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!

If It’s Not One Thing It’s Your Mother: Preparing Nonfiction for Submission w/ Melissa Chadburn—begins October 4th

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

If It's Not One Thing It's Your Mother, Preparing Nonfiction for Submission with Melissa Chadburn The goal of this workshop is to help creative nonfiction writers prepare their work for submission in an inclusive, supportive environment. Classes include reading assignments where we will explore various essay structures, and some short in-class writing assignments to allow writers to discuss and engage other craft techniques. Each writer will workshop one essay, hybrid, or longform piece anywhere from 1200-4500 words, (already in progress). This generative lab is meant to be a supportive environment for writers to actualize the intentions for their piece. Lab Leader: Melissa Chadburn When: October 4th and runs for 4 weeks Where: Zoom and WetInk, our rich, interactive, online platform. Melissa will host a Zoom…

$350

Fiction Technique in Memoir

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

Memoir is not “biography” and it doesn’t have to read like a textbook. Memoir is a unique and exciting format in which the writer has the creative freedom to tell some portion of their life’s story in a captivating way. We don’t necessarily need to read your story from birth up to the present day but like any good novel, a good memoir should have a storyarch, memorable characters and a narrator who changes in some way by the end of the story. In this class, we will look at techniques for forming that story arch, for developing stronger characters and for writing scenes that will create an impact. We do this by applying some of the same storytelling and structural techniques that fiction writers…

$285

One Page Wednesday: October

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

One Page Wednesday is back in-person at our downtown center! Here is an opportunity to share or listen to one page of work in progress from talented writers from everywhere. Come with a single page of work and sign up to read – or come to listen and prepare to be inspired. Our host this month is the one and only, Emme Lund. Our featured reader is cosima bee concordia. Please review our Covid-19 guidelines. Be prepared to show proof of vaccination or a negative PCR Test at the door. Masks are not required but encouraged. If you have any questions, contact Jessica at jessica@literary-arts.org. Emme Lund Emme Lund is an author living and writing in Portland, Oregon. She has an MFA from Mills College. Her work has…

Free

Making it Make Sense: Storytelling for Healing

Pulse Wellness 812 NE 28th Ave., Portland, OR, United States

There is meaning in the madness. This 8 session therapeutic storytelling workshop will guide participants in creating a story to illuminate power from pain. Series will culminate with a live performance. Limited to 5-8 participants. Thursdays 6:30 - 9 pm October 6, 13, 20, 27 November 3,10, 17 Meetings held at Pulse Wellness 812 NE 28th Ave. Portland, OR 97232 $30/session (must commit to all) Contact Erin Mahone for financial assistance erin@ifyoucouldseeme.com Register at: http://www.ifyoucouldseeme.com Final Storytelling Showcase: Sunday, November 20th at 21ten Theatre Facilitator: Erin Mahone, M.S., C.T.P. is a trained facilitator, storyteller, author, and mental health pyrofessional. She combines years of training and education, with a deep passion for holding space for the re-birth of personal narratives, her own love of telling stories…

$225

Coffee Talk #39

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Come hear 5 wonderful writers read their grief words. This zoom event lasts about an hour and is guaranteed to be the best heart medicine. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84596161664?pwd=UktVamJyNlpKVGNUbjcxay9EY1Y4QT09 Meeting ID: 845 9616 1664 Passcode: 395080

Free

PUBLISHING: Literary Agent Rayhané Sanders—Seminar + Consultations—Oct 7th-9th

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

We have the great privilege of hosting Rayhané Sanders, literary agent at Massie and McQuilkin, for a 90-minute webinar on Publishing (with ample opportunity for Q&A) on Saturday October 8th, 2022, from 11:00AM to 12:30PM Pacific. Yes, Rayhané represents our very own Lidia Yuknavitch.) In addition to the seminar, Ms. Sanders is taking on twenty private manuscript consultations. Over the course of a 20-minute meeting, she will give you feedback from an agent’s point of view on the first 25 pages of your manuscript, submitted ahead of time. (Please note, Ms. Sanders comes from New York publishing, and is very encouraging but also very direct!) The deadline for submitting your 25 pages will be September 15th, and you’ll be provided with specific formatting guidelines. Consultations will…

$150 – $375

PSU Lit Mic

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

PSU Lit Mic is always lit. Hosted by the delightful and compelling duo Jordan and Grace. You don’t need to be affiliated with PSU to participate. You wrote it, you read it.

Free

Cultivating a Sustainable Writing Practice

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This workshop is offered via Zoom PST Register here Cultivating a Sustainable Writing Practice Our practice—how we labor as writers—is highly personal. When we create a writing habit, it helps to consider our individual creative processes, life priorities, writing goals, and all the ways that we get in the way of our own writing. How we labor is also bound up in cultural notions of productivity and success that can often kill the creative drive. It can be hard to consistently carve out time in order to cultivate the type of patient, inner stillness required to write, but it is possible. Necessary, even. In this supportive workshop, we will talk about how to design a sustainable writing practice that aligns with your creative process, priorities…

$15 – $75

Creative Writing & Chill

IPRC (Independent Publishing Resource Center) 318 SE Main Street #175, Portland, OR, United States

*This event is in-person. Masks and proof of vaccination is required Register here Writing and chill: a high vibe, on the fly, structure free writing space for all-ages (youth centered). Come generate, share and get support! Creative prompts and writing materials provided. Stay tuned for an Open Mic Night later in October!

Free

Fall | Creative Nonfiction Workshop: Attention to Detail or “Of Thumbs” w Paige Thomas | Oct 11 – Nov 1 | In-Person

Attic Institute 4232 SE Hawthorne, Portland, OR, United States

Before being dubbed the inventor of the essay form, Michel de Montaigne was a grief-stricken man who locked himself away in a tower on his family’s manor on the French countryside where, for years, he labored over what would become his famous essays. In his solitude, he wrote a series of meditations titled “Of _____” — “Of Smells," “Of the Custom of Wearing Clothes,” “Of Posting,” (letters, that is), “Of Sleep,” and "Of Thumbs" — that attempted the impossible task of defining and then exhausting his interest in individual objects or desires. Modern life does not mirror Montaigne’s privilege of time, space, and quietude, but part of his beloved legacy still rings true: the necessity of attention to detail—to singularity—and how dedication to understanding the specific can crack open…

$175 – $197