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!

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 . . .…

$899 – $914

Writing With Constraints

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham on a bet—that he couldn’t write an entire book using only 50 words. Here’s another dare: Write about a trek through the desert without using the words “sand,” “cactus,” “water,” “sun,” and “heat.” In this generative workshop, we’ll look at examples by writers, then engage with inventive writing exercises, freeing our own imaginations. 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 tuition at a reduced rate. The access program for writing classes covers 60% of the class tuition. Most writing classes have at least one access spot…

$75

December 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

The Break with Kaveh Akbar

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In partnership with Alano Club of Portland, “The Break is a monthly virtual gathering of writers and artists lead by Kaveh Akbar, celebrating amongness, collaboration, and interdisciplinary creative experimentation. Though many of the activities and discussions orbit or are inflected by recovery themes (Akbar has been in active recovery for eight years), participants are not required to self-identify as being in recovery to participate.” Register at: https://www.portlandalano.org/the-break Kaveh Akbar Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian-American poet and scholar, and the author of Pilgrim Bell, published by Graywolf Press; Calling a Wolf a Wolf, published by Alice James Books in the US and Penguin Books in the UK; and the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic, published by Sibling Rivalry Press. In 2014, he founded the poetry interview…

Free

Cultivating a Sustainable Writing Practice

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Cultivating a Sustainable Writing Practice Instructor: Alissa Hattman This workshop is offered via Zoom PST Register here Class Meetings: 1 Saturday, Jan. 7th; 1-4pm $15 – $75 sliding scale *6 no-cost spots available; BIPOC & 2S prioritized Our practice—how we labor as writers—is highly personal. When we create a writing habit, it helps to consider our individual creative processes, life priorities, writing goals, and all the ways that we get in the way of our own writing. How we labor is also bound up in cultural notions of productivity and success that can often kill the creative drive. It can be hard to consistently carve out time in order to cultivate the type of patient, inner stillness required to write, but it is possible. Necessary,…

$15 – $75

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…

$1,100

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

Mastering the Short Story

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In this intensive workshop, students will write and revise their short stories focusing on craft elements such as characters, voice, subtext, and story structure. At the end of the six weeks, students will have created a dossier of up to 20 pages of new work and received detailed feedback from the instructor. 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 least one access spot available. Please apply here for access rate tuition. Contact Susan Moore at susan@literary-arts.org if…

$285

Winter Writing: A Poetry Prompt Workshop w Matthew Dickman | Jan 15 – Mar 5 | Online FULL — WAITLIST ONLY

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Winter is a time for going indoors, breaking out the extra blankets, and hibernating. But it can also be a time of thoughtfulness, of preparing one for the renewal of Spring to come. In this spirit Winter Writing will be a generative poetry class. A class of first drafts. Over eight weeks we will write poems from a diverse list of prompts, suggestions, and examples from poets such as Morgan Parker, Dorianne Laux, Major Jackson, Sharon Olds, Richie Hoffman and others. Each week we will bring in our first draft to share, discuss, and celebrate. Come write with us! Zoom link provided prior to start of workshop. Teacher: Matthew DickmanTime: Sundays, Jan 15 - Mar 5, 1-3pm Pacific TimeTotal Fee: Discounted Early Registration is due seven (7) days…

$350 – $379

So, You Wanna Be A Writer w Wayne Gregory | Jan 17 – Feb 14 | Online

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” ~ E. L. Doctorow You have a thousand stories inside your head. You dabble on the page but rarely if ever finish anything, much less share with others. “Is my work good enough?” you wonder.  “Do I have something original and interesting to say? What makes me think I can be a writer?”  The biggest obstacle for emerging writers is not lack of time nor lack of skill nor lack of things to write about. It’s a lack of self-confidence. This workshop is designed for those who want to be writers but are not sure they can be. …

$219 – $248