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!

Kick-Start Your Picture Book

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

This class will take you from idea to rough draft in four hours. Picture books are so much more than stories with short text for young readers. We’ll study the picture book form, then construct stories in picturebook form, playing with powerful tools such as repetition, suspenseful page turns, and the rule of threes. You can come with a picturebook draft you want to perfect – or bring an idea and leave with a draft. Join award-winning children’s book author Elizabeth Rusch in this condensed version of her popular and productive Picturebook Writing class. Access Program We want our writing classes and Delves to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that our tuition structure can present obstacles for some people.…

$145

PBF Cover to Cover: Tin House Autumn Workshop Showcase

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join Tin House as they celebrate their Autumn Workshop faculty with an evening of readings and merriment. Featured readers will include Carolina De Robertis, Lydia Kiesling, Kimberly King Parsons, and Morgan Talty. Please note that masks will be required. Doors will open at 7:00pm , with the reading starting at 7:30pm. Event contact: Lance Cleland, Executive Workshop Director, workshop@tinhouse.com Morgan Talty Morgan Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation where he grew up. He received his BA in Native American Studies from Dartmouth College and his MFA in fiction from Stonecoast’s low-residency program. His story collection Night of the Living Rez is forthcoming from Tin House Books (2022), and his work has appeared in Granta, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Narrative Magazine, LitHub,…

Free

The Moth: StorySLAM: Leftovers

The Old Church Concert Hall 1422 SW 11th Ave, Portland, OR, United States

LEFTOVERS: Prepare a five-minute story of what remained. Feelings, dinners, or lingering guests; the time there was too much or not quite enough; or the moment you couldn’t quite end things clearly. Cold pizza for breakfast, the last appetizer on the plate, family heirlooms, seeds of resentment. COVID Requirements: See The Old Church's COVID Policy for details. We will not be selling any tickets at the door. This venue is 16+ *Seating is not guaranteed and is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please be sure to arrive at least 10 minutes before the show. Admission is not guaranteed for late arrivals. All sales final. Media Sponsors: OPB and Literary Arts

$15

Haunted: Writing into Death & The Dead with Sonya Lea — begins November 8th

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Haunted: Writing into Death & The Dead Begins November 8th, 2022 Four weekly 2-hour sessions over Zoom on Tuesdays from 5-7PM PST (11/8, 11/15, 11/22, 11/29) “Many people live and die without ever confronting themselves in the darkness. Pray that one day, you will spin around at the water’s edge, lean over, and be able to count yourself among the lucky.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties “What would you read to someone who was dying? Annie Dillard had asked our class. She wanted this to be the standard for our work. There, at the memorial service for my friend, I thought of another: Dying, what stories would you tell?” ― Alexander Chee, How to Write An Autobiographical Novel: Essays “My grief…

$200 – $400

Recharge Your Writing Life: Experiments & Strategies

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Equal parts strategy, community, generative writing, and experiment, this class will help writers spark curiosity and deepen self-knowledge while crafting artistic habits that nourish. A good fit for writers who want to reimagine their creative life. We’ll discuss methods for working through blocks and rejection, rituals that refill the well, and ways to make time for creativity in a busy world. Each session will offer generative prompts, literary tinctures and tonics, and tactile practices that unite body and intellect. Access Program We want our writing classes and Delves 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 writing class and Delve tuitions at a reduced rate. The access…

$285

Leanne Grabel, Brontosaurus Illustrated, reading with Joanna Rose and Sherri Levine

Broadway Books 1714 NE Broadway, Portland, OR, United States

We are thrilled to welcome Leanne Grabel, one of the most creative artists in town, back to Broadway Books to talk about her new book Brontosaurus Illustrated, along with her "back-up band": the writers Sherri Levine and Joanna Rose. Brontosaurus Illustrated is the story of a rape that is now fifty years old. Nina Gold was a 19-year-old Stanford sophomore riding a full math scholarship to the American dream. But her avid quest was trampled one spring break by a kidnapping and rape, a trauma the size of a brontosaurus. Brontosaurus Illustrated is a graphic rendition of this story and Nina's consequent spin-out that lasted for decades as she searched for reasons, meanings, antidotes. And a way forward. With a rape occurring every minute of…

Free

Incite: Queer Writers Read – November

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

Incite: Queer Writers Read is a curated, bimonthly reading series for Queer writers. Incite’s hope is to create conversation, connection, and greater understanding both within the Queer community and with other communities. Hosted by Vinnie Kinsella and Jennifer Perrine. This event will take place in-person at Literary Arts’ downtown center. Please review our Covid-19 guidelines.   

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…

$80 – $200

Holiday Book Chat

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could get a bunch of suggestions for great book gifts for everyone on your holiday shopping list? You can! After a couple of years of online-only chats, our annual Holiday Book Chat is back in the store in person--fingers crossed! Join us on Monday, November 14th, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm for one of our most popular events of the year. We'll share with you some of our favorite new books (and other gifts) to inspire your holiday gift-giving (or planning for book club ideas), talking faster than you ever thought possible. We will provide light refreshments and door prizes, and we promise a fun evening! We ask that attendees wear masks when not actively nibbling. The cost to…

Free

Delve Readers Seminar: The Art of Memory: Autofiction

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

“Fiction isn’t memory,” writes Jane Gardam, “but memory is fiction.” Autofiction embodies this view, blending truth and fiction to produce stories rooted in the writer’s life, but filtered through the imagination. Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and Saša Stanišić’s Where You Come From are compelling examples of the genre. To the Lighthouse is the story of the Ramsay family’s holiday on the Isle of Skye. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is composed as a letter from a young man to his mother, immigrants to the US from Vietnam. Through the story of their relationship, Vuong asks questions about race, violence, masculinity, addiction, and love. Bosnian-German writer Saša Stanišić is little known in the US but deserves a wider…

$245