"Dreamscape of the Altar"

"You must give birth to your images." — Rilke

Through a blend of guided meditation and writing prompts, we will work to nurture a fertile soil for receiving sacred imagery from the depths of the psyche. Delving into the mysterious terrains of embodied inner life, we'll explore the concept of an interior altar, using active imagination to connect with unconscious symbols and dreams. This process serves as a pathway to delve more deeply into our own creative material.

Note: We will be working on the floor for part of the workshop, though this portion can be adjusted to accommodate any body; all materials provided.

Stephanie Adams-Santos is a Guatemalan-American artist writer whose work spans poetry, prose, screenwriting, and illustration. Often grappling with themes of strangeness and belonging, their work reflects a fascination with the weird, numinous and primal forces that shape inner life. They are the author of several poetry collections and chapbooks, including DREAM OF XIBALBA (selected by Jericho Brown as winner of the 2021 Orison Poetry Prize; finalist for the Oregon Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award) and SWARM QUEEN'S CROWN (finalist for a Lambda Literary Award). Stephanie served as Staff Writer and Story Editor on the television anthology horror series TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES (Netflix). In addition to their literary work, Stephanie is creating an original tarot deck that blends poetry, animism, and ancestral magic.

"Opening Another Door: Symbolism in Poetry"

Symbolism opens the door for a poet to say more with fewer words, and a striking symbol adds depth and intrigue to a poem. In this workshop, we will look at models of how others have used symbols and create symbols of our own. The workshop will be group oriented: the more brains, the better! We'll have fun and play with words.

Lisa Bullard works at Clark College as a writing tutor for the Veteran's Center of Excellence and an English professor. She loves to play with poetry, and try her hand at other genres too, and she enjoys sharing her love of writing with others, inviting them in and learning from them as well. One random tidbit is that besides working with words, Lisa is learning about sailing and loving everything about that!

"Disruption and Change in Character, Setting, and Plot"

"There are only two plots in all of literature — a person goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town."

So said celebrated writing teacher John Gardner (supposedly). Whether Gardner’s right is up for debate, but Arrivals and Departures are classic literary tropes for good reason. In this generative workshop, we’ll consider the three pillars of character, setting, and plot, and craft short prose pieces that have disruption and change at their heart.

Emily Chenoweth has published more than two dozen novels for kids, teens, and adults. Her debut, Hello Goodbye, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and named one of the top ten Northwest books of 2009 by The Oregonian. She wrote the Evil Alien Warlord Cat middle-grade series with Johnny Marciano, and, under the name Emily Raymond, she's cowritten numerous New York Times bestselling novels with James Patterson. She has taught at Columbia University, PSU, and Literary Arts, and she sends out free writing prompts every Friday via her Substack, Good Ideas.

"Tangible Objects: Developing an Inner Life for Your Character"

This workshop will focus on the life of tangible objects that often define and shape our lives. Through this process of developing an inner life for our characters, we will discover patterns for shaping both knowns and unknowns that motivate our characters and push our stories in ways we never thought possible.

Michael Guerra is the recipient of Oregon's Literary Fellowship and various other awards including Mid-American Review's Sherwood Anderson's first prize for fiction. He has numerous publications in magazines no one has ever heard of (or are now defunct) and teaches writing classes at Clark College.

"Who is Telling Your Story?"

In this workshop, we will explore the role of the "I" in memoir writing. Both the "I" involved in the action, and the "I" remembering and reflecting upon the event at the center of your narrative. This "dual-I" is where the tension in memoir lives, and where readers engage and connect. Come prepared to write and, if you wish, to talk about the challenges of turning yourself into a character on the page.

Debra Gwartney is the author of two book-length memoirs, Live Through This, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and I Am a Stranger Here Myself, winner of the RiverTeeth Nonfiction Prize as well as the Willa Award for Nonfiction. Debra has published in such journals as Granta, The Sun, Tin House, American Scholar, The Normal School, Creative Nonfiction, the NYT Modern Love column, and others. She’s the 2018 winner of the Real Simple essay contest. Her work was recognized with Pushcart prizes in 2021 and 2022, and her essays were selected for Best American Essays in 2022 and 2023. She is recently retired from the Pacific University MFA faculty, and also taught at Portland State University, University of Oregon, and for many national and international writing conferences. Debra is a contributing editor for Poets &ters, and is co-editor, with her late husband Barry Lopez, of Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape. She lives in Western Oregon.

