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!

Steven Hyden in Conversation With Chuck Klosterman

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Ever since Pearl Jam first blasted onto the Seattle grunge scene three decades ago with their debut album, Ten, they have sold over 85 million albums, performed for hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, and have even been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation (Hachette), music critic and journalist Steven Hyden celebrates the life, career, and music of this legendary group, widely considered to be one of the greatest American rock bands of all time. Long Road is structured like a mix tape, using 18 different Pearl Jam classics as starting points for telling a mix of personal and universal stories. Each chapter tells the tale of this great…

Free

Where We Come From: Writing Your Ethnoautobiography w/ Ella deCastro Baron, G. Ravyn Stanfield, and Anya Pearson—Begins September 27th

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Where We Come From: Writing Your Ethnoautobiography With Ella deCastro Baron, G. Ravyn Stanfield, and Anya Pearson  A six bi-weekly generative Collaboration (Please note: there is a brief application process for this workshop! Press the Apply Now button at the bottom of this text.) We have to co-create a better, fuller story of who we are. When we speak or write the stories of how our ancestors were harmed or harmed others, we clear the way for justice in the present. When we tell the truth about the past, we move towards the possibility for healing and repair. Ancestry gives us heritage: “traditions and practices that inform how we move through the world.” Who are our ancestors of blood, love, and spirit? This circle will…

$500 – $600

Liz Prato in Conversation with Aaron Gilbreath

Broadway Books 1714 NE Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

We are thrilled to welcome back Liz Prato, in conversation with Aaron Gilbreath, to discuss her new book Kids in America: A Gen X Reckoning. In this revealing and provocative essay collection, Prato reveals a generation deeply affected by terrorism, racial inequality, rape culture, and mental illness, in an era when none of these issues were openly discussed. Part memoir, part journlistic exploration, Kids in America illuminates a generation often written off as cynical, sarcastic slackers, showing that its impact on culture and society is undeniable. Prato herself is a GenXer, growing up in Denver in the '70s and '80s, so the issues she explores here are issues of her generation, and a lot of the book is about coming to terms with things they…

Free

Drink and Write Tuesdays

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

Jeanne Faulkner hosts this drop-in writing workshop on the last Tuesday of every month. Jeanne provides the prompts, tips, and coaching. You bring your computer and notebook.

Free

Weekly Check-In: Getting the Work Done

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

This 8-week class is focused on holding yourself and your classmates accountable to your writing goals.  Each week, plan to share your work-in-progress with the group, set or revise goals for your weekly writing practice, and share successes and challenges with fellow writers. You’ll also learn strategies for keeping focused and staying on track. Occasional outside readings for discussion. This is not a workshop or feedback-based class. Worked shared will be about listening to each other’s voices and having a consistent deadline to meet on a weekly basis. All genres welcome. Access Program We want our writing classes and Delves to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that our tuition structure can present obstacles for some people. Our Access Program…

$395

Submission Deadline: The Gravity of the Thing

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

We are open for submissions for our seasonal online issues during the months of March, June, September, and December. To submit your work, please visit this page during our open reading windows, or subscribe to our monthly newsletter to receive email updates. The Gravity of the Thing accepts defamiliarized works in the following general categories: Short: Tell us a story in 3,000 words or less; we are interested in fiction, creative nonfiction, self-contained excerpts, and genre-bending forms. Flash: A fiction, creative nonfiction, or genre-bending piece under 500 words. Poetry: Share up to three poems, prose poems, or multimedia works for a combined count of 500 words or less. Six Words: A poem or story in six words; you may share up to five stories per submission, but only one will be chosen. Baring the Device: Essays for our…

Free

Fall Generative Lab w/ Lidia Yuknavitch and the Corporeal Squad: September 30th-October 2nd

The Corporeal Writing Center 510 SW 3rd Ave #101, Portland, OR, United States

Fall. Color. Changes in light, leaves, life. Meditation. Observation. In this generative lab we will develop your key primary metaphors embedded in how you experience your life physically. Don’t worry—we know how to find them. From these metaphors we will develop seeds of texts (poetic, fiction, nonfiction, or mixed genre) for future expansion in your writing and artmaking life. Seven years ago Corporeal Writing hosted its first ever seasonal lab—and we started with Fall. We’re thrilled to write with you in person again at our beautiful space in downtown Portland. Check out all the details, and please read the COVID note carefully. Fall: Exhausting Metaphor: A Seasonal Generative Writing Lab with Lidia Yuknavitch and the Corporeal Writing Squad: Domi Shoemaker, Anya Pearson, Katie Guinn, and…

$450

Residency Application Deadline: Caldera 2023 Artist in Residence

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Through our residency program, Caldera supports artists, creatives, and cultural workers to build skills, relationships, and projects that inspire growth, combat oppression, and activate change. Residents draw inspiration from the residency community and the natural world surrounding our Arts Center in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. Residencies are open to regional and national, creatives and cultural workers in any discipline. Artists at any stage of their careers, who are not current students, are eligible to apply. Residencies are also available for parent artists who would like to bring their children. Residents will receive private lodging, studio, and artist stipend. Please note: transportation to and from the residency site is not provided by Caldera Arts. 2023 Residency Dates January 5 - 30, 2023  -- 3.5…

Free

Delve Readers Seminar: Delve for Writers: Joan Didion and Durga Chew-Bose

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

Delve for Writers is a new, occasional Delve series that offers seminars that focus on close readings of narrative, form, and stylistic choices that writers can incorporate into their own writing practice. Creative nonfiction is the perfect place to find voice, ideas and perspective – and nobody does it better Joan Didion and contemporary groundbreaker Durga Chew-Bose, whose collection Too Much and Not the Mood is a wonderful mashup of what Didion has always done so well, mixing cultural criticism and memoir in think-pieces that inspire and challenge us. In this Delve for Writers, we’ll look carefully at the craft of what we’ve read with close readings of style, form, mechanics, and conceptual and narrative choices. This seminar will focus on what we can learn…

$245

Julian Aguon in Conversation With Karen Russell

Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland, OR, United States

Part memoir, part manifesto, Chamorro climate activist and human rights lawyer Julian Aguon’s No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies (Astra House) is a coming-of-age story and a call for justice — for everyone, but in particular, for Indigenous peoples. In bracing poetry and compelling prose, Aguon weaves together stories from his childhood in the villages of Guam with searing political commentary about matters ranging from nuclear weapons to global warming. Undertaking the work of bearing witness, wrestling with the most pressing questions of the modern day, and reckoning with the challenge of truth-telling in an era of rampant obfuscation, he culls from his own life experiences — from losing his father to pancreatic cancer to working for Mother Teresa to an edifying chance encounter with Sherman…

Free