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!

essays

  1. Events
  2. essays

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms This workshop is virtual, PST Register here Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms In this 6-week class, we will experiment with short form creative writing. Our focus—whether it’s flash fiction, lyric essay, prose poetry, or hybrid—will be on the art of compression. Each week, participants will be given a writing exercise, a short reading, and two workshop submissions from their peers. Class time will include workshop as well as discussion of readings and craft. Our workshop will be guided by observations, questions, and possibilities. We will be thinking less about how to “fix” a piece of writing and more about what we see, our curiosities, and how to recognize hidden opportunities. Each participant will receive feedback from…

Continue readingPushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms
$80 – $200

Submission Deadline: Old Pal – Issue 6

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

📣 We're open to submissions for Old Pal Issue 6! Visit the link below for more details, and feel free to send any questions our way. We can't wait to see your work! Happy equinox! 🍂🖤 https://www.oldpalmag.com/submissions Old Pal is open for submissions until November 15th, 2022! Read the guidelines below, then send your submission to submissions@oldpalmag.com. Please use a .docx file type for writing, and high resolution images if you're submitting visual art. We publish poetry, fiction, critical non-fiction, excerpts, audio, mixed-media, and various mediums of art. We encourage artists from all experience levels and communities to submit. Contributors are compensated $50 upon publication. We ask that submissions are limited to 15 pages of written work or 6 pieces of other media. Simultaneous submissions…

Continue readingSubmission Deadline: Old Pal – Issue 6
Free

Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms This workshop is virtual, PST Register here Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms In this 6-week class, we will experiment with short form creative writing. Our focus—whether it’s flash fiction, lyric essay, prose poetry, or hybrid—will be on the art of compression. Each week, participants will be given a writing exercise, a short reading, and two workshop submissions from their peers. Class time will include workshop as well as discussion of readings and craft. Our workshop will be guided by observations, questions, and possibilities. We will be thinking less about how to “fix” a piece of writing and more about what we see, our curiosities, and how to recognize hidden opportunities. Each participant will receive feedback from…

Continue readingPushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms
$80 – $200

Submission Deadline: Deep Overstock: Issue 19: Hacking

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Submissions for Issue 19: Hacking are now open. Submit your piece(s) by November 30, 2022. The color of the cover will be Gray. General Guidelines We publish fiction, poetry, comics, art, images, medical reports, plays, essays, philosophies, sculptures, sounds, mushroom dataset analyses, magic spells, fairy tales, folklore, riddles, jokes, horoscopes, death-predictions, and more. Surprise us! We have open submissions on a rolling basis. *Winter Issue: Open September 1st through November 30th. Release: January. Spring Issue: Open December 1st through February 28th. Release: April. Summer Issue: Open March 1st through May 31st. Release: July. Fall Issue: Open June 1st through August 31st. Release: October. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but let us know if the piece gets accepted elsewhere. We do not accept previously published works. Include…

Continue readingSubmission Deadline: Deep Overstock: Issue 19: Hacking
Free

Where We Call Home: Josephine Woolington & Kristin Thiel in Conversation

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

In partnership with Ooligan Press. Join us in celebration of the launch of Where We Call Home: Lands, Seas, and Skies of the Pacific Northwest, an essay collection by Josephine Woolington. This conversation with Josephine Woolington and Kristin Thiel, coeditor of Fire & Water: Stories from the Anthropocene, will be followed by a Q&A and book signing. You can pre-order Where We Call Home: Lands, Seas, and Skies of the Pacific Northwest here. Josephine Woolington Josephine Woolington is a writer, musician and educator. She previously worked at several newspapers in Oregon, where her work was read by both regional and national audiences via The Associated Press. During her time at The Register-Guard in Eugene, she received an award for best education coverage from the Oregon…

Continue readingWhere We Call Home: Josephine Woolington & Kristin Thiel in Conversation
Free

Fall | Sustaining a Writer’s Notebook: A Yearlong Practice w Wendy Willis | Dec 2022 – Dec 2023 | Online

