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.

Sunday

Oct 4

Tuesday

Oct 6

Wednesday

Oct 7

Tuesday

Oct 13

Wednesday

Oct 14

Wednesday

Oct 14

Thursday

Oct 15

Friday

Oct 16

Saturday

Oct 17

Tuesday

Oct 20

Wednesday

Oct 21

Thursday

Oct 22

Friday

Oct 23

Tuesday

Oct 27

Wednesday

Oct 28

Wednesday

Oct 28

Thursday

Oct 29

In-person   Writing Classes  

Nature Writing

Throughout this six week course, students will look at the many ways in which humans are connected to our natural surroundings, both urban and remote. 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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Friday

Oct 30

Wednesday

Nov 4

In-person   Writing Classes  

Journalism for Every Writer

As part of their training, journalists learn how to distill a story down to its core components, make it legible to a wide audience, and structure information to maximize impact. These are skills and practices that all writers can benefit from. Whether there’s a journalist character in your novel, a historical component to your memoir, a narrative aspect to your academic work, or a poem that provides a glimpse into an unknown world, this class will provide a basic understanding of journalism that any writer can apply to any project.

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Sunday

Nov 8

Monday

Nov 9

Delve Readers Seminars   In-person  

Claire Keegan: Small Things Like These and Foster

This is an important novella in the vein of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, but with an ending that packs a different punch. At its center is a man torn between family, community, church, and one young woman in a terrible predicament. He must make a choice, and Keegan’s exquisite, concise writing reveals that agonizing choice. It’s a perfect story to ponder and discuss: What would you choose in his situation?

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Tuesday

Nov 10

Delve Readers Seminars   In-person  

Claire Keegan: Small Things Like These and Foster (Tuesday nights)

Second section added for Tuesday nights. This is an important novella in the vein of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, but with an ending that packs a different punch. At its center is a man torn between family, community, church, and one young woman in a terrible predicament. He must make a choice, and Keegan’s exquisite, concise writing reveals that agonizing choice. It’s a perfect story to ponder and discuss: What would you choose in his situation?

Find out more
Tuesday

Nov 17

Tuesday

Nov 24

Tuesday

Dec 15

Monday

Jan 4

Saturday

Jan 16

In-person   Writing Classes  

From Changemaker to Author: A Nonfiction Book Development Intensive

This six-week intensive is for the writer who has lived their subject matter. The expert, the advocate, the practitioner, the person who has earned their perspective and is ready to shape it into something that lasts. Each session combines direct instruction with hands-on writing practice, guided research, breakout group work, and mastermind-style coaching — so students leave every class with something made, not just something learned. A craft thread runs through every session: every workshop produces actual writing, not just planning documents.

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Saturday

Jan 23

In-person   Writing Classes  

After: Poems in Conversation

Every poem is in conversation with the writing that came before it. This conversation crosses generations and cultures, erasing distances of time, space, and mortality. In this four-part class, we'll make that conversation intentional. We'll consider the what, why, and how of writing in dialogue with other writers: what it means to write "after" someone, why we might quote, echo, erase, or respond to another text, and how we might do so with care, integrity, and proper credit.

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Sunday

Jan 24

Delve Readers Seminars   In-person  

Reading & Looking

Join us for a Delve seminar in which we will explore a wide range of visual art alongside short essays and books by artists, novelists, philosophers, filmmakers, and poets. Together we will read a series of classic unconventional short texts, both old and new, that examine the complex roles color (culminating with a deep dive into the color blue) plays in literature, the fine arts, philosophy, music, and daily life.

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