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!

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 workshop 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

BIPOC Reading Series- April

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The theme for April is “Uses of Anger” inspired by Audre Lorde’s groundbreaking essay. This bimonthly reading series is intended to prioritize the safety, creativity, and stories of Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color. Come listen to our featured readers, or sign up to share your work in our open mic. Readings will be followed by a short community discussion. Click here to register for this event. This event is open to everyone, but only people who self-identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color will be invited to read. If you have any questions, please contact our host Jessica at  jessica@literary-arts.org. Dey Rivers is a mixed-media visual artist, poet and storyteller based in Portland Oregon on Cowlitz and Clackamas Native lands. After earning…

Free

Books Around the Corner: Virtual Indie Bookstore Day

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This year's Independent Bookstore Day is going to look very different. We always encourage you to come out and shop in store but not this year. Grab your coffee and credit card, stay in your pajamas, and cuddle your fur babies, watch a bookish show or film, and head to our online shop! With every $10 you spend in our online shop on Saturday, April 24th you'll be entered to win a variety of prizes. Including pins, stickers, books, and more! This year more than ever we need your support as we rely on the sales of this weekend for a third of our annual income. Shop with us now to help us be here tomorrow. ***Prizes can only be awarded to local bookworms for…

Free

Word by Word: A Generative Webinar with T Kira Madden

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

WHAT: A 2-hour online webinar. WITH: T Kira Madden WHEN: Saturday, April 24, 2021 from 1PM to 3PM PST WHERE: ZOOM (But of course.) Meeting ID will be provided ahead of time. This event will be recorded and registrants unable to make it to the session or who wish to revisit it will have access to the video for 48 hours afterwards. HOW MUCH: $100. Payment plans are always available, contact Daniel Elder at registration@corporealwriting.com SCHOLARSHIPS: Ten scholarships are available, prioritized for parents with children at home. Click here to apply. Word by Word with T Kira Madden Why do some stories require 30+ pages to reach a payoff, while others feel fully satisfying in a single paragraph or line? The answer, often, is in…

$100

Co-Dependencies: On Healing, Remembering, Breathing & Writing Trauma

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Co-Dependencies: On Healing, Remembering, Breathing & Writing Trauma 4-Week Online Workshop starting April 25, 2021 “What really exists is not things made but things in the making.” –William James “How other kinds of beings see us matters. That other kinds of beings see us changes things.” –Eduardo Kohn On han: “A feeling of unresolved resentment against injustices suffered, a sense of helplessness because of the overwhelming odds against one, a feeling of acute pain in one's guts and bowels, making the whole body writhe and squirm, and an obstinate urge to take revenge and to right the wrong—all these combined.” –Suh Nam-dong How are the frames of reference and relationships between and of living beings activated? That is, how do different bodies and worlds articulate…

$350

Jonny Sun in Conversation With Samantha Irby

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Jonny Sun is back with a collection of essays and other writings in his unique, funny, and heartfelt style. The wonderfully original author of Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too gives us Goodbye, Again (Harper Perennial), a collection of touching and hilarious personal essays, stories, poems — accompanied by his trademark illustrations — covering topics such as mental health, happiness, and what it means to belong. The pieces range from long meditations on topics like loneliness and being an outsider, to short humor pieces, conversations, and memorable one-liners. Jonny's honest writings about his struggles with feeling productive, as well as his difficulties with anxiety and depression, will connect deeply with his fans, as well as anyone attempting to create in our chaotic world.…

Free

Submission Deadline: The Gravity of the Thing: Spring 2021

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Our Spring 2021 reading period is open from March 1st to April 30th. We accept 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 story under 500 words. Poetry: share one or more poems, prose poems, or multimedia works for a combined count of 500 words or less. Six Words: a story in six words; you may share up to five stories per submission, but only one will be chosen. Baring the Device: essays about defamiliarization—or defamiliarized essays about storytelling, literary craft, or publishing—for our Baring the Device column and resources; click here to learn more. The Gravity of the Thing publishes work on a rolling basis throughout its quarterly reading periods. A…

Free

Looking Back to Look Forward: A Daily Writing Practice

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This class will help you adopt crucial creative habits using your memory of the past to build a practice for the future. Using a series of daily in-class and at-home prompts that focus on ideas of home, trek childhood, and position memory as present, you will generate new work and use research-based ways to bring a sustainable practice into your life. Everyone will have opportunities to give and receive generous feedback on the development of your practice, as well as on your writing. We will pay particular attention to the voice and structure of new work and engage with the common themes that arise out of these prompts: the grief of all families, the complicated solipsism of children, and the way language gives new meaning…

$240

Oregon Book Awards Show: The Archive Project

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The 2021 Oregon Book Award winners will be announced on May 2, 2021, on a special episode of The Archive Project, airing on OPB Radio at 7:00 p.m. The hour-long show will be hosted by Omar El Akkad and Elena Passarello, and will feature readings from Oregon Book Awards winners, archival audio from previous Oregon Book Awards ceremonies, and an interview with CES Wood recipient Molly Gloss. Omar El Akkad was born in Cairo, Egypt and grew up in Doha, Qatar until he moved to Canada with his family. He is an award-winning journalist and author who has traveled around the world to cover many of the most important news stories of the last decade. His reporting includes dispatches from the NATO-led war in Afghanistan,…

Free