LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.

For details regarding specific events please contact the organizers or venues. If you are an organizer or venue and would like to reach out to us please feel free to contact us or submit an event using our submission form. We’d love to hear from you!

Summer 2020 Online: Turning Life Into Fiction

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

“Because something happened to you, you own it. Tell your stories. ~Anne Lamott Often, when we set out to write a story we don’t know where to begin. In this class we will look at the wealth of possibility in our lives, in our family life, our work life, or something a friend has told you that seems perfect fodder for fiction. What is a story that’s often retold to the point of folklore in your family? What is the anecdote that you trot out over a beverage with friends? In this class we will use life as the starter for stories to which we apply our imagination, the skills in our writers’ toolbox, and the joy that comes from being in charge of how…

$240

Delve Summer 2020: The Case for Oregon Reparations

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

“The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of the most culturally-relevant examinations of America’s tradition of systematic economic exploitation, particularly of Blacks. Published in 2016, this Atlantic article, which veers into being a short book in length, looks at the foundational policies of the land: 400 years of slavery, decades of Jim Crow and separate but equal that have set the scene for the massive disparties found in the coutry today. The real human collateral of America’s plunder sets the scene for the question of Coates’ question: why hasn’t the country made a serious attempt into, at the very least, examining reparations. We will pair this reading with Portland State University professor Dr. Karen Gibson’s cutting delve into the effects of racist policies…

$110

Corporeal Writing: Space Stations: A Module for BIPOC Writers by Pamela K. Santos

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

MODULE ONE: Ask The Cup & Who Will Answer? LED BY: Pamela K. Santos WHERE: Online (via Zoom) WHEN: 4 weeks, 7 sessions, meeting Sundays and Tuesdays Aug 9 to Aug 30 (details on meeting times below) Space Stations are a pilot project series facilitated by Pamela K. Santos as artistic practice incubators for BIPOC writers meeting in 4-week modules around themes of introspection and self-inquiry. “What is your relationship to your art?” is the central question guiding the twice-weekly virtual sessions and self-directed exercises. Space Stations envision cooperative communities (“waystations” in the galaxies) that writers can drop in based on needs and shape how to support each other in literary ecosystems of our own creation. Ask The Cup & Who Will Answer? What is…

Free

Corporeal Writing: The Edge of Reason: poetic line w/ Brigid Yuknavitch

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

STARTS: 8/15/2020 WHERE: Online, for six weeks (please note: there is no live/Zoom component to this class—poets will go at their own pace each week) LEADER: Brigid Yuknavitch COST: $350 SCHOLARSHIPS: Yes, scholarships are available. Please follow this link to apply. The Edge of Reason: poetic line The form of the poem organizes our sensory and felt experience as we read. It supports and disrupts what the language is saying. The line slows the sentence down. The line makes a dance inside the sentence. The line breaks open the sentence. The line registers what the sentence tried to contain. The line takes a walk as Paul Klee described it in painting. And because the line can make these many moves it lets us do more…

$350

Corporeal Writing: Revivify: Breathing Life into Dead Matter — A Webgasm w/ Lidia Yuknavitch

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

WHAT: A two-hour online webgasm. WITH: Lidia Yuknavitch WHEN: Sunday, August 16th 1PM-3PM Pacific (4PM-6PM Eastern) WHERE: ZOOM! (But of course.) Meeting ID will be provided ahead of time. HOW MUCH: $100. Payment plans are available, contact Daniel Elder at registration@corporealwriting.com SCHOLARSHIPS: Scholarships are always available. Click here to apply. "No one is better at revealing how the stories we carry in our bodies need to find form and expression, before they eat us alive." —The New Yorker Do you have partially formed work sort of sitting in a drawer, or drifting out into space? Is there writing you maybe started but then gave up on, and yet every once in a while, you feel it calling you back? In this webgasm, Lidia will take…

$100

Delve Readers Seminar Online: Contemporary Korean Fiction

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A look at 3 contemporary Korean writers. From a haunting meditation on grief to a powerful examination on capitalism, participants will discuss the themes that bind and distinguish these texts. Discussions will also focus on how translation affects our understanding of these novels as well as elements of Korean culture and current affairs that are uniquely reflected in these works. This seminar is offered exclusively for people of color Reading List: The White Book, Han Kang The Impossible Fairy, Han Yujoo Familiar Things, Hwang Sok-Yong Participants should read The Impossible Fairy before first class meeting. Hannah Kim is a writer, storyteller, and improv comedian. She is interested in radical intersectional feminism and how it relates to anti-capitalism and reclamation of the divine feminine. She is…

$150

Corporeal Writing: Heartbeats: Body/Story Release — A Webgasm with Lidia Yuknavitch and Jennifer Pastiloff

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

WHAT: A two-hour online webgasm. WITH: Lidia Yuknavitch and Jen Pastiloff WHEN: Sunday, August 30th 11AM-1:30PM PST (2.5 hours long) WHERE: ZOOM! (But of course.) Meeting registration and access details will be provided in advance. HOW MUCH: $100. Payment plans are available, contact Daniel Elder at registration@corporealwriting.com SCHOLARSHIPS: Click here to apply. We always hold space open. Contact us. Heartbeats: Body/Story We are carrying too much of the world in our bodies just now--viruses of all sorts, injustices, traumas, sadness, rage. Join Jen and Lidia for a chance to physically and narratively release some of what we are carrying with a combination of yoga and writing. No experience necessary. We are here for each other. Jen will lead us through body release and Lidia will…

$100

Attic Institute: APPS DUE Aug 31: Creative Nonfiction (CNF) Studio | Sep 17 – Dec 10

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Write what you know you want to know The Creative Nonfiction (CNF) Studio is based on the idea that inspiration, accountability, and community are essential to every writer’s growth. The CNF Studio meets weekly for multi-month sessions, and its curriculum is designed to help you deepen your writing through a keener understanding of both literary craft and your own voice. The CNF Studio is open to applications from all writers, and members often return for multiple sessions. This creates the Studio’s special experience: a consistent, deep, and supportive study of your writing in the company of other writers. Each weekly session includes a close-reading and discussion of a selected work of creative nonfiction, a roundtable reading of take-home prompts, and in-depth critique of several works-in-progress. Over…

$544 – $560

Delve Readers Seminars: William James: Inventing an American Philosophy

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The philosophy of William James (1842–1910) has had world-wide influence, and yet it is in many ways an essentially American view of the nature and humanity. James was a psychologist by training. This study led him to develop his unique view of human experience, out of which grew his profound concept of the nature of knowledge and reality as the way in which we act in the world and experience life. In this seminar, we will discuss a few of James’s most important essays in general philosophy, ethics, psychology, and religion in order to grasp the force of his simple but revolutionary ideas. The Will to Believe by William James Essays in Radical Empiricism by William James Delve Access Program We want Delve seminars to…

$220

Applying for an Oregon Literary Fellowships: Your Questions Answered

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Questions about applying for an Oregon Literary Fellowship? Join us for a Zoom meeting and bring your questions. Pre-registration is required, but you can attend any time between 10:00 a.m. and noon. Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYqcO-prTMvE9zkB_strVksHB0e-VTiszg5

Free