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!

Delve Readers Seminar Online: Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Storyteller and Death in the Andes

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

“Opam-pogyakyena shinoshinonkarintsi. Me está mirando la tristeza.” Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa is known for his prolific oeuvre, particularly his long historical novels that portray different aspects and eras of Peru and other parts of Latin America; and yet, his less-known shorter works are narrative gems that show the complexities of the human condition, with characters that cross both geographic and fundamental inner boundaries. We will discuss Death in the Andes and The Storyteller, two books whose protagonists step outside of the predictability of their comfort zones and place themselves in remote communities, where they will assume a radical life transformation. Graphic designer, writer, translator, and photographer, Ivonne Saed has extensively explored the crossroads between the visual and the textual, both in her creative…

$150

Delve Readers Seminar Online: Ritual, Redemption, and Epiphany

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This Delve will take place online via Zoom. Participants will receive information about how to connect with Zoom online. This Delve Seminar explores the common human experiences of redemption and epiphany and the role that ritual can play in ushering in such profound moments. Through our texts, we’ll examine how ritual can be used to protect societal structures as well as shift culture, how the tension between what has been and what might be leads to necessary conflict within the self, and how the power of acute experience ushers in clarity and the capacity for change. We will read two novellas, The Dead by James Joyce and Babette’s Feast by Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen), and a selection of short stories and poems by Alice Walker,…

$150

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