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.
Join us for a day of giveaways, free workshops, food and drink specials, and more as we celebrate indie bookstores! Saturday, April 25, is Independent Bookstore Day! Come celebrate with us at 716 SE Grand Avenue from 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m for a day full of books, community, festivity, and surprises! 🎧 Libro.fm Golden
Participants in this one day class will read, draft, and collaborate in revising letter poems that balance the public with the private, the close-to-bone with the common. Through generative, constraint-based prompts, participants will explore the tension between forms of direct address and forms of poetic allusion to speak to, or point towards, what’s been left unsaid in their poems.
Join us at The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe on Independent Bookstore Day for a special storytime featuring local author Leslie Barnard Booth. Saturday, April 25, is Independent Bookstore Day! Come celebrate with us at 716 SE Grand Avenue from 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m for a day full of books, community, festivity, and surprises!
Come celebrate Independent Bookstore Day at Literary Arts and take part in a free, two-hour condensed version of Miranda Schmidt's Writing With Tarot class.
This class is for anyone ready to take a personal 5-minute story and actively shape it for an audience. You’ll work hands-on with one story. Drafting, refining, and testing it aloud. We’ll focus on structure, pacing, and point of view, helping you find the spine of the story and decide what belongs in this particular version of the story and what doesn’t.
The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe is excited to welcome Literary Arts board member Priscilla Bernard Wieden for a special reading from her poetry collection, Solitary Light. Priscilla will be in conversation with Oregon's former poet laureate, Kim Stafford. About the book: Poetry is a conduit for communicating our shared experiences and broadening our understanding
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 up to share your work in our open mic. Readings will be followed by a short community discussion. Hosted by Kyle Yoshioka and Jessica Meza-Torres. The featured reader
Read Willima Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, both of which consider the many scars, healed and not, caused by enslavement and the Civil War. Thinking about history, memory, and what Morrison calls “rememory,” we’ll consider what it means to live in a nation, to inherit its past, and to fight for a better future.
The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe is excited to welcome poet Erin L. McCoy to celebrate her debut novel, Underlake. McCoy will be in conversation with Erica Berry. About the book: Twelve years ago, Otta escaped her small town, determined to become a marine biologist. Now she’s returned, carrying the guilt of a friend’s disappearance
In this six-week, workshop-meets-craft class, we'll dissect six 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. Each writer will have the opportunity to have one short story workshopped in this class (ie; written and verbal feedback from both instructor and peers).
Wallace Stevens is one of the most distinctive and extravagant voices in American poetry, an orator of the imagination and eloquent observer of the world's beauty. Beginning with the appearance of the astonishing Harmonium in 1923, Stevens published seven volumes of poetry while living an 'ordinary' life as an insurance executive in Hartford, Connecticut. His Collected Poems is a book of wonders, one of the landmarks of American literary modernism, and his poems are admired and studied for their lustrous language, their philosophical profundity, and their commitment to the importance of poetry in our everyday lives.
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 to read – or come to listen and prepare to be inspired. Our host is the one and only, Emme Lund. The featured reader for May is
The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe is thrilled to partner with SCRAP PDX for monthly crafting events. Stay tuned for details on this month's crafts! This event is self-guided & beginner-friendly. A SCRAP educator will be ready to assist newer sewists with hand-sewing basics! This is a ticketed event. Drop-ins welcome
Join us at the Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe for our monthly write-in. At last, the long night has ended, and we're ready for Spring! With a bookseller-curated mix of songs featuring sunlight and brightness, we'll be channeling brighter days as we lock-in for a focused writing session. Our Food and Beverage Assistant Manager, Miah,
The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe is excited to welcome Stephanie Fairyington to celebrate their book Ugly. Fairyington will be joined in conversation by Andi Zeisler. About the book: A tender, moving, and insightful account of queer motherhood and an interrogation of life on the margins of American culture as a self-described “ugly” woman Ugly
Join us at The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe for a staged reading of Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them by A. Rey Pamatmat, directed by Terry Kitagawa. About the book: Filipino-American siblings Edith and Kenny are all but abandoned by the adults in their lives. Left to their own devices on a farm in
The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe is excited to welcome Rex Marshall for his memoir, All the Work I Never Wanted. Marshall will be joined in conversation by Michelle Kicherer. About the book: The lady at the plastic-cup-making factory is missing her fingers. The kid at the burger joint is spitting on patties. The newspapers
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 communities in Portland. We encourage poets new and old to come share their work. We strive towards a safe space for poets to read their
The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe is excited to welcome Steven Pfau to celebrate his hybrid memoir, Say Nephew. Pfau will be joined in conversation by Milo Muise.
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 up to share your work in our open mic. Readings will be followed by a short community discussion. Hosted by Kyle Yoshioka and Jessica Meza-Torres. The featured reader
Through guided meditations, writing exercises, and reading excerpts of big-hearted, emotionally courageous literature, writers of fiction and nonfiction will develop more self-connection, feel compassion for themselves as writers as well as for their characters, and care for their nervous system during the writing process, so they can enjoy more flow, catharsis, and joy.
Kick off Pride Month at The Literary Bookstore and Cafe! We are excited to welcome Rosiee Thor to celebrate their book Being Aro: A Collection of Aromantic Stories about Love. About the book: Explore expansive aromantic love and connection in stories across genres These twelve stories showcase aromantic people breaking generational curses, finding acceptance, and
In this course we'll read a number of first-person stories and discuss the advantages and risks of this perspective and how the first-person perspective is effectively established and sustained. Participants will use prompts to experiment with the many possibilities of the first-person in their own creative work.
Through brief readings, writing prompts, and generative exercises, we’ll welcome in and attune our writing to the time of year.
This workshop embraces political, social justice-driven short fiction. In this three-hour session, we'll read excerpts from underrepresented authors, discuss confronting oppression, and engage in generative writing and supportive sharing.
One of the most compelling figures of modern thought, Simone Weil (1909–1943) was a brilliant, often startling, and visionary thinker. She was a philosopher (one of first two women in France to earn a PhD, along with her classmate Simone de Beauvoir), teacher, writer, factory worker, pacifist, soldier, marxist, anarchist, Jewish, Christian, mystic, exile, playwright, translator, and mathematician.
The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe is thrilled to welcome Melissa Febos to celebrate the paperback release of her book The Dry Season. About the book: In the wake of a catastrophic two-year relationship, Melissa Febos decided to take a break: For three months, she would abstain from dating, relationships, and sex. Her friends were
This generative summer writing class will be a journey through all five senses. Each week we will read and/or view published pieces that focuses on a specific sense, then develop our own sensory work through discussion and generative prompts. Open to writers of all genres and experience levels.
Turn lived experience into a compelling memoir. This four-week course helps writers shape personal stories with clarity, structure, and intention. You’ll explore narrative arc, voice, and emotional truth while learning how to craft a story that resonates without losing your thread along the way.
The Literary Arts Bookstore and Cafe is pleased to welcome Michelle St. Roman to celebrate her debut novel, Song of Belonging. Michelle will be in conversation with Sandra Freels. About the book: For fans of Kate Morton, Amy Harmon, and Sally Page comes a multigenerational novel infused with touches of magical realism about a woman’s
This Delve for Writers will use Machado's short stories and memoir as a jumping off point for our own horror and fairy tale infused fiction and non-fiction writing. We will find the surreal within the mundane details of life and celebrate that.
This class will provide an introduction to journalism for every writer. Learning the fundamentals of reporting, researching, writing, editing and fact-checking can enhance any writing practice. In five, two-hour sessions, students of all levels will learn basic journalistic skills they can apply to their own projects, whatever the genre.
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