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In this year-long class, we will explore the practice of creating and sustaining a writer’s notebook. Using prompts both in class and between sessions, each participant will develop and strengthen a notebook practice that works for them.  We'll use notebooks to catch the wisps of our lives and our wildest ideas. We will read excerpts of writers' and  other artists' notebooks and consider how a notebook is both an artifact in and of itself and mulch for other art--poem, novel, memoir, essay, painting, pasta sauce. At the end of the year, we'll  have a reading and an opportunity to display pages from our notebooks. Primer Session: December 10, 2022, 9am - 2pm Pacific Time. / 2023 Sessions: First Saturday of every month, 9am -12pm Pacific Time . . .…

Continue readingFall | Sustaining a Writer’s Notebook: A Yearlong Practice w Wendy Willis | Dec 2022 – Dec 2023 | Online
$899 – $914

Submission Party

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

Bring a story, essay, nonfiction, hybrid piece – anything you feels is ready to submit. We’ll review how submission works, how to research the literary magazines that might be a good fit for your work, and then, we’ll submit! Liaison position Every in-person class and seminar at Literary Arts has one liaison position. Liaisons perform specific duties for each class meeting. If you are a liaison for a class or seminar, the full amount of your tuition is covered by Literary Arts. Apply here for the liaison position. In-Person Class Note: This class meets in-person at Literary Arts, 925 SW Washington. Literary Arts will require proof of full COVID-19 vaccination, or a negative test result (within 72 hours) from a healthcare provider, for entry into…

Continue readingSubmission Party
$35

Ledger Editions Vol. 2: Stephanie Adams-Santos, Catie Hannigan, and Jennifer Perrine

IPRC (Independent Publishing Resource Center) 318 SE Main Street #175, Portland, OR, United States

Register in advance here *This event is in-person. Masks + Proof of Vaccination Required. See more about the IPRC’s COVID Policy here. Please join the IPRC for the second installment of our Ledger Editions Readings with readings from Stephanie Adams-Santos, Catie Hannigan, and Jennifer Perrine. This event is made possible with support from the Kinsman Foundation. The work of Stephanie Adams-Santos spans poetry, prose, and screenwriting. Often grappling with themes of strangeness and belonging, her work reflects a fascination with the weird, numinous and primal forces that shape inner life. Stephanie is the author of several full length poetry collections and chapbooks, including DREAM OF XIBALBA (selected by Jericho Brown as winner of the 2021 Orison Poetry Prize) and SWARM QUEEN’S CROWN (finalist for a Lambda Literary Award).…

Continue readingLedger Editions Vol. 2: Stephanie Adams-Santos, Catie Hannigan, and Jennifer Perrine
Free

Six Month Short Story Intensive

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This class is for experienced writers who are dedicated to starting the first draft of a story collection over the course of six months. Participants should have experience writing stories and familiarity with the elements of literary short fiction including scene, character, conflict, place, and revision. We will study individual stories by authors, read craft essays, and discuss several published collections and how the stories unite to form a book. Access Program We want our classes to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that our tuition structure can present obstacles for some people. Our Access Program offers class registrations at a reduced rate. The access program for writing classes covers 60% of the class tuition. Most writing classes have at…

Continue readingSix Month Short Story Intensive
$1,100

Wendy Willis Poetry Reading

Ledding Library of Milwaukie 10660 SE 21st Avenue, Milwaukie, OR, United States

The 16th season of the Milwaukie Poetry Series continues on January 11 at 6pm with a live reading at the library by poet Wendy Willis. Seating limited to 50. Wendy Willis has published two books of poems, a book of essays, and a textbook. Her last two books, These are Strange Times, My Dear, and A Long Late Pledge were finalists for the Oregon Book Award. Wendy is also the founder and director of Oregon's Kitchen Table, a statewide community engagement program housed at Portland State University. She lives in Southeast Portland with her family. Room Location: Community Room

Free
Click a category label below to view the calendar with only events in that specific category.