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The Trauma-Informed Creative Writing Classroom

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The creative writing classroom is not an explicitly healing space—yet writers regularly bring their stories of trauma into workshops. What are our obligations to these students as instructors? What are the best practices for managing workshop discussions about potentially triggering material? In this 6-hour intensive, learn when writing heals and harms, discuss syllabus disclaimers and content warnings, identify craft issues common to trauma writing, consider how feedback lands in an activated nervous system, and assess your own self-regulation skills. This class is limited to 15 students. October 23 and 24, 2021 Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (two sessions) Online via Zoom Katherine Standefer Katherine Standefer is the author of Lightning Flowers: My Journey To Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life, which…

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$145

Premise Course: How do illness and pain define the human experience? Zadie Smith’s Intimations and Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Illness is a defining aspect of the human experience. In this course we will explore the question: How do illness and pain define and shape the human experience? We’ll read and discuss Susan Sontag’s classic 1978 essay Illness as Metaphor and a selection of essays in Zadie Smith’s newest collection. Participants will read Smith’s essays about Covid and our collective understanding of how disease shapes who we are. Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor: In 1978 Susan Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor, a classic work described by Newsweek as "one of the most liberating books of its time." A cancer patient herself when she was writing the book, Sontag shows how the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of patients…

Continue readingPremise Course: How do illness and pain define the human experience? Zadie Smith’s Intimations and Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor
$35

Delve Readers Seminar: Herman Melville: Great Shorter Works

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Although Herman Melville is best known for Moby-Dick, he also demonstrated mastery of the novella, and this Delve will explore Melville’s best-known shorter works: Bartleby the Scrivener, famous for the Wall Street denizen who “would prefer not to,” no matter what his employer might want; Benito Cereno, where a captain answering a ship’s call of distress ends up in a situation far more perplexing—and dangerous—than what he had bargained for; and the posthumously-published masterpiece, Billy Budd, a story of the “handsome sailor” whose beauty and simplicity result in tragedy and a crisis of conscience for his captain. In each of the three weeks of this Delve, we will examine one of these shorter works and discuss their position in Melville’s unusual literary career and the…

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$110

Foul Play Nordic Style: Scandinavian Crime Fiction

Nordic Northwest 8800 SW Oleson Rd, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for an eight-week workshop focusing on Nordic crime films and novels. Tom Birnie, instructor in Scandinavian Studies at Portland State University, is back to lead this one-of-a-kind course, in which we will learn about, discuss and savor several films and books from the northernmost reaches of Europe. Nordic crime novels and films have attained an extraordinary international presence over the past three decades. Frequently addressing social issues, these allied genres investigate the troubling shadows lurking in what may at first glance be a perfect set of Scandinavian welfare states, where nothing can go wrong. Through examinations of corruption, exploitation, inequity and crooked politics, the reader/viewer is treated to superb studies of human character. About the Instructor: Thomas Birnie holds a Ph.D. in German…

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$100 – $150

Memoir Infusion

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. – William Faulkner If the primary purpose of literature is connection, what better way to accomplish that goal than through telling our experiences and how they formed us. This 8-week course is designed for writers already engaged in writing a memoir, who have some knowledge of the craft, and have begun a few chapters of a full-length memoir or have a handful of connected essays for a series of personal essays. Together we’ll discuss elements of craft including, but not limited to, narrative drive and tension, time, scene vs. summary narration, character development (including dialogue), ethics of truth and our faulty memories as we try to recreate our pasts on the page. We’ll also study structure,…

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$570

Delve Readers Seminar: Homer, The Odyssey

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The Odyssey is one of the world’s oldest and most enduring works of literature. Homer’s ancient Greek epic has inspired many modern artists and has introduced generations of readers to the the world of Greek myth, poetry, and storytelling.  In this seminar, we will explore the intricacies of Homer’s epic and its central story— Odysseus’s effort to return home from the Trojan War and reunite with his wife and son.  We will use the much heralded new translation by Emily Wilson. The Odyssey was also the principal inspiration for James Joyce’s Ulysses, the modernist epic of everyday life, that will be the focus of a Delve seminar next Spring, the 100th anniversary of its publication on February 2, 1922.   Participants in the Ulysses seminar are encouraged, though not required…

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$240

Portland Underground Graduate School: Disarming Our Language

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

An exploration of the power of words and the potential they have to perpetuate or shift internalized and systemic oppression, and an experiment in building a language of healing and interconnectedness. Date: Five Mondays from November 1 Tier A Pricing: $199 ($30/hr or above wage earners) Tier B Pricing: $149 ($16-29/hr wage earners) Tier C Pricing: $99 ($15/hr or below wage earners) See our Pricing + Generosity Policy for more information on tiered pricing. Our reality is made of sound, woven from the vibratory power of words. We contribute to distortion or healing by the words we use, and coherence within the individual body-mind and the collective is supported or hampered by the way we employ language. Using our words with deep awareness and intention can transform our world. This workshop-style course is an…

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$99 – $199

Education: Refugee, Integrating Authentic Literature in the Classroom with Alan Gratz

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Alan Gratz is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of seventeen novels for young readers, including Ground Zero, Refugee, Allies, Grenade, Prisoner B-3087, Projekt 1065, and Ban This Book. Through his well-researched books, Alan strives to help young readers build empathy and understand how other kids live—their hopes, their struggles, and their motives—so that readers can view the characters as human beings and not as statistics. In this online session, participants will hear Alan talk about his book Refugee. Refugee is the story of three young people from different eras and different parts of the world who are connected by their desperate, perilous attempts to flee dangerous situations in their homelands and their dreams of a better, safer tomorrow. He will talk about his…

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Free
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