 27

Thursday

Aug 28

Thursday

Aug 28

Tuesday

Sep 2

In-person   Writing Classes  

Get 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.

Find out more
Wednesday

Sep 3

In-person   Writing Classes  

The Art of Fiction

While this course will predominantly take the form of a fiction workshop, it will also feature discussions of published works to interrogate the “absolutes” that govern the art of fiction, as well as to equip students to appreciate how they might bend if not break these rules in service of the stories that they hope to tell.

Find out more
Wednesday

Sep 3

Online Class   Writing Classes  

Personal Landscapes: The Braided Essay

In this workshop we will read braided essays by contemporaries such as Terese Marie Mailhot, Kyo Maclear, Rebecca Solnit and Melissa Matthewson who show that the landscapes we traverse are the exact right starting point to explore our own stories and when we braid our important places with our own experience, the result can be an extraordinary juxtaposition, leaving behind an unimaginable deer trail for others to follow. We will spend time discussing the writing of others, exploring our own personal landscapes, and working toward a complete braided personal essay by the end.

Find out more
Thursday

Sep 4

Saturday

Sep 6

Saturday

Sep 6

Sunday

Sep 7

Alex Behr
Monday

Sep 8

Wednesday

Sep 10

Delve Readers Seminars   In-person  

The Monstrous Feminine

In Western literature, scholars often reduce supernatural fiction to pulp, pop, or entertaining"fluff," which is somehow less noteworthy than other works of literature. Yet horror fiction often uses supernatural tropes of haunting and monstrosity to depict oppression, marginalized identities, gender, and "madness."
Through conversation and writing, we can consider how these modern and postmodern feminist authors expand Western literature and the gothic tradition through provocative first-person narratives.

Find out more
Wednesday

Sep 10

Wednesday

Sep 10

Filters

Changing any of the form inputs will cause the list of events to refresh with the filtered results.