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!

{Workshop} Burning Down the Old Year: Writing Poems about the New Year

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Platform: Zoom Tuition: $20 To register, email jswilliams1307@gmail.com. About the Workshop: In this intensive generative workshop, we will discuss how contemporary poets have explored the landscape and emotional changes of the New Year season. Despair, hope, burnt bridges, newly built ones; this time of year is rich with metaphor. We will analyze diverse poems from contemporary poets such as Ted Kooser, Naomi Shibab Nye, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Martha Collins, and others, followed by hands-on writing activities, prompts, and plenty of in-class writing time. About the Teacher: John Sibley Williams is the author of five collections, most recently As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize). A twenty-four-time Pushcart nominee, John is the…

$20

Chapbook Workshop

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

IPRC Creative Workshops for Winter 2021 will be held online via zoom, PST. Register here Have you been wanting to put a chapbook or short poetry collection together? Begin your new year by returning to an existing body of work with fresh eyes, incorporating new editorial techniques and peer feedback designed to sharpen your work into an impactful chapbook in four weeks. In this month-long intensive course, students will share, discuss, and learn from a variety of short publications. Theories of composition, ordering, editing, thematic approaches, and publication FAQs will be covered. Each student will have the opportunity to workshop a short collection and receive feedback from the class and the instructor. At the end of the class, students will ideally leave with a sharpened, short…

$200

Essay Intensive: Lyric and Personal

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In this eight-week intensive workshop, we will generate writing to prompts, finding our way into some lyric or personal essays. Participants will share drafts for focused feedback on specific craft issues and overall essay structure. The first four weeks will focus on one project, the second four weeks on another. Join this class to produce and workshop two essays and deepen your understanding of the essay form.   I’m a strong believer in writing together and the kind of alchemy that arises when a circle of writers gather to put the pen to paper. In any class with me, you will be doing generative writing in class, and sharing these fresh starts, then wandering off to revise. We will sprinkle seeds and see what grows.…

$385

{Workshop} The Heartfelt & Heartbroken: Writing Evocative Love Poems

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Platform: Zoom Tuition: $40 To register, email jswilliams1307@gmail.com. Forms of payment accepted: PayPal, Venmo, and check. About the Workshop: Are you ready for Valentine’s Day? Is there someone in your life, present or past (even future) that you’d like to write a poem for? In this intensive generative workshop, we will explore the many facets of writing “love poetry”, from the ecstatic to the melancholic, from discovering that intimate connection to finding uniquely evocative ways of expressing that connection through poetry. We will study how best to show true emotion without leaning too heavily into sentimentality, as well exploring poems that deal with loss of a loved one. We will analyze diverse poems from contemporary poets, followed by hands-on writing activities, prompts, and plenty of…

$40

Kick Start Your Picture Book

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Do you have an idea for a picture book that you’ve never had the chance to get on paper? Or a work in progress that you want to polish into picture book form? This 6-week intensive class will take you through the most vital steps in picture book writing. Through studying the picture book form, reading successful picture books, and focused writing exercises that help you develop your characters, narrative and voice, this workshop will help you write a picture book or turn your picture book manuscript into a solid draft. Access Program We want our writing 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 writing…

$285

Love Notes: Flash Prose

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In this prompt-driven 2-day intensive participants will create a series of connected flash love stories. With the aid of experimental exercises exploring prose and poetry (epistolary, lists, photo captions, etc.) we will celebrate and write about love in all its forms, including the flip side of love and more! Special attention will be paid to voice and technique. Fiction, non-fiction, all genres welcome. Access Program We want our writing 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 writing class registrations at a reduced rate. The access program for writing classes covers 60% of the class tuition. Most writing classses have at least one access spot available.…

$145

Nine-Month Novel Intensive

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This course for dedicated writers is designed to guide you through the writing and/or revising of your novel. It runs from September through May. You’ll read excerpts from published novels by authors including Han Kang, Tommy Orange, Lina Meruane, Mitchell S. Jackson, Deborah Levy, and Susan Steinberg, as well as craft essays by authors including Dorothy Allison, Jane Alison, and Alexander Chee. Some weeks you’ll have craft assignments to complete outside of class, and other weeks we’ll do in-class exercises together. After the first month of meetings, two students will workshop each week. Each student will have the opportunity to workshop five times, turning in up to 25 double-spaced pages per submission. Students should be prepared to read and comment on up to 50 pages…

$1450

Nine-Month Novel Intensive: Thursday

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This course for dedicated writers is designed to guide you through the writing and/or revising of your novel. It runs from September through May. You’ll read excerpts from published novels by authors including Han Kang, Tommy Orange, Lina Meruane, Mitchell S. Jackson, Deborah Levy, and Susan Steinberg, as well as craft essays by authors including Dorothy Allison, Jane Alison, and Alexander Chee. Some weeks you’ll have craft assignments to complete outside of class, and other weeks we’ll do in-class exercises together. After the first month of meetings, two students will workshop each week. Each student will have the opportunity to workshop five times, turning in up to 25 double-spaced pages per submission. Students should be prepared to read and comment on up to 50 pages…

$1450

Nature Writing Now: Intensive

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

What does it mean to write about nature now? We are living at a time of great ecological peril and promise, when some thinkers are questioning whether “nature” even exists. How to write about this complexity in authentic and evocative ways? How to convey both the beauty and the corruption of beauty? Together, we will consider some historical and contemporary nature writing in order to learn how the genre has changed over time alongside our cultural conceptions of self and nature. Contemporary nature writing often reflects complex social and political realities, while also reminding us of the abiding depth of feeling created by, for instance, placing one’s hand on a tree trunk and pausing to simply feel. In this course, your writing will be informed…

$485

Writing the Long Short Story

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This class is ideal for writers looking to work on a long short story of 35 pages or more. The long short story is an interesting form, giving writers the elbow room to delineate their stories more deeply yet still staying devoted to the principles of the short story. For some writers, the long short story can be an excellent precursor to the novel. In this six-week intensive workshop, participants will read and analyze the work of storytellers and master writers working with the long short story while simultaneously working on their own long story. Participants are welcome to bring an existing story/work and develop it further during the session. Texts: Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri Open Secrets by Alice Munro Access Program We want…

$285