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!

Write Around Portland: Bi-Monthly BIPOC Online Writing Workshop

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

For people who identify as Black, Indigenous or People of Color (BIPOC). 2nd & 4th Friday of every month from 4 to 5:30 pm (Pacific Time), Free. (No workshops 11/26 & 12/25.) Workshops are held via Zoom. Pre-registration is required. Registration opens the 1st of the month every month. Pre-register for our 2nd Friday workshop here. Pre-register for our 4th Friday workshop here. Click here for more workshop details.

Free

Ari Honarvar in Conversation With Ashleigh Renard

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A Girl Called Rumi (Forest Avenue Press), Ari Honarvar's debut novel, weaves a captivating tale of survival, redemption, and the power of storytelling. Kimia, a successful spiritual advisor whose Iranian childhood continues to haunt her, collides with a mysterious giant bird in her mother's California garage. She begins reliving her experience as a nine-year-old girl in war-torn Iran, including her friendship with a mystical storyteller who led her through the mythic Seven Valleys of Love. Grappling with her unresolved past, Kimia agrees to accompany her ailing mother back to Iran, only to arrive in the midst of the Green Uprising in the streets. Against the backdrop of the election protests, Kimia begins to unravel the secrets of the night that broke her mother and produced…

Free

Writing the Long Short Story

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This class is ideal for writers looking to work on a long short story of 35 pages or more. The long short story is an interesting form, giving writers the elbow room to delineate their stories more deeply yet still staying devoted to the principles of the short story. For some writers, the long short story can be an excellent precursor to the novel. In this six-week intensive workshop, participants will read and analyze the work of storytellers and master writers working with the long short story while simultaneously working on their own long story. Participants are welcome to bring an existing story/work and develop it further during the session. Texts: Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri Open Secrets by Alice Munro Access Program We want…

$285

FALL :: A Generative Creative Lab :: Exhausting Metaphor

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Collaboration Leader: Domi Shoemaker, alongside weekly videos featuring Domi and Lidia Yuknavitch in conversation When: Begins September 26th Where: Videos are hosted on our site—you’ll receive a link to one each week on Sundays, and then have access to them always. Domi will host a Zoom meeting every Thursday from 5:30-7:30PM PST. September 30th, October 7th, October 14th & October 21st. Cost: $250—payment plans are available. Please contact Daniel at registration@corporealwriting.com. Scholarships are also available—Apply Here. Six years ago (!!!) Corporeal Writing hosted its first ever seasonal lab—and we started with Fall. It’s an exciting time for us all as we cozy back into this beautiful season ripe with metaphors. Color. Changes in light, leaves, life. Meditation. Observation. In this generative lab we will develop…

$250

Premise Course: What is heroism? Do we all have it within us? Sophocles’ Ajax

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

What is heroism? Do we all have it within us? Sophocles’ Ajax (Learn about Premise classes here: https://www.premiseinstitute.com/premisefaq) Sophocles’ Ajax is a tragedy that unpacks the shame and death of Ajax, a Greek warrior who had won fame for his bravery during the Trojan War. The play moves through a series of reversals: old allies become enemies, honor becomes disgrace, and divine power becomes temporal authority. Together, we will wonder about and explore the concept of heroism. Who has it? Why? Does it come from within or from our circumstances and environment? We will explore the complexities of heroism through the story of Ajax. Why does he kill himself? Is Ajax a hero or just an ordinary human with a predilection for trying to find…

$40

Sandra Cisneros: Presented with Wisconsin Book Festival

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join Literary Arts and the Wisconsin Book Festival for a conversation with Sandra Cisneros about her new novel, Martita, I Remember You/Martita, te recuerdo. Cisneros will be interviewed by Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina. About Martita, I Remember You / Martita, te recuerdo, a story in English and Spanish: A long-forgotten letter sets off a charged encounter with the past in this poignant and gorgeously told tale masterfully told by Sandra Cisneros, the celebrated bestselling author of The House on Mango Street, in a beautiful dual-language edition. As a young woman, Corina leaves her Mexican family in Chicago to pursue her dream of becoming a writer in the cafes of Paris. Instead, she spends her brief time in the City of Light running out of…

Free

Delve Readers Seminar: Hilary Mantel: Beyond the Booker

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Hilary Mantel is best known for her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, the first two volumes of which (Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies) won the Booker Prize (in 2009 and 2012). The third and final volume, The Mirror and the Light, was published to acclaim in 2020. These books are modern masterpieces, yet Mantel’s earlier novels are equally worthy of attention and admiration. Mantel’s books are so original, and so different from one another, that it’s often difficult to believe they were written by the same novelist. In this seminar, we will read two of Mantel’s novels and her memoir. Beyond Black is the tragi-comic story of Alison, a modern-day medium scraping out a living among an assortment of cranks, true believers, and charlatans. Haunted…

$240

Jess Walter in Conversation With Amor Towles

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

An intimate story of brotherhood, love, sacrifice, and betrayal set against the panoramic backdrop of an early 20th-century America that eerily echoes our own time, Jess Walter’s The Cold Millions (Harper Perennial) offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation grappling with the chasm between rich and poor, between harsh realities and simple dreams. The Dolans live by their wits, jumping freight trains and lining up for day work at crooked job agencies. While 16-year-old Rye yearns for a steady job and a home, his older brother, Gig, dreams of a better world, fighting alongside other union men for fair pay and decent treatment. Enter Ursula the Great, a vaudeville singer who performs with a live cougar and introduces the brothers to a far more dangerous…

Free

Writing the Tarot: Creative Writing Workshop

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Need a creative jumpstart? The Writing the Tarot webinar uses the Tarot as a set of evocative prompts to create a complete short story draft. This two-hour workshop walks participants through the process in a painless, low-key manner, to help them arrive at a story they probably weren't expecting. Especially valuable for writers who are feeling creatively blocked, the HOCUS Tarot Method works equally well for seasoned writers who want to challenge themselves to stretch in new directions.

$15

Reading: Fire & Water: Stories from the Anthropocene

Annie Bloom's Books 7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes Portland writers Mary Fifield and Kristin Thiel, editors of Fire & Water: Stories from the Anthropocene, for a group reading and discussion. The co-editors will be joined by fellow contributors Jan Underwood and Jack Kirne. Omar El Akkad, who blurbed the book, will be reading from a story by contributor Carlos Labbé. About Fire & Water: A Sámi woman studying Alaska fish populations sees our past and future through their present signs of stress and her ancestral knowledge. A teenager faces a permanent drought in Australia and her own sexual desire. An unemployed man in Wisconsin marvels as a motley parade of animals makes his trailer their portal to a world untrammeled by humans. Featuring short fiction from authors around the globe, Fire…

Free