LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.

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Kindling the Story: Experiments in Research

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

What surprising roles can research play in helping to generate new ideas or complement the telling of our own personal life stories? In this five-week class we will explore readings and prompts that utilize research in lyrical and innovative ways—sometimes as a seed that launches a surprising investigation, sometimes as the metaphorical connective tissue between memories of something unrelated, sometimes as structural scaffolding. Looking to journalism, ethnography, archives, found material, and our own repositories of memory and observation, we will explore a range of tactics and exercises for employing research in work. Whether writing poems, “braided” essays, or narrative nonfiction, participants will leave with a toolbox of techniques to utilize research for both inspiration and information, as well as a draft of a longer project…

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$240

Barbara Kingsolver in Conversation With Lavinia Singer Ticketed Event

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In her intimate new collection, Barbara Kingsolver, the beloved author of The Poisonwood Bible and more than a dozen other New York Times bestsellers, winner or finalist for the Pulitzer and countless other prizes, now trains her eye on the everyday and the metaphysical in poems that are smartly crafted, emotionally rich, and luminous. In her second poetry collection, How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) (Harper), Kingsolver offers reflections on the practical, the spiritual, and the wild. She begins with “how to” poems addressing everyday matters such as being hopeful, married, divorced; shearing a sheep; praying to unreliable gods; doing nothing at all; and of course, flying. Next come rafts of poems about making peace (or not) with the complicated bonds of friendship…

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$24.99

Fall Poetry Workshop

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

IPRC Creative Workshops for Fall 2020 will be held online via zoom, PST. This is a workshop for all levels, whether you’ve just written your first poem or have been seriously writing for years. Each week, we’ll read and discuss one another’s work, emphasizing both craft (the shaping and forming of language) as well as the vision that’s unique to each individual. Our conversations will rest upon the assumption that there is no “correct” answer in art—that is, the thoughts and feelings that each piece of writing evokes will be a welcome part of the discussion. All aesthetics are welcome, experimentation is encouraged, and we will strive to meet each piece of writing on its own terms. Through engaging with one another’s work, we’ll dive…

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$250

October Open Mic feat. Ilyus Evander

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us for our October Open Mic! Sign ups will be available in the event 30 minutes before we start! You will have 3 minutes to read 1-2 poems. We will have a feature from Ilyus Evander! More about Ilyus: Ilyus Evander is a non-binary transfem poet, playwrite, organizer, and educator based in Providence. They have represented the Providence Poetry Slam at Brave New Voices, the National Poetry Slam, and the Women of the World Poetry Slam. They are a two time finalist at the Capturing Fire International Queer Poetry Summit and a 2018 FEMSlam Champion as part of team Tender Bitch! Their work can be found in BrokenHead, CapFire Press, the Stoked! Anthology, Burrowing Artists, and elsewhere. Their debut poetry collection, Heavier Than Wait…

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Free

Belly of the World: a Creative Writing & Critical Discussion Workshop

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

IPRC Creative Workshops for Fall 2020 will be held online via zoom, PST. Belly of the World is a writing and discussion-based journaling workshop that deals in writing a biomythography of queer and trans living in both relation and entangled non-relation to the external world. We will hold group workshops on what it means for queer and trans bodies to be “in the world, and not of it” through our crafting of personal poems and reimagining of our own narratives and scripts. This workshop is designed for black, brown and indigenous women, femmes and trans folks. Instructor: loose cornrows Sundays 6-8pm PST: Sept. 20th & 27th, Oct. 4th & 11th Class capacity: 15 Class meetings: 4 Cost: $50 *2 spots available at sliding scale, BIPOC…

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$50

Delve Readers Seminars Online Fall 2020: Far From the Madding Crowd

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The older well-to-do gentleman farmer, the dashing cavalry officer, or the steadfast shepherd—whom will accidental tenant farmer Bathsheba Everdene choose? Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel that first established his international reputation, asks and answers that question. But, because this is Thomas Hardy, the course of true love is fraught with perils, tragic accidents of fate, well-meaning rustics, and—sheep. This is one of the great 19th century love stories, written by a master novelist/poet whose lifelong literary celebration of his beloved Dorset countryside is nowhere better displayed than here. This four-week Delve will explore Hardy’s mastery of place, country customs, and a now-departed way of life that can only be found…Far From the Madding Crowd. For this Delve, the guide strongly recommends…

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$150

Livestream Reading: Richard Kreitner: Break It Up

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes Richard Kreitner for a livestream reading from his book Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIlcuCgrDwvHtCBF4UKjxc1r-i0WPjZ-PzV From journalist and historian Richard Kreitner, a "powerful revisionist account" of the most persistent idea in American history: these supposedly United States should be broken up (Eric Foner). The novel and fiery thesis of Break It Up is simple: The United States has never lived up to its name—and never will. The disunionist impulse may have found its greatest expression in the Civil War, but as Break It Up shows, the seduction of secession wasn’t limited to the South or the nineteenth century. It was there at our founding and has never gone away. With a scholar's…

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Free

Michael Ian Black in Conversation With Maria Konnikova

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In a world in which the word masculinity now often goes hand in hand with toxic, comedian, actor, and father Michael Ian Black offers up a way forward for boys, men, and anyone who loves them. Part memoir, part advice book, and written as a heartfelt letter to his college-bound son, A Better Man (Algonquin) reveals Black’s own complicated relationship with his father, explores the damage and rising violence caused by the expectations placed on boys to “man up,” and searches for the best way to help young men be part of the solution, not the problem. “If we cannot allow ourselves vulnerability,” he writes, “how are we supposed to experience wonder, fear, tenderness?” Honest, funny, and hopeful, Black skillfully navigates the complex gender issues…

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Free

Landscaping Memory

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Taught by Artist in Residence Paulina Ramirez, Landscaping Memory is an intimate/collective workshop to remember home, and our memory landscapes. We will be working with collage and playlists that will allow us to map those memories that represent our identity and resistance. Participants who register by September 29th will be mailed collage materials. This is a workshop for Black, Indigenous, and Brown Immigrants, prioritizing people who moved away from their land to be here in the United States. This workshop is also open to individuals whose family members— parents, grandparents, great-grandparents— have been affected by leaving behind home, culture and language. Capacity: 15 Suggested donation: $10, no one turned away for lack of funds Register here In the event that this workshop sells out, we…

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Free – $10

Delve Online Fall 2020: Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

What is the purpose of public life? Should we live as thinkers or doers? These are the questions that Hannah Arendt tackles in her 1958 work ​The Human Condition. Philosophers have long argued that the ideal state for the human condition is a life of contemplation and inward-focus. Arendt questions the value of the ​vita contemplativa​ and she proposes that a life of action, ​vita activa​, is central to the human condition. Hannah Arendt is one of the most influential thinkers and writers of the 20th century. She is typically associated with her work on totalitarianism and the philosophical roots of evil and judgment. ​The Human Condition​ offers a comprehensive view of what Arendt sees as the inherent value of living with others and collectively…

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$230
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