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

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CIRRO-NUMINOUS SALON: THE LENS

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

THE LENS is a continuation of our salon series that investigates the components of craft, embodiment, and perception. During each event, we’ll take a different approach to the question “how do these interrelated undertakings interact with a holistic creative practice?” In this salon, we will explicate the different ways of entering into poems through metaphors of the visual. When we look through a glass lens, we establish a focal point and emphasize certain elements of landscape, thereby enacting a transformation on what we see. How can we utilise this technology to aid in the creation of illusion and artful composition within our own work? The event will be happening over zoom on Sunday September 26th at 2 PM PST, and you can register here.

Free

FALL :: A Generative Creative Lab :: Exhausting Metaphor

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Collaboration Leader: Domi Shoemaker, alongside weekly videos featuring Domi and Lidia Yuknavitch in conversation When: Begins September 26th Where: Videos are hosted on our site—you’ll receive a link to one each week on Sundays, and then have access to them always. Domi will host a Zoom meeting every Thursday from 5:30-7:30PM PST. September 30th, October 7th, October 14th & October 21st. Cost: $250—payment plans are available. Please contact Daniel at registration@corporealwriting.com. Scholarships are also available—Apply Here. Six years ago (!!!) Corporeal Writing hosted its first ever seasonal lab—and we started with Fall. It’s an exciting time for us all as we cozy back into this beautiful season ripe with metaphors. Color. Changes in light, leaves, life. Meditation. Observation. In this generative lab we will develop…

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$250

Margaret Renkl in Conversation With Mary Laura Philpott

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

For the past four years, Margaret Renkl’s columns have offered readers of The New York Times a weekly dose of natural beauty, human decency, and persistent hope from her home in Nashville. Now more than 60 of those pieces have been brought together in a sparkling new collection from the author of Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss. “People have often asked me how it feels to be the ‘voice of the South,’” writes Renkl in her introduction. “But I’m not the voice of the South, and no one else is, either.” There are many Souths — red and blue, rural and urban, mountain and coast, Black and white and brown — and no one writer could possibly represent all of them.…

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Free

Premise Course: What is heroism? Do we all have it within us? Sophocles’ Ajax

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

What is heroism? Do we all have it within us? Sophocles’ Ajax (Learn about Premise classes here: https://www.premiseinstitute.com/premisefaq) Sophocles’ Ajax is a tragedy that unpacks the shame and death of Ajax, a Greek warrior who had won fame for his bravery during the Trojan War. The play moves through a series of reversals: old allies become enemies, honor becomes disgrace, and divine power becomes temporal authority. Together, we will wonder about and explore the concept of heroism. Who has it? Why? Does it come from within or from our circumstances and environment? We will explore the complexities of heroism through the story of Ajax. Why does he kill himself? Is Ajax a hero or just an ordinary human with a predilection for trying to find…

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$40

Sandra Cisneros: Presented with Wisconsin Book Festival

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join Literary Arts and the Wisconsin Book Festival for a conversation with Sandra Cisneros about her new novel, Martita, I Remember You/Martita, te recuerdo. Cisneros will be interviewed by Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina. About Martita, I Remember You / Martita, te recuerdo, a story in English and Spanish: A long-forgotten letter sets off a charged encounter with the past in this poignant and gorgeously told tale masterfully told by Sandra Cisneros, the celebrated bestselling author of The House on Mango Street, in a beautiful dual-language edition. As a young woman, Corina leaves her Mexican family in Chicago to pursue her dream of becoming a writer in the cafes of Paris. Instead, she spends her brief time in the City of Light running out of…

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Free

John Mark Comer in Conversation With Tyler Staton

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Pastor John Mark Comer, the bestselling author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, wants you to know that whether you want to be or not, you are at war. Not with foreign assailants or domestic terrorists. No, this is the sort of war you experience deep in your mind and body. It’s a war with the forces that seek to wreak havoc in your hearts and homes through subtle deceptions. For two millennia, apprentices of Jesus have been at war with three fierce and consistent adversaries of the soul: the world, the flesh, and the devil. To this day, they feed us deceptive ideas that appeal to disordered desires that harm our spiritual and relational well-being. In his new book, Live No Lies (WaterBrook), Comer…

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Free

Delve Readers Seminar: Hilary Mantel: Beyond the Booker

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Hilary Mantel is best known for her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, the first two volumes of which (Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies) won the Booker Prize (in 2009 and 2012). The third and final volume, The Mirror and the Light, was published to acclaim in 2020. These books are modern masterpieces, yet Mantel’s earlier novels are equally worthy of attention and admiration. Mantel’s books are so original, and so different from one another, that it’s often difficult to believe they were written by the same novelist. In this seminar, we will read two of Mantel’s novels and her memoir. Beyond Black is the tragi-comic story of Alison, a modern-day medium scraping out a living among an assortment of cranks, true believers, and charlatans. Haunted…

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$240

Premise Course: Do we shape our world or does it shape us? Arendt’s The Human Condition

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

(Learn about Premise classes here: https://www.premiseinstitute.com/premisefaq) What is the role of technology in shaping us? 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 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 twentieth century. She is typically associated with her work on totalitarianism and the philosophical roots of evil and judgment. The Human Condition offers a comprehensive…

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$150

Jess Walter in Conversation With Amor Towles

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

An intimate story of brotherhood, love, sacrifice, and betrayal set against the panoramic backdrop of an early 20th-century America that eerily echoes our own time, Jess Walter’s The Cold Millions (Harper Perennial) offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation grappling with the chasm between rich and poor, between harsh realities and simple dreams. The Dolans live by their wits, jumping freight trains and lining up for day work at crooked job agencies. While 16-year-old Rye yearns for a steady job and a home, his older brother, Gig, dreams of a better world, fighting alongside other union men for fair pay and decent treatment. Enter Ursula the Great, a vaudeville singer who performs with a live cougar and introduces the brothers to a far more dangerous…

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Free

Writing the Tarot: Creative Writing Workshop

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Need a creative jumpstart? The Writing the Tarot webinar uses the Tarot as a set of evocative prompts to create a complete short story draft. This two-hour workshop walks participants through the process in a painless, low-key manner, to help them arrive at a story they probably weren't expecting. Especially valuable for writers who are feeling creatively blocked, the HOCUS Tarot Method works equally well for seasoned writers who want to challenge themselves to stretch in new directions.

$15
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