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!

Attic Institute: SPRING Online: Introduction to Flash Nonfiction w Brian Benson

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Flash nonfiction, simply put, is true-to-life writing defined by extreme compression: it's saying what you've got to say using as few words, and as much beauty, as possible. An endlessly accessible, playful, potent form, flash nonfiction is evermore popular; from Brevity to Barren, The Forge to The Sun, legions of journals are eager to publish great flash. In this prompt-driven workshop, we'll read short nonfiction by master writers, including Ross Gay, Natalie Lima, Ira Sukrungruang, Roxane Gay, Jerald Walker, Ruth Ozeki, and many more; we'll talk about what stories are suited for flash, how to tell them well, and where to publish them; and most of all, we'll write, and write, and write, via in-class exercises and take-home prompts. Students will leave the class with reams of new writing and ideas for where to publish. Register for…

$215 – $242

Books Around the Corner: Fantasy Book Club (Remote)

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

When a banished witch falls in love with the legendary trickster Loki, she risks the wrath of the gods in this moving, subversive debut novel that reimagines Norse mythology. Angrboda's story begins where most witches' tales end: with a burning. A punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself to be Loki, and her initial distrust of him transforms into a deep and abiding love. Their union produces three unusual children, each with a secret destiny, who Angrboda is keen to raise at the edge of the world, safely hidden from Odin's…

$26

Amanda L. Tyler: 2021 Hatfield Lecture

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue: A Life's Work Fighting for a More Perfect Union by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Amanda L. Tyler Amanda L. Tyler is the Shannon Cecil Turner Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. She is the co-author, with the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, of Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue: A Life’s Work Fighting for a More Perfect Union. Professor Tyler holds a degree in public policy from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Prior to entering academia, Professor Tyler served as a law clerk to the Honorable Guido Calabresi at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court of the United…

$25 – $150

Submission Deadline: Portland Review: TRANSIT / TRANSITION / TRANSLATION

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Themed submissions will open for 24 hours on April 14. Languages and change, buses and trains, the tracks of planets—for our series on transit, transition, and translation, we’re looking for stories, poems, and nonfiction that deal with change and movement in under 1000 words. We can't wait to read your work! Submissions will open at 12 a.m. PDT on April 14 and close at 11:59 p.m. ABOUT US: For over sixty years, Portland Review has published the works of emerging writers and artists alongside the works of well-established authors. We warmly encourage previously unpublished writers and artists to submit, and we aim to support work by those often marginalized in the artistic conversation, including (though certainly not limited to) people of color, women, disabled people,…

Free

Friends of the Columbia Gorge Second Spring Gorge Haiku Challenge

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In celebration of National Poetry Month and International Haiku Poetry Day on April 17, Friends of the Columbia Gorge is announcing its second annual Spring Gorge Haiku Challenge. Recently, the video version of Amanda Gorman's popular "Earthrise" poem has inspired people around the nation in response to her challenge: We relish the view; We witness its round green and brilliant blue, Which inspires us to ask deeply, wholly: What can we do? In the spirit of Gorman’s words, for this year's Spring Gorge Haiku Challenge, Friends of the Columbia Gorge is asking the public to submit haikus illustrating what they love about the Gorge (the views, the communities, waterfalls, etc.) as well as haikus about why it's important to protect, preserve, and steward the Gorge…

Free

Captions and Corpses: How to read an EC Comic

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join PSU's Comics Studies program for a talk with Professor Qiana Whitted. In her talk, Prof. Qiana Whitted draws from her recent book on EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest to explore the 1950s publisher’s effort to distinguish between “entertaining” and “educational” reading practices that were mindful of the public’s anxieties over how comic books could influence young readers. Her discussion will consider the ways that EC’s writers and artists arranged the verbal and visual dynamics of the comics page to steer the potential impact of notorious crime and horror titles such “The Whipping” and “The Guilty.” Evaluating these creative choices raises important questions about the taboo combination of explicitness, incredulity, and reading pleasure that EC branded as “shock comics," engaging complex social messages amid the…

Free

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

Delve Readers Seminar: Five Contemporary Poets: Clifton, Harjo, Komunyaaka, and More

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A Delve for BIPOC participants only A survey of five contemporary poets and their volumes of selected poems. We will focus on each poet’s body of work, starting with Lucille Clifton, then moving through the works of Joy Harjo, Yusef Komunyaaka, Arthur Sze, and Tracy K. Smith. By reading books that collect poems over decades, we will access each poet’s progressions in content, form, and style, as well as comprehensively approach the historical and cultural contexts reflected. Spending significant time with each poet will bring both breadth and depth to our discussions, and over the course of the seminar we will build a larger and more cohesive understanding of the work of poetry. Reading List: Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000, Lucille Clifton…

$240

The Milwaukie Poetry Series: Claudia Savage

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

The 14th season of poetry readings by established local poets will stream live on the Ledding Library YouTube channel (link is external) on the second Wednesday of each month February through July at 6:30 p.m. February 10, 2021 - John Sibley Williams March 10, 2021 - Quinton Hallett April 14, 2021 - Claudia Savage May 12, 2021 - Anis Mojgani June 9, 2021 - Paulann Petersen July 14, 2021 - Emmett Wheatfall DVDs of past the past two seasons of the Poetry Series readings are available for checkout at the library. Online you can access all past Poetry Series readings at the Ledding Library YouTube channel (link is external). For additional information please contact the Series Coordinator Tom Hogan at 503.819.8367 or tomhogan2@comcast.net (link sends e-mail) or Reference Librarian Sarah Roller…

Free

Oregon Book Award Poetry Finalists Reading

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A reading withe the 2021 Oregon Book Awards finalists in poetry. Register in advance for this webinar Anna Elkins earned a BA in art and English, an MFA in poetry, and a Fulbright Fellowship to write art-inspired poetry. She has written, painted, and taught on six continents—exhibiting many paintings and publishing several books along the way. Eman Hassan's first poetry collection, Raghead, was the recipient of a Folsom Award and was selected as the Editor's Choice in the New Issues Poetry and Prose 2018 Poetry Prize. A bicultural poet from Massachusetts and Kuwait, Eman earned a PhD in poetry from the University of Nebraska and an MFA in poetry from Arizona State University. She currently lives in Happy Valley, Oregon. Ed Skoog is the author…

Free