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Delve Readers Seminar: Delve Online: William Gaddis: The Recognitions

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Before William Gaddis won the National Book Award for JR (1976) and A Frolic of His Own (1994), he wrote The Recognitions (1955), his ambitious debut novel. Its length and complexity are challenging, though it’s far more conventional in its narrative form than Gaddis’s later novels. The Recognitions is savagely critical of our capitalist society and culture, but it’s also a serious novel of ideas and very funny. A celebrated work of genius, it remains as relevant today as in the ‘50s. Delve Access Program We want Delve seminars to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that our tuition structure can present obstacles for some people. We are happy to offer an Access Program which provides reduced tuition to qualifying…

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$220

Delve Readers Seminar Online: Memory and Ancestors: Paula by Isabel Allende

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This two week Delve meets via Zoom teleconferencing, Participants who register will receive information on how to log onto the Zoom meeting. “So it is with my life, a multilayered and ever-changing fresco that only I can decipher, whose secret is mine alone. The mind selects, enhances, and betrays; happenings fade from memory; people forget one another and, in the end, all that remains is the journey of the soul, those rare moments of spiritual revelation. What actually happened isn’t what matters, only the resulting scars and distinguishing marks. My past has little meaning; I can see no order to it, no clarity, purpose, or path, only a blind journey guided by instinct and detours caused by events beyond my control. There was no deliberation…

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$75

Delve Readers Seminar Online: A Universal History: Selected Short Stories of Jorge Luis Borges

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This Delve takes place online with Zoom teleconferencing. Participants will receive instructions for how to log on to the Zoom meeting. Born in 1899, Jorge Luis Borges devoted his life to literature, exploring far beyond the previously-held boundaries of fiction, and this devotion shifted not just our understanding of language, but of our consciousness. As he once said, “This world is so strange that anything may happen, or may not happen.” One never knows what they might find within his masterful prose. The fiction of Borges dissolves and reconstructs itself as you venture from its first page to its last. A story that begins in a wine cellar might end with a reach toward the limits of the universe, a conversation between two old friends…

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$75

Delve Readers Seminars Online: Free 90 minute Discussion on Paul Auster’s In the Country of Last Things and Jose Saramego’s Blindness

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A free 90-minute online Delve discussion on Paul Auster’s In the Country of Last Things and Jose Saramego’s Blindness. The discussion is limited to 16 people and pre-registration is required. Registered participants will receive information on how to sign on to the Zoom meeting. Led by Delve guide Ivonne Saed. Participants are encouraged to come prepared to discuss the following questions, and to bring their own as well. Reflect on Saramago’s social critique and the way he writes about the blindness epidemic as a representation of the different roles and attitudes people take in times of crisis. The Last Things: What are the objective and non-objective things that can become the last in uncertain times? Is the cooperation in the different “societies” of the novel nihilistic or auspicious?…

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Free

Spring 2020 Online: Short Story Crash Course

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A four week online fiction class. Draft a short story in four weeks.  Each week’s session in this asynchronous online class combines generative writing to help cultivate ideas for plot and character with workshop feedback to assist in developing story arc, structure, and sensory details.  By the end of the month, you will have completed the first draft of a short story and created a plan for revision. This class will take place online, using Wet Ink, a popular online platform for classes. Registered students will receive a link to access the class four days before it starts. Please note: Wet Ink is different from Zoom for online classes in that there is not a “live” option. Students do not “attend” class at a set…

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$180

Delve Readers Seminars Online: Clarice Lispector: The Passion and Água Viva

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This Delve takes place online with Zoom teleconferencing. Participants will receive instructions for how to log on to the Zoom meeting. In The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector offers us a story where very little happens, but where the transformation of the protagonist—alongside the reader—is a path with no return. A trivial, almost insignificant event leads to a deep philosophical reflection of the character’s life and her mysterious inner self. “It’s with such profound happiness.” Those are the first words of Água Viva, an in-depth narrative about time, life, death, dreams and creation, where a stream of consciousness gives meaning to the protagonist’s surroundings. Both novels are placed in the threshold of the author’s existential thoughts, where silence is also a powerful means of…

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$110

Delve Readers Seminars Online: Free 90 minute Discussion on Normal People by Sally Rooney

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A free 90-minute Delve discussion on Normal People by Sally Rooney, led by Delve guide Sara Guest. The discussion is limited to 16 people and pre-registration is required. Registered participants will receive information on how to sign on to the Zoom meeting. “Sally Rooney’s sentences are droll, nimble and matter-of-fact. There’s nothing particularly special about them, except for the way she throws them. She’s like one of those elite magicians who can make a playing card pierce the rind of a watermelon.” – Dwight Garner, The New York Times Bursting onto the scene at the age of 26 with the 2017 publication of her first novel Conversations with Friends, Irish novelist Sally Rooney has quickly assumed a coveted spot not only as a voice of…

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Free

Online: Writing a Novel in 8 Weeks

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

For dedicated writers with some experience. Limited to 10 students Through mini-lectures, in-class writing, and lots of workshopping, you will explore matters of storytelling (such as plotting and character development), craft (what makes a good sentence? a good scene?), and motivation (how in the world am I supposed to write a novel in only eight weeks?) to get the work done. This is a boot-camp-style class designed for aspiring novelists who have a clear fictional project in mind and who can commit to a rigorous eight-week schedule of reading and writing. You do not need permission to register, but you should have some prior experience in writing. And if you’ve got an outline for your planned novel, even better. Each participant will present work to…

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$365

Delve Readers Seminars Online: Clarice Lispector: The Passion and Água Viva

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This Delve takes place online with Zoom teleconferencing. Participants will receive instructions for how to log on to the Zoom meeting. In The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector offers us a story where very little happens, but where the transformation of the protagonist—alongside the reader—is a path with no return. A trivial, almost insignificant event leads to a deep philosophical reflection of the character’s life and her mysterious inner self. “It’s with such profound happiness.” Those are the first words of Água Viva, an in-depth narrative about time, life, death, dreams and creation, where a stream of consciousness gives meaning to the protagonist’s surroundings. Both novels are placed in the threshold of the author’s existential thoughts, where silence is also a powerful means of…

Continue readingDelve Readers Seminars Online: Clarice Lispector: The Passion and Água Viva
$110

Delve Readers Seminars Online: To the Wedding by John Berger

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This Delve takes place online with Zoom teleconferencing. Participants will receive instructions for how to log on to the Zoom meeting. “I like quoting ancient verses when the occasion is apt.  I remember most of what I hear, and I listen all day but sometimes I do not know how to fit everything together.  When this happens I cling to words or phrases which seem to ring true.” So begins John Berger’s To the Wedding (1995), a modern fable, at once lyrical and realistic, of life affirmed amidst death, of significance fashioned where meaning may not be found.  Writing in the wake of the AIDs epidemic and amidst the moral fatigue of post-Cold War Europe, Berger’s story of the lovers Ninon and Gino invokes the…

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$75
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