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!

Manufactured Spaces: Setting

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

In this four-week generative class, we’ll visit one of the basic elements of storytelling – setting –and immerse ourselves in how we craft these spaces. How do we choose which details to include? What can we borrow from cinematographers? From composers? From artists? How do we choreograph complicated scenes? What can we leave out and what can we heighten? What about a character’s interior setting? What can we learn from science writers? Journalists? The classes will involve visualizations, writing inside and outside of our meetings, sharing our work in an exploratory way, movement, and discussion of setting, voice, and tone in works by Tommy Orange, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Barry Lopez, Hanif Abdurraqib, Louise Erdrich, and others. We’ll also look at crowd scenes and landscape…

$200

Fall | Prose Poetry I w Ruben Quesada | Sep 14 – Oct 12 | Online

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Make It, Don't Break It Explore imaginative and innovative possibilities in writing poetry without line breaks. Our practice will employ the craft of lineated poetry and traditional narrative, including attention to language, syntax, and sound; rhythmic or imagistic patterning; repetition; precision; compression. This is generative class focused on the foundations of poetic prose. The intersection of poetry and prose offers a range of possibilities for style and subject. I encourage a diversity of styles and subject matters, and I encourage you to take risks in your work. We will write together and discuss elements of writing. No previous writing experience is needed. Zoom link provided prior to start of workshop. Teacher: Ruben QuesadaTime: Wednesdays, Sep 14 - Oct 12, 5 - 7pm Pacific TimeLocation: Online via ZoomTotal Fee: Discounted…

$219 – $248

Fall | New Generative Writing: Grief and Compassion w Ed Sage | Sep 14 – Oct 12

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In this exploratory, generative workshop we will be using our writing to be in relationship with our grief and compassion by meeting them, reimagining them, and bring light to the shadows. We will interrupt the "arrangements" in our lives that perhaps are not serving us well and redefine stubborn “truths” about our sorrow. You can expect to discover new threads in your work as well as create drafts of pieces that inspire more commitment. Writing about grief can free us to be more empathic and compassionate with ourselves and others; it can help us discover the universal in our experience and blessings we would share. Zoom link provided prior to start of workshop. Teacher: Ed SageTime: Wednesdays, Sep 14 - Oct 12, 7-9pm Pacific TimeLocation: Online via ZoomTotal…

$219 – $248

September Poetry Practice Space

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us monthly on zoom, on the third Thursday of the month for prompts and sharing. Register here, and we’ll send the zoom link on the day of the event. Poetry Practice Space is a monthly gathering for poets and writers. Writing materials, readings and prompts for generative writing will be provided. Come share a space to talk about your writing practice, and current writing projects, bemoan rejections, celebrate acceptances, share writing resources— and write together! Consider Poetry Practice Space the calisthenics for your poetics. Suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds Free for members

Free

Writing the Ensemble Cast

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

In this generative workshop, students will work on creating artful characters focusing on plot, characterization and point of view. At the end of six weeks, students will created a 10-15 page manuscript of their work-in-progress and received detailed feedback from the instructor. This class is ideal for students at work on a novel or short story collection with several main characters. 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 program for writing classes covers 60% of the class tuition. Most writing classes have at least one access…

$285

FALL :: A (Virtual) Generative Creative Lab :: Exhausting Metaphor— begins September 18th

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Fall :: A Generative Creative Lab :: Exhausting Metaphor Collaboration Leader: Domi Shoemaker, alongside weekly videos featuring Domi and Lidia Yuknavitch in conversation When: Begins September 18th 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 Monday from 5:30-7:30PM PST. Meeting dates: September 19th, September 26th, October 3rd & October 10th Cost: $250—payment plans are available. Please contact Daniel at registration@corporealwriting.com. Scholarships are also available—Apply Here. Seven 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,…

$250

Refuse the Given World: Breaking Blocks Through Play

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

“When I sit down and start writing, I feel the given world recede, and I can just play.” —Sam Lipsyte Remember when you were a little kid, playing on the floor for hours and hours? Our best writing days are often imbued with that same sense of timelessness, freedom, wonder, and escape—in other words, our work often works best when it feels like play. In this generative writing course, we will tap into a playful mindset—by using silly rules, obstructions, oblique strategies, games, dreams, ephemera, constraints, and more—to unlock problematic works and/or generate new material. You will leave this class with more than a dozen techniques for starting a new project, breaking a block, or working through something sticky in a piece of writing. This…

$285

Memoir: The Process — with Kimberly Dark — begins September, 22nd

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

STARTS: September 22nd, 2022 WHERE: Zoom WHEN: Four weekly 2-hour sessions over Zoom on Thursdays from 5-7PM PST (9/22, 9/29, 10/6, 10/13) TEACHER: Kimberly Dark COST: $350 (Payment plans always available—please contact Daniel at registration@corporealwriting.com) SCHOLARSHIPS: Yes, scholarships are available. Please follow this link to apply. Memoir: The Process Memories aren’t enough. We have to connect them to culture, to history, to zeitgeist—and then be as clear and specific about our unique perspectives as possible. In this generative workshop, we’ll open a number of creative doorways (and windows and portholes and tunnels) into meaning and we’ll discuss how and why they work. We’re going to work on releasing the story without it getting caught in the mind first. We’ll work together in four, two-hour, face-to-face…

$350

Fall Generative Lab w/ Lidia Yuknavitch and the Corporeal Squad: September 30th-October 2nd

The Corporeal Writing Center 510 SW 3rd Ave #101, Portland, OR, United States

Fall. Color. Changes in light, leaves, life. Meditation. Observation. In this generative lab we will develop your key primary metaphors embedded in how you experience your life physically. Don’t worry—we know how to find them. From these metaphors we will develop seeds of texts (poetic, fiction, nonfiction, or mixed genre) for future expansion in your writing and artmaking life. Seven years ago Corporeal Writing hosted its first ever seasonal lab—and we started with Fall. We’re thrilled to write with you in person again at our beautiful space in downtown Portland. Check out all the details, and please read the COVID note carefully. Fall: Exhausting Metaphor: A Seasonal Generative Writing Lab with Lidia Yuknavitch and the Corporeal Writing Squad: Domi Shoemaker, Anya Pearson, Katie Guinn, and…

$450

If It’s Not One Thing It’s Your Mother: Preparing Nonfiction for Submission w/ Melissa Chadburn—begins October 4th

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

If It's Not One Thing It's Your Mother, Preparing Nonfiction for Submission with Melissa Chadburn The goal of this workshop is to help creative nonfiction writers prepare their work for submission in an inclusive, supportive environment. Classes include reading assignments where we will explore various essay structures, and some short in-class writing assignments to allow writers to discuss and engage other craft techniques. Each writer will workshop one essay, hybrid, or longform piece anywhere from 1200-4500 words, (already in progress). This generative lab is meant to be a supportive environment for writers to actualize the intentions for their piece. Lab Leader: Melissa Chadburn When: October 4th and runs for 4 weeks Where: Zoom and WetInk, our rich, interactive, online platform. Melissa will host a Zoom…

$350