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.
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.
April is National Letter Writing Month! Spend some time writing letters and catching up on your correspondence with like-minded writers and fans of the postal system. Some supplies, snacks, and typewriters will be provided, but feel free to bring your favorite stationery, pens & art supplies. Hosted by Squeezebox Press
Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month, 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 own poetry,
DELVE FOR WRITERS: An occasional Delve series that offers seminars that focus on close readings of narrative, form, and stylistic choices that writers can incorporate into their own writing practice. Contemporary poetry and prose-poetry is a fabulous place to find rich, novel ideas about both form and content. This year’s final Portland Arts & Lectures
The key to any unforgettable work of prose resides in the quality of its scenes. In this class, we’ll look at some of the best scenes ever written and investigate
One of the central struggles in storytelling is that human beings are, in essence, time travelers. We live in the past of our memories and the future of our hopes.
Are you ready to get real about the emotional struggles that we bring to our writing? In this evening of conversation, we’ll explore everything from the anxiety of exposure to the crippling doubts that drive us into writer’s block—without judgment or platitudes. No question is off limits: Can I tell the truth about my abusive
Are you ready to get real about the emotional struggles that we bring to our writing? In this evening of conversation, we’ll explore everything from the anxiety of exposure to
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
Please join us for a reading featuring some of this year's Oregon Book Awards finalists in Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry: Creative Nonfiction: Erica Berry Alyssa Graybeal Steven Moore Fiction:
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
Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month, 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 own poetry,
Emily Wilson's new translation of the Iliad, building on the accomplishment of her recent translation of the Odyssey, has kindled fresh interest in Homer's perennially relevant war epic. In this six-week seminar, we will read our way through Homer's text while exploring the rewards of this remarkable translation, a work of both scholarly acuity and
The Wild West has always been a fiction. The heroic cowboy settling the frontier is a myth. The Western novels of the mid-20th century rewrote genocide & colonialism to justify the existence of the United States. As a needed response, The Anti-Western works to undermine this false history by complexifying & subverting the tropes of
Incite: Queer Writers Read is a curated, bimonthly reading series for Queer writers. Incite’s hope is to create conversation, connection, and greater understanding both within the Queer community and with other
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
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
Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month, 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 own poetry,
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. February's featured reader is Eric
In this Delve, we will read Portuguese Nobel-laureate José Saramago’s breathtaking novel, Blindness (1995), focusing in particular on the concept of “community.” The novel posits the trope of community as an ethical imperative when the human condition has become utterly wretched. In a nameless city, contaminated by a sudden white blindness, the only inhabitant who
Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month, 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 own poetry,
Sometimes we become so focused on productivity or “doing it right” that we stifle our creativity. In this class we’ll focus on one of the hardest parts of writing: writing.
Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) was maybe the greatest short story writer in English that you might not have read. In this Delve, we will read the two dozen stories she wrote describing life in London and throughout Britain during World War II. She describes a world coming apart at its most intimate level—the homes, the lives
Incite: Queer Writers Read is a curated, bimonthly reading series for Queer writers. Incite’s hope is to create conversation, connection, and greater understanding both within the Queer community and with other
The Faust Legend takes up the question of selling your soul to the devil for magical success in this world. This Delve seminar looks at the legend in three famous instantiations: in the German chapbook, in Christopher Marlowe’s tragedy, and in Goethe’s iconic drama. We can trace these authors’ evolving view of evil, sin, the
Young and beautiful Gwendolen Harleth is poised at a roulette table at a German spa, where she is observed by Daniel Deronda, an exceptionally handsome upper-class Englishman. Later, a reversal of fortune forces Gwendolen toward a troubled marriage with a rich older man and Daniel encounters Mirah Lapidoth, a troubled young actress and singer. In
Proust’s magnum opus is often considered to be the greatest novel of the 20th century. It richly repays the careful attention it demands, and becomes unforgettable. First-time readers, however, may find the style and size of the work daunting. This seminar is intended for participants who have always wanted to read Proust, but who would
Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month, on the third Thursday. This mic provides a creative, fun, and welcoming space for all literary communities in
Join us at Literary Arts for a panel discussion featuring local independent publishers, Buckman Journal, Lurch Zine, and Provecho Magazine. Hosted by Michael Kurt and Wesley Mueller of Berm Magazine.
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
Lynette Yetter, translator of Bolivian feminist poet Adela Zamudio’s work from the Spanish and Sara Guest, local teacher of American feminist Poet Adrienne Rich’s work will facilitate a “conversation” between these
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
Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month, on the third Thursday. This mic provides a creative, fun, and welcoming space for all literary communities in
The hybrid genre of erasure and collage often exists between and because of two different mediums: text and image. Through obscuring a pre-existing text using various methods, an original work
Incite: Queer Writers Read is a curated, bimonthly reading series for Queer writers. Incite’s hope is to create conversation, connection, and greater understanding both within the Queer community and with other
This is a three-hour, one-day intensive discussion on the unique genre of autofiction. This course will provide insight into the many nuances of autofiction, or autobiographical fiction. This “genre” involves writing that is based on real life experiences, but also utilizes fictional literary devices, making it a very unique form.
Bring one or two of your most promising poems-in-process, and we will work through ways to make them more like what they want to be. This will not be a critique session, but a workshop in generative revision.
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
We're back! And better than ever! Starting this month, the BIPOC Reading series will meet in-person at the Literary Arts event space in downtown Portland. We are also welcoming a
This weekend intensive is designed for writers who have written at least the first two chapters of a novel. Limited to 8 students, each participant will have their work discussed,
Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month, on the third Thursday. This mic provides a creative, fun, and welcoming space for all literary communities in
In his 1974 book, Working, Studs Terkel begins by saying, “This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence—to the spirit as well as to the body.”
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
This six-week course is designed to help students finish a draft of a fiction or non-fiction manuscript. We'll read craft essays about drafting a book, set aside time each week
Nathaniel Hawthorne marveled at Anthony Trollope’s talent for conveying the truth of human experience, declaring his fictional world to be “just as real as if some giant had hewn a
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