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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

2021 Tin House Virtual Craft Intensive: Land Beyond Map, with Laura Da’

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This craft intensive is informed by the observational curiosities and imperatives of seasonality and land. This course uses the concept of the map and its inherent limitations as a central metaphor for crafting new work and evoking place. The creation, crossing, and elimination of boundaries of language and narrative will underpin writing prompts and extension activities designed to encourage new work and invigorate the revision process. Writing place has a long history in poetry, but this course will look closely at the ways that worldview shapes, guides, and hinders. Readings will include Cedar Sigo, Camille Dungy, and Megan Bang. Writers will leave this course with a variety of observational strategies and suggestions for future projects and ways of learning from the land. Tin House is…

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$75

Portland Storytellers’ Guild: Story Swap

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

PSG Story Swaps are a great way to visit with others that love stories. Story Swaps are open to all whether or not you are a PSG member. You will hear stories from every level of teller; seasoned, first timers, or those in between. Many people come at first just to listen to stories but decide over time to give storytelling a try. Swaps are a safe place for people to take those first steps into the world of storytelling. We like to get in as many tellers as possible. However, we only have so much time. If you want to tell a story, try to arrive early and get your name on the list.

Free

Sallie Tisdale

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Sallie Tisdale, author of the acclaimed Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them) brings “her singular sensibility, her genius for language, her love of our deeply imperfect world” (Karen Karbo) to The Lie About the Truck: Survivor, Reality TV, and the Endless Gaze (Gallery), an insightful exploration of reality TV and the shifting definitions of truth in America. What is the truth? In a world of fake news and rampant conspiracy theories, the nature of truth has increasingly blurry borders. In her clever and timely cultural commentary, Tisdale tackles this issue by framing it in a familiar way — reality TV, particularly the long-running CBS show Survivor. With humor and in-depth superfan analysis, Tisdale explores the distinction between suspended disbelief and true authenticity,…

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Free

Wilsonville Public Library: Teen Event (online)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us on Zoom (maybe in-person, too) for games, books, and more! Questions? Contact Brad at 503-570-1592 or clark@wilsonvillelibrary.org. On Zoom: Meeting code 901-104-467 For students in grades 6-12 For more information visit the Teen Events page.

Free

Delve Readers Seminar: 9/11 Literatures and the Global War on Terror: 20th Anniversary

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

2021 marks the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack and a period classified as the “global war on terror.” In this Delve seminar we will read, reflect, and discuss the literary responses to the immediate and the long-term impacts of the war on terror and the rise of xenophobia, Islamophobia, and the changing socio-political landscape of American life post 9/11. The literary texts that we will read will provide some broad understanding about public anxiety and trauma, particularly for those who experienced 9/11 closely and those that belonged to the Muslim-American communities. We will also unpack various representations and debates surrounding the ways in which the figure of the terrorist, terrorism, torture, racism and Islamophobia have informed the study of the 9/11 genre. Please…

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$180

Writing Characters Who Take Up Space

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

For all the descriptive writing in the world, it is often difficult to fully realize a physical body in a physical space for a reader. Bodies are so varied, spaces contain so many possibilities, but both bodies and spatial possibilities are often overlooked in writing craft. This class will use ideas presented in Amy Cuddy’s book, Presence: Bringing your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges, Bessel Van Der Kolk’s, The Body Keeps Score, and others, to present new ways of exploring the physical presence of characters on the page, their experiences with themselves, with their environment and with other characters. Access Program We want our writing classes to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that our tuition structure can present…

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$190

Susan Orlean in Conversation With Meg Wolitzer

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Susan Orlean — the beloved New Yorker staff writer hailed as “a national treasure” by The Washington Post and author of The Library Book and The Orchid Thief — gathers a lifetime of musings, meditations, and in-depth profiles about animals. “How we interact with animals has preoccupied philosophers, poets, and naturalists for ages,” writes Orlean. Since the age of six, when Orlean wrote and illustrated a book called Herbert the Near-Sighted Pigeon, she’s been drawn to stories about how we live with animals, and how they abide by us. Now, in On Animals (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster), she examines animal-human relationships through the compelling tales she has written over the course of her celebrated career. These stories consider a range of creatures — the…

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Free

Story Time for Grownups – You Might As Well Laugh

Rose City Book Pub 1329 NE Fremont, Portland, OR, United States

"After 20 months off, “Story Time for Grownups” is back! … with a program of humorous readings from Mark Twain, Woody Allen, Robert Fulghum, Dorothy Parker, Ian Frazier, and David Niven. No cover. Warm yourself with a mug of beer, a pot of tea, soup, sandwich, or cookies while reliving the childhood experience of being read to before bedtime. Proof of covid vaccination is required of all attendees. Rose City Book Pub observes all the current anti-infection protocols. David Loftus has read aloud to live audiences, for recordings, and as a principal character in the science-fiction podcast series “Exoplanetary.” He has performed as a voice character and narrator with the Willamette Radio Workshop, Filmusik, and Third Angle New Music Ensemble; and at Powell’s Books, Borders…

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Free

Steel Yourself Before You Reveal Yourself

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A good journalist reports the story, but never becomes the story. But as essayists and non-fiction writers, we're not journalists. Sometimes our lives are, in fact, the story. What does it mean to write about ourselves and our lives, and then, to publish that writing? What does it mean when people read that writing, and discuss it—and us—publicly, as well as privately? Alexander Chee (How To Write an Autobiographical Novel), Morgan Jerkins (This May Be My Undoing), and Joseph Osmundson (Virology, forthcoming 2022) will discuss the choice to write about ourselves and dive into the public discourse as both writer and subject, and how to prepare for the unique scrutiny that comes with essay, memoir, and autobiographical writing. They will also offer tools to help…

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$10
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