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Rob Bell in Conversation with the band Joseph

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In his profound and deeply personal new book, New York Times bestselling author Rob Bell explores the endless dynamic questions and connections that have shaped his life to provide powerful insight into understanding your purpose and place in the world. Our home is a universe of endless dynamic connections that never stop inviting us to participate in the great mysterious love at the heart of it all. Everything Is Spiritual (St. Martin’s Essentials) is a brief history of how these ideas about creation, love, and connection shaped the author — and can shape every one of us. In his new book, Bell explores the concept that what people really want, more than anything, is to understand their purpose here — so much so that it…

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Free

Author Reading: rough house by tina ontiveros and Remote by DJ Lee

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

DJ Lee, author of the March release Remote: Finding Home in the Bitterroots, and tina ontiveros, author of the forthcoming rough house, join us for an evening of stunning prose and frank conversation about the particular complexities of parent/child relationships and how they shape who we are. Remote: Finding Home in the Bitterroots Skillfully intertwining history, outdoor adventure, and mystery, Lee’s memoir is an engaging contribution to the growing body of literature on women and wilderness and a lyrical tribute to the spiritual connection between people and the natural world. Lee is a Regents Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at Washington State University, the Director of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness History Project, and a scholar-fellow at the Black Earth Institute. rough house In searingly honest,…

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Free

Tiffany D. Cross in Conversation With Elie Mystal

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Black voters were critical to the Democrats’ 2018 blue wave. In fact, 90 percent of Black voters supported Democratic House candidates, compared to just 53 percent of all voters. Despite media narratives, this was not a fluke. Throughout U.S. history, Black people have played a crucial role in the shaping of the American experiment. Yet still, this powerful voting bloc is often dismissed as some “amorphous” deviation, argues political analyst Tiffany D. Cross. Say it Louder! (Amistad) is Cross’s explosive examination of how America’s composition was designed to exclude Black voters, but paradoxically would likely cease to exist without them. With multiple tentacles stretching into the cable news echo chamber, campaign leadership, and Black voter data, Cross creates a wrinkle in time with a reflective…

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Free

Fall 2020: Nine-Month Memoir Intensive

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

WAITING LIST ONLY. This class begins in September, with the goal of finishing a complete draft of a memoir by June. Participants do not need to be published writers; however, they should have some experience with elements of memoir, including character, setting, dialogue and scene, and have a clear project in mind that they will devote nine months to. They should also be comfortable in a workshop setting, giving and receiving criticism on works in progress. Though it is not a prerequisite, students who have taken “Memoir Boot Camp” or “Advanced Memoir” at Literary Arts should find this class an appropriate next step. Download the syllabus here. Contact Susan Moore at susan@literary-arts.org with questions. Access Program The scholarship position for this class has been filled.…

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$1200

Fall 2020 Online: Memoir Infusion!

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The best work speaks intimately to you even though it has been consciously made to speak intimately to thousands of others.- Jeanette Winterson This class is meant to get you moving, excited and deeply engaged with your memoir project. Whether you’ve almost got a full draft, are just beginning, or somewhere in between, together we’re going to make progress. Through reading memoir samples, craft talks and readings, plus specific writing exercises, we’ll examine what makes a reader engage with your story. We will look at ways to organize and shape life-chaos into art. Through vivid details, authentic voice, inventive uses of form, captivating dialog and invigorated settings, we can indeed make our personal stories universal. During the first half of class we will workshop short…

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$650

Kerri Arsenault in Conversation With Megan Labrise

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Kerri Arsenault grew up in the rural working-class town of Mexico, Maine. For over 100 years, the community orbited around a paper mill that employed most townspeople, including three generations of Arsenault’s own family. The mill, while providing livelihoods for nearly everyone, also contributed to the destruction of the environment and the decline of the town’s economic, moral, and emotional health in a slow-moving catastrophe, earning the area the nickname “Cancer Valley.” In Mill Town (St. Martin’s), Arsenault undertakes an excavation of a collective past to present a portrait of a community that illuminates not only the ruin of her hometown and the collapse of the working-class of America, but also the hazards of both living in and leaving home, and the silences we are…

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Free

Zephyr Teachout & E. J. Dionne, Jr.

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Every facet of American life is being overtaken by big platform monopolists like Facebook, Google, and Bayer (which has merged with the former agricultural giant Monsanto), resulting in a greater concentration of wealth and power than we've seen since the Gilded Age. Anti-corruption scholar and activist Zephyr Teachout’s Break ‘em Up (All Points Books) is a clarion call for liberals and leftists looking to find a common cause. Teachout makes a compelling case that monopolies are the root cause of many of the issues that today's progressives care about; they drive economic inequality, harm the planet, limit the political power of average citizens, and historically disenfranchised groups bear the brunt of their shameful and irresponsible business practices. Will progressives and moderates feud while America burns?…

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Free

Fall 2020: Fragmentation and Joy: Writing for Resilience in Hard Times

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Following in the tradition of Ross Gay, we will focus on writing about joy in the midst of pandemic, protest, and looming election. We will explore the lyric essay as a celebration of the fragment and the collage. This is a generative writing class, where most of our time will be spent writing to prompts; at the end of our time together, we will offer feedback to each other on our work. September 23 - October 14, 2020 Wednesdays, 6:30-8:30 p.m. (4 class meetings) online via Zoom Perrin Kerns Perrin Kerns served as the Director of Writing at Marylhurst University for 15 years. She currently teaches literature and creative nonfiction for Prescott College and Portland State. This summer she will also be teaching at PNCA’s…

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$185

Lawrence Roberts in Conversation With Barry Johnson

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

They surged into Washington by the tens of thousands in the spring of 1971. Fiery radicals, flower children, and militant vets gathered for the most audacious act in a years-long movement to end America’s war in Vietnam: a blockade of the nation’s capital. And the White House, headed by an increasingly paranoid Richard Nixon, was determined to stop it. Washington journalist Lawrence Roberts, drawing on dozens of interviews, unexplored archives, and newfound White House transcripts, recreates these largely forgotten events through the eyes of dueling characters. Woven into the story too are now-familiar names including John Kerry, Jane Fonda, and Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon Papers. It began with a bombing inside the U.S. Capitol — a still-unsolved case to which Roberts brings new…

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Free

Telltale: Nothing Ever Goes Away

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Hey, champ! Thanks for checking out Telltale. This used to be a monthly curated storytelling event for people that like to get vulnerable and take no shit, and perhaps it will be again. We are into genuine connection, laughter, heartbreak, poignant moments, and community building. We, in theory, should be just kicking off our 4th season, but...things got real weird. So I can’t promise that Telltale is back, because the future feels pretty hard to predict or commit to. But we are at least going to have a September show. Yeah, it’s going to be on zoom and not in person. Yeah, it’s not the same. But it’s better than nothing. And I said I’d do the show until the government stopped making me angry…

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Free – $7
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