A resource for the PDX literary community. Produced by Old Pal.
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!
Airlie Prize submission window opens January 1! We can’t wait to read your poetry manuscripts. Submissions for the Airlie Prize open January 1, 2021! full length poetry collections any poet writing in English anywhere in the world $1000 prize and publication in 2022 submission from underrepresented voices and poets from marginalized communities encouraged submissions open until March 15, 2021
The only way to get change is not through the courts or—heaven forbid—the politicians, but through a change of human consciousness and through a change of heart. Only through the arts can we really reach each other. ― Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo) EMPOWERMENT, ACTION, LIBERATION The SHIFT – Transformative Change and Indigenous Arts program supports artist and community-driven projects responding to social, environmental or economic justice issues through a Native lens. The program focuses on efforts that are built upon community cultural assets, resilience and strengths and draw increased attention to Native communities, perspectives and challenges, shifting a national narrative of invisibility, misunderstanding and misappropriation. SHIFT provides invaluable resources for project development, production and presentation for the artists and their collaborators. Resistance is its own…
We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at least, completely, who and what and that we are. —N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) NURTURE, ELEVATE, UNFOLD LIFT – Early Career Support for Native Artists program will provide invaluable support to early career Native artists with one-year awards to develop and realize new projects. Support for burgeoning artists is critical in developing fresh voices and envisioning the future of our respective Native practices. LIFT encourages artists to uplift communities, advance positive social change, point courageously toward environmental sustainability, and foster communal meaning making. Following extensive research and strategic planning, LIFT refocuses NACF’s programmatic efforts to expand the potential of emergent Native artists. LIFT consists of…
One of the things I feel Poets Studio participants, regardless of experience and skill, can benefit from, is an extended concentration on only a few pieces over a couple months. The theme for the Spring Sessions will be "Devotions." We'll focus on poems written "to" -- whether they're epistolary explicitly or dedicatiory. With a singular audience in place, Spring Sessions will progress as follows: Sessions 1-3: Making. We’ll start from scratch on a few poems, developing strategies of imagination, research, trial and error, and writing several “test” drafts over several weeks. Sessions 4-7: Noticing. Here we’ll begin to be attentive to what might be possible with various drafts of poems, in the writing process — noticing what they are doing and not doing, what they are…
Write what you know you want to know The Creative Nonfiction (CNF) Studio is based on the idea that inspiration, accountability, and community are essential to every writer’s growth. The CNF Studio meets weekly for multi-month sessions, and its curriculum is designed to help you deepen your writing through a keener understanding of both literary craft and your own voice. The CNF Studio is open to applications from all writers, and members often return for multiple sessions. This creates the Studio’s special experience: a consistent, deep, and supportive study of your writing in the company of other writers. Each weekly session includes a close-reading and discussion of a selected work of creative nonfiction, a roundtable reading of take-home prompts, and in-depth critique of several works-in-progress. Over…
#Virtualandia! 2021 is an exciting opportunity for students from eligible* Portland-area high schools to take part in a dynamic virtual slam poetry competition presented by Literary Arts. Competitors will take to the mic for a chance to win prizes including the title of #Virtualandia slam champion and corresponding $1,000 visa gift card. Up to 300 youth poets will submit original work via video by midnight Wednesday, March 31 to be reviewed and judged by a diverse group of artists and fans with a pulse on the literary scene. Ten poets will be selected to advance and qualify for our April 29, 2021 grand slam event. These ten students will have their poems professionally recorded and aired during the grand slam event to be scored by…
The KBOO Community Radio Artist In Residence Program assists artists working creatively with sound. Every year, one artist or one collaborative group of artists will be awarded twenty hours of studio recording*** and production time with a KBOO Mixologist in order to create a piece of sound art that will be publicly presented at the end of the Residency. ***Due to COVID19, studio recording time may be limited or not available. KBOO is currently closed to all non-essential in-studio activity and we do not yet have an anticipated date for re-opening. The public presentation may need to be limited to a virtual format only depending on health and safety measures. Applicants should submit proposals that do not depend on using KBOO studios or having an…
For the summer issue of Oregon Humanities magazine, we want to hear stories and ideas about what global climate change means for the people and land of this place. Tell us about how climate change and its myriad consequences affect your work, or how you choose what work to do; how you raise your children, or whether you decide to have them; how you vote; where you live; what you eat. How are Oregonians adapting to climate change personally and politically? Who are building visionary communities in these rapidly changing climates? What possibilities does climate change provide, and what does it foreclose? What about other kinds of climate—political winds, social ambiance, architecture and infrastructure, work environment, and other prevailing conditions? We’re looking particularly for stories…
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…
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,…