LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.

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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…

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$80 – $200

Writing About Parenthood

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In this generative workshop, led by an editor at Literary Mama, we’ll mine our parenting experience for writing inspiration, while celebrating and honoring the integral role we play in the lives of others. This workshop is perfect for all levels and will include imaginative prompts, short readings, activities that will serve as catalysts for creativity, and optional opportunities to freshly-written work and receive encouraging feedback. Participants will learn fresh perspectives and new angles and approaches for developing material on this rich topic. The workshop will include a taste of SoulCollage®, an expressive arts method, through which we’ll create our own collaged cards surrounding the theme of parenting, then use them as writing prompts. (No artistic ability required.) Participants will have the opportunity to share their…

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$75

Poetry Through Divination

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In this online three-part workshop, participants will explore various methods of using the Tarot and other simple forms of divination as prompts for poems. We will allow ourselves to be guided intuitively in our creations, suppressing the urge to control the process intellectually. Session One will be purely generative, focusing on starting and progressing new poems. In Session Two participants will work with the poems they started from prompts, developing them into cohesive pieces. Partly this will be through introducing a rational/intellectual component to raw materials that were derived from intuitive processes, but further divinatory and chance methods will also be part of our revision practices. In Session Three, students will share and discuss their polished work. Materials: any Tarot deck, your favorite book, pen…

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$155

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…

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$80 – $200

Creating Vibrant and Complex Characters

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This generative workshop will focus on the skills involved in creating and sustaining vibrant and complex characters. Through a series of in-workshop prompts and exercises participants will create and bring to life vivid characters. We will focus on physical description, internal life, setting, scene, action, and dialogue to round out and bring our creations to life. Close attention will be paid to literary and poetic devices. Supportive in-workshop sharing and feedback will be part of the process. 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…

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$80

Writing Into Big Questions

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

How do the big questions of our time–from climate change to racism–inhabit the stories of our lives? And what does it look like on the page to tell exquisitely personal stories in ways that gesture toward larger concerns? In this 2-hour workshop, writers will uncover some of the big questions buried in their own narratives, identify research paths that might amplify the intersection between the Self and the World, connect with their own potentially-transformative obsessions, and explore how the stories we choose to tell can change us. 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…

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$55

Starting the Memoir

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

John D’Agata describes memoir as “an agitation of memory,” which suggests memory-based writing as not just the expression of memory but volatile, vital consideration of memory. In this workshop, participants will look at examples of prose memoir in which the writer uses the poet’s tools of meditation, dream, and lyricism, and then do their own memory-based writing. 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 spot available. Please apply…

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$80

Calligraphy

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

*This workshop meets in-person. Masks & Proof of Vaccination + Booster required Register here Experienced and beginner scribes are welcome to join this 6-week class with instruction and quiet practice of 3 different calligraphic hands. Learn to use the edged pen, an edged brush, rule your paper, and study Uncial, Roman Capitals, and Italic. Instructor: Jade Novarino Sundays 10am—12pm November 6—December 18, with a break on November 27 Class Meetings: 6 Capacity: 10 $60-135 *2 no-cost spots available; BIPOC & 2S prioritized About the Instructor: Jade Novarino is an artist, farmer, pen-pal, and scribe.

$60 – $135

“The Most Important Element”: Plot in Literary Fiction

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

“Plot-driven” has become a code word for commercial (aka “lesser”) fiction. But plot has always been what defines a good story. In this workshop, we will examine the centrality of plot in narrative, from Aristotle down to contemporary literary fiction. We will also explore the essential characteristics of a great plot and the rewards of a well-plotted story. Reading excerpts from masters like George Saunders and Bulgakov, students will learn how to structure plot visually, how to engineer a plot twist, and on a pragmatic level, how to create plot when you’re staring at a blank page. 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…

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$55

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…

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$200 – $400
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