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SUMMER/FALL Online: The Life of a Story Workshop w Joanna Rose | Aug 1 – Oct 3

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as if they had never happened before - Willa Cather, in O Pioneers Learn ways to build a story of any length by looking at the timeless elements of myth and the structure of the archetypal journey as they appear in literature and film. Open to writers at any stage of their writing. We’ll look at ways to develop characters with consequence and stories with shape. There will be assignments that can reflect work in progress or brand new writing done just for the workshop. | Maximum: 12 writers | No class Sep 5 Register for this workshop NOTE: To protect everyone during the Covid-19 pandemic, we're offering this course via Zoom.…

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$430 – $469

Stephanie Scott in Conversation With Margaret Malone

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A gripping debut set in modern-day Tokyo and inspired by a true crime — for readers of Everything I Never Told You and The Perfect Nanny — Stephanie Scott’s What’s Left of Me Is Yours (Doubleday) charts a young woman’s search for the truth about her mother’s life — and her murder. In Japan, a covert industry has grown up around the wakaresaseya (literally “breaker-upper”), a person hired by one spouse to seduce the other in order to gain the advantage in divorce proceedings. When Satō hires Kaitarō, a wakaresaseya agent, to have an affair with his wife, Rina, he assumes it will be an easy case. But Satō has never truly understood Rina or her desires and Kaitarō’s job is to do exactly that…

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Free

Livestream: Jeff Wallach: Mr. Wizard

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for Portland author Jeff Wallach's livestream reading from his novel, Mr. Wizard. Livestream registration link: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/jeff-wallach-mr--wizard Two brothers. One mother. One big question. Two days before her death, Jenny Elliot suggests to her fifty-year-old son Phillip that, being half Irish, he should be more careful about his drinking. Phillip, along with his brother Spencer, has grown up believing they were the fully Jewish-American offspring of Jenny and her late husband who died in the Vietnam War. Was his mother uttering some dementia-inspired fantasy, or was her true character shining through in her last moments to leave the brothers a clue to their real heritage? After her death, Phillip decides to take a DNA test. The brothers set off on a genetic treasure hunt in…

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Free

An Appointment with Emily and Your Chair: Free Writing Session

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Writing, even on a good day, is hard. So how do we do it on the not-good days, on the days when it feels like the world is upside-down? “Butt in chair” is the simple answer. We make ourselves sit down, and we don’t get up until we’ve gotten a few sentences down at the very least. But sometimes it feels impossible to even get to the chair. We’d honestly rather throw the chair out the window than sit in it. But what if we made an appointment with the chair? And we knew that other interesting people were doing it too, at the exact same time? This free Zoom meeting is that appointment. Every Monday, from 7-8 pm, July 20-August 24th, we will meet…

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Free

Daniel Kraus in Conversation With Mary Roach

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

George A. Romero invented the modern zombie in his seminal film, Night of the Living Dead. Without Romero, there would be no World War Z, no The Walking Dead. When he died in 2017, Romero's giant, contemporary zombie novel was unfinished. Completed by bestselling author Daniel Kraus (The Shape of Water) with the full cooperation of the Romero estate, The Living Dead (Tor) is an entirely new tale. Not a novelization of any of the films, it is the story of the zombie plague, from the first rising to the fall of humankind… and beyond. Kraus will be joined in conversation by Mary Roach, author of Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Register for the…

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Free

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…

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$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,…

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$150

Romance Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Our book discussions aim to bring people together to talk about books in a safe and inviting atmosphere. Our meetings are lovely and inclusive; we invite you to attend. Come and enjoy a lively discussion about the chosen book with other readers. Join us on August 6th for our Romance Book Club at 5pm. We will discuss Beach Read by Emily Henry. About the book: A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.…

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Free

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…

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$240

Historical Fiction Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us on August 7th at 4pm for our Historical Fiction Book Club. We will discuss Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (available for purchase June 30th). About the book: In this bravura follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning #1 New York Times bestseller The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly…

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Free
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