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!

Craft Conversations: Focus on Scenes: Build Back Better

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The scene is a building block of fiction and memoir. During this discussion we will take a deep dive into the components of scene writing. What makes a scene compelling? How can we make scenes vivid and earn their place on the page? If scenes must move stories forward, and reveal character, how can you include both external events and interiority? What about handling time? Character’s goals? Obstacles? And, when is it best to use summary? Through writing examples, prompts and ample discussion, you will leave this workshop with a firmer grip on how to enliven your work with scene. Each writer should come to the workshop with a scene that has been dogging them, either it isn’t coming to life on the page, or…

$75

Article Club

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Wednesday, March 10: “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower" by Professor X ### Using Zoom, we will connect and share our thoughts about articles and podcasts from national publications. Our virtual meeting will last about 30 minutes, and feature discussions on the chosen article. Participants should be 18+ and interested in sharing.

Free

Telltale Presents: What Are You Hungry For?

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Hey, champ! Thanks for checking out Telltale. We are a monthly curated storytelling event for people that like to get vulnerable and take no shit. We are into genuine connection, laughter, heartbreak, poignant moments, and community building. We are in our 4th season. Yeah, it’s going to be on zoom and not in person. Yeah, it’s not the same. But it’s better than nothing. And I said I’d do the show until the government stopped making me angry all the time....and....you see my point. At Telltale, you can expect about 6-8 performers sharing something with you, in the way that feels right to them--so there will be a mix of comedy, stories, music, essays, and more. Your evening will likely include honesty, swear words, enthusiasm,…

Free

Mind Fuck: A Seminar on Writing Better Sex with Melissa Febos

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

WHEN: Saturday, March 27th, 2021 :: 1PM—3PM Pacific WHERE: ZOOM! (But of course.) Meeting ID will be provided ahead of time. HOW MUCH: $100. Payment plans are available, please contact Daniel Elder at registration@corporealwriting.com SCHOLARSHIPS: Scholarships are always available. Click here to apply. Mind Fuck: A Seminar on Writing Better Sex Desire drives any story worth telling. One of the most notoriously difficult forms of desire to write is the sexual. As Audre Lorde wrote, “The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation.” To write scenes that remove sex from patriarchal structures means to (re)place them in the context of their inhabiting corporeal bodies and realities, to engage topics…

$100

Mind Fuck: A Seminar on Writing Better Sex with Melissa Febos

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

WHEN: Saturday, March 27th, 2021 :: 1PM—3PM Pacific WHERE: ZOOM! (But of course.) Meeting ID will be provided ahead of time. HOW MUCH: $100. Payment plans are available, please contact Daniel Elder at registration@corporealwriting.com SCHOLARSHIPS: Scholarships are always available. Click here to apply. Mind Fuck: A Seminar on Writing Better Sex Desire drives any story worth telling. One of the most notoriously difficult forms of desire to write is the sexual. As Audre Lorde wrote, “The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation.” To write scenes that remove sex from patriarchal structures means to (re)place them in the context of their inhabiting corporeal bodies and realities, to engage topics…

$100

OREGON ONLINE: Write Now!

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A bi-weekly virtual meet-up group for dramatists to write silently together in community for one hour. About this Event Oregon Dramatists are invited to participate in Oregon Write Now!, an ongoing virtual meet-up group where playwrights, composers and librettists write silently together in virtual community. This event will take place every other Sunday at 7pm, with meeting times March 7, March 21, April 4 , and April 18. Register for all four sessions, or as your schedule allows. For Write Now!, after a quick welcome by your host, all you have to do is turn your camera on and mute your sound, for an hour of uninterrupted community writing time. You may use this Eventbrite registration form to register for one or multiple sessions. A…

Free

Drop-in Writing Workshops for BIPOC Writers with Anya Pearson

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

These online workshops for BIPOC writers are designed to help you generate new material, refine an existing draft, or simply discover the permission to call yourself a writer. We will gather on Zoom on the first Sunday of each month (March-June) and hold space for each other, creating an online community with other BIPOC writers. Think of this as a playpen and creative incubator to support you as you generate writing and navigate building a creative practice and life in the arts. We will write together using specific prompts. We’ll bounce ideas off each other, share our work in progress, and hold space for the fullness of who we are. These online workshops are for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) writers, in order to maintain…

$5 – $30

Write A Book: Fiction & Creative Nonfiction Workshop

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Write A Book: Fiction & Creative Nonfiction IPRC Creative Workshops for Fall 2020 will be held online via zoom, PST. *Waitlist Instructor: Michael Heald Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:30 Nine students maximum (ages 18+) Class meetings: 24 (8 per term) Cost: $825 *2 spots available at sliding scale, BIPOC prioritized; email hquinn@iprc.org *2 spots available at no cost, BIPOC prioritized; email hquinn@iprc.org October 7, 2020 – June 9, 2021 This workshop will consist of three eight-week terms. Writers currently working on memoirs, essay collections, novellas, novels, short story collections, oral histories, and long-form journalism are all strongly encouraged to apply. Hybrid forms welcome. Over the course of 24 sessions, writers will work towards a draft of a manuscript in a supportive workshop environment. We’ll explore non-linear…

$825

Attic Institute: SPRING Online: Story Building Workshop w Joanna Rose

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Stories have component parts, and they interact. Starting with the basic building block of scene we’ll start with character and move step by step through the micro-levels of sentences, concrete detail, cause and effect, narration, and structure. Each week includes a close read of an excerpt of a published work and a discussion of specific craft elements. Participants will be invited to turn in work each week and can expect to develop a language of non-judgmental critique that will lead to a supportive, in-depth conversation about each other’s work. We’ll look deeply into what it takes to build a prose narrative, real or imagined, long or short. | Maximum: 12 writers Register for this workshop NOTE: To protect everyone during the COVID-19 pandemic, we're offering our workshops via Zoom.…

$430 – $458

Attic Institute: SPRING Online: Prompts with Whitney Workshop w Whitney Otto

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Eight weeks of writing and reading. Try your hand at characterization, dialogue, plot, finding the telling detail, playing with points of view. Develop a “writing practice” while generating ideas for short stories, memoirs, even novels. Register for this workshop NOTE: To protect everyone during the COVID-19 pandemic, we're offering our workshops via Zoom. All students must first sign up for a free Zoom account. Setting it up is easy. And we can help you with questions, if needed. For each class, you'll receive a Zoom "invitation," from the instructor. Click the link...follow the simple directions about the settings for your microphone and in-computer video, and you're immediately in the "room" for the workshop. For critique workshops, instructors will communicate with students about the process of sharing work. For more generative workshops, students…

$344 – $367