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-Weekly Online Writing Workshop

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Writing is often thought of as something done in isolation; we know there is immense power when writing is done in community. Join us for 90 minutes of creativity and community-building, with generative writing exercises, sharing and strengths-based feedback. Our workshop model, refined over 22 years, is proven for people of all writing levels: from the budding writer to the published author. Workshops are held via Zoom. Weekly registration opens 5 days before each session and closes one hour before the workshop. Click here for more info. Mondays from 3 to 4:30 pm (Pacific Time) Sliding Scale Registration $5-$30. Register here. $0 registration available for past Write Around Portland participants at a social service agency and people experiencing financial hardship. Register here. Thursdays from 11 am to…

$5 – $30

Illuminated Manuscripts :: A decoration of story w/ Katie Collins-Guinn

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

WHAT: A five-week online collaboration where we’ll explore the beauty of decorated writings, and create our own versions. WITH: Katie Collins-Guinn WHEN: Thursday, April 8th @6:30pm PT Wednesday, April 14th @6:30pm PT, Thursday, April 22nd @6:30pm PT, Thursday, April 29th @6:30pm PT & Thursday, May 6th @6:30pm PT. WHERE: ZOOM (But of course.) Meeting ID will be provided each morning of meet days. HOW MUCH: $230, with a capacity of twelve writers/artists. Payment plans are available, contact Daniel Elder at registration@corporealwriting.com SCHOLARSHIPS: Click here to apply. In this five week collaboration we will explore the histories and variations of this story-telling artform, while using what we discover as direct inspiration for our own versions. Historically, artists and scribes would create their own pigments, hides and…

$230

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Eileen Davis Elliott

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Eileen Davis Elliott Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige 7 pm Thursday, April 8 On Zoom $5 Suggested donation LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, PRO-SCIENCE, ANTI-FASCIST, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004 https://printedmattervancouver.com/2021/03/21/ghost-town-poetry-open-mic-on-zoom-featuring-eileen-davis-elliott-april-8-2021/ Please support Niche Wine Bar, whose owner, Leah Jackson, has provided a home for the reading series since 2015: https://nichewinebar.com Eileen Davis Elliott is a poet and visual artist from Vancouver, WA where she retired from a career in mental health. She has just released Pobrecitos, a collaborative work written by Eileen Davis Elliott and illustrated by Lily Engblom-Stryker and Ava Town, students from Vancouver School of Arts and Academics who shared and expanded the messages of the written work focusing on the marginalized from all over the…

Free – $5

Alumni Showcase Reading: Chelsea Bieker, Susan Leslie Moore, & Candace Opper

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Chelsea Bieker is the author of the novel Godshot and the forthcoming story collection Cowboys and Angels (2022). Her writing has been published in The Paris Review, Granta, The Cut, McSweeney’s, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award and a MacDowell fellowship. Originally from California’s Central Valley, she now lives and teaches in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and two children. She is a graduate of the Portland State MFA program. Susan Leslie Moore’s poetry has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, New York Quarterly, Poetry Northwest, Willow Springs, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the 2019 Juniper Prize in Poetry and her first full-length collection, That Place Where You Opened Your Hands, was published by University of Massachusetts Press in 2020. Her poem “Night of the Living” appears in The Best American Poetry…

Free

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

The Poetry Box LIVE — April Edition

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The Poetry Box LIVE – April Edition April 10, 2021@ 4:00 PM (Pacific) / 7:00 PM (Eastern) The Poetry Box LIVE is a monthly Zoom poetry reading series on the 2nd Saturday of each month and hosted by Shawn Aveningo Sanders. APRIL Featured Poets: • Penelope Scambly Schott (Oregon), author of SOPHIA AND MISTER WALTER WHITMAN • Sally Naylor (Florida), author of SYNAPSE FLIES INTO STARTLE • David Belmont (New York), author of WORLD GONE ZOOM ------- ABOUT THE FEATURED POETS ---------- Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry and author of a novel and several books of poetry, including her 2018 prizewinning chapbook November Quilt and most recently On Dufur Hill about a small wheat-growing town in…

Free

indigena x whitenoise: Almontaser / Abraham / Gabriel / Tbakhi / Worfeley

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Please join Indigena Collective and whitenoise project, as we celebrate the recent releases by Threa Almontaser (The Wild Fox of Yemen) and George Abraham (Birthright)! April 10, 2021 4pm PST / 7pm EST REGISTER HERE: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0ocuCqrT8rEtfqjTWuefccHlqtK4VOjGhZ FEATURING: Threa Almontaser George Abraham Maryam Imam Gabriel Fargo Tbakhi Fatmah Worfeley Threa Almontaser is the author of the poetry collection, THE WILD FOX OF YEMEN (Graywolf Press, 2021) selected by Harryette Mullen for the Walt Whitman Award from The Academy of American Poets. She is the recipient of awards from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright program, and elsewhere, and is at work on her first novel. George Abraham is a Palestinian american poet and writer from Jacksonville, FL. Their…

Free

Contents Under Pressure: Using Constraints to Stretch Your Creativity

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

for BIPOC writers only Putting constraints on our writing can feel like a challenge, but sometimes a little pressure is what’s needed to push our writing in a new direction or to find language for what seems unsayable. We’ll draw on Oulipian constraints like the lipogram and the Beatiful Outlaw, as well as visual constraints such as erasures and collage, to radically depart from our typical writing habits. We’ll also invent our own extreme constraints to discover what happens when we challenge ourselves to write our way out of seemingly impossible restrictions. 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 obstacles for some people. Our Access Program offers…

$240

Submission Deadline: 2021 Two Rivers Poetry Contest

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Deadline Extended/Plazo Extendido: 12 de Abril / 12 April English (Vea abajo para español): A virtual student poetry contest in celebration of National Poetry Month and in conjunction with the release of Amanda Gorman's The Hill We Climb. Inspired by National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman's performance at the 2021 inauguration, we're looking for poetry containing themes of uniting community through the particular experiences and challenges of 2020. All forms of poetry accepted. Parental permission is required. Eligible participants must: live within one of the following zip codes: 97203, 97217, 97231 OR be enrolled in any school within one of the above zip codes Submission: Poetry must be submitted in written form, and may additionally be submitted in video or audio formats. A video performance…

Free

Livestream Reading: Kim Stafford

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes back Portland poet Kim Stafford for the livestream launch of his new collection, Singer Come from Afar. Kim will be joined by Sisters singer-songwriter and poet Beth Wood, whose latest book of poems is Believe The Bird. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrc-2pqDMoH93TxVGmcBF_eI0EZTefpRt9 About Singer Come from Afar: This book considers war and peace, pandemic struggles, Earth imperatives, a seeker’s spirit, and forging kinship. The former poet laureate of Oregon, Stafford has shared poems from this book in libraries, prisons, on reservations, with veterans, immigrants, homeless families, legislators, and students in schools. He writes for hidden heroes, resonant places, and for our chance to converge in spite of differences. Poems like "Practicing the Complex Yes" and "The Fact of Forgiveness" offer tools for connection with…

Free