Events, Classes, and Seminars

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.

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.

You’ve worked hard on your writing and you want to bring it to your readers beyond the page. As writers, we don’t often get much instruction in performing our work. Even as we give public readings, make audio recordings, and film our excerpts for the internet, we’re often left to our own devices. In this course, we’ll practice reading our work aloud, incorporating theatrical techniques and exercises, and experimenting with performance styles to bring our words to life for an audience.

In this generative writing workshop, we will explore a slice of Portland as flâneurs, or writers who walk and observe as part of their practice.

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.

Together we will read & write creative writing on substance abuse, addiction & recovery, with an emphasis on harm reduction, healing, and reclamation. We will look at poems, short stories, and essay writing centering themes of addiction by their loved ones and by those with lived experience.