"Judge a Book by Its Cover"

It could be said that the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" seems to overlook the significant impact of book design. In this workshop, we'll dive into key aspects of book design, covering topics such as cover design, interior layout, paper selection, printing methods, and the integration of eBook design. We'll also envision our own future book covers, looking at your design ideas alongside logistical considerations.

HR Hegnauer is a book and website designer specializing in working with independent publishers as well as individual artists and writers. In addition to having designed over 300 books and dozens of author websites, she is also the author of When the Bird is Not a Human (Subito Press, 2018) and Sir (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2013). She received her MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University as well as an MBA in Business from the University of Denver.

"Starting with Image: A Prose Workshop"

What is an image? While conventionally defined as a visual representation or description, an image in writing can activate many senses at once. Transcending mere detail, an image electrifies and swirls up from the page, announcing to the reader that they are in this language-world and none other. In the words of cartoonist and writer Lynda Barry, "[An image is] alive in the way thinking is not, but experiencing is, made of both memory and imagination." Because so much meaning and sensation accrues to them, images can be terrific starting points for works of fiction and creative nonfiction. In this workshop, we'll mine our own personal image-banks for generative material, and work together to effectively bring the power of the image to the page.

Sara Jaffe is a writer living in Portland, OR. Hurricane Envy, a short story collection, is forthcoming in 2026 from Rescue Press. Dryland, a novel, was published by Tin House Books and Cipher Press (UK ). Her short fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in publications including Joyland, Fence, BOMB, NOON, and Maggot Brain. She co-edited The Art of Touring (Yeti, 2009), an anthology of writing and visual art by musicians drawing on her experience as guitarist for post-punk band Erase Errata. Sara has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, RADAR Productions, and the Regional Arts and Culture Council. She is also co-founding editor of New Herring Press, a publisher of prose chapbooks. She teaches creative writing at Reed College and as part of the Pacific Northwest College of Art’s Low-Residency Creative Writing MFA.

"Unexpected Arrivals: Writing Surprising Images"

A poem is a series of departures and arrivals. A poet takes the reader to one image, then departs to another. Sometimes the reader arrives at the place they expected, but at its best, poetry can surprise—can take us to places the reader (and writer!) never anticipated. Those places offer us a sense of mystery and weirdness, a glimpse into other modes of consciousness and ways of being. This workshop offers tools for getting our poetry from the ordinary and predictable into some of those other places. Using as a guide the poem "4 Stars" by Oregon Poet Laureate and recent Columbia Writers Series guest Anis Mojgani, participants will write a poem by combining fragments of memory in unexpected ways. Then they will exchange images to create an even weirder, more surprising poem. Finally, they will try to break all the rules of grammar they can to arrive at unknown poetic terrain.

Meredith Kirkwood lives and writes in the Lents neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Variant Literature, ONE ART, The Atlanta Review, The Eastern Iowa Review, Right Hand Pointing, and others. In addition to poetry, she also writes children’s books about lemurs. She holds an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and teaches writing and literature at Clark College. Find her on the web at www.meredithkirkwood.net.

"From Margins to the Center: How to Use Duotrope to Get Connected to Publishers"

Do you have a story that you are proud of but have no idea how to get it published? Are you wondering what kinds of magazines and podcasts would be open to publishing your work? This session will explore how the online tool Duotrope can be used to get connected to publishers and agents!

Joe Pitkin has lived, taught, and studied in England, Hungary, Mexico, and the United States. His short stories have appeared in Analog, Boston Review, Black Static, Cosmos, Kaleidotrope, and other magazines and podcasts, as well as on his blog, The Subway Test. He lives in Portland, Oregon, in the shadow of a small extinct volcano. Stranger Bird, his first novel, was published in 2017; his second, Exit Black, will be published by Blackstone this year.

"Writing with Dream Logic"

Dreams cohere & dissolve in the same event; in this way the logics of dreams relate to the logics of emotional overwhelm & to the logics of the mass hallucinations of history or culture. This workshop will explore dream logic as a conscious & intentional writing tool, a writing strategy to employ to arrive at writerly truths beyond the rational. We will discuss the fugitive rationality in nonsense & the profundity in silliness as we look at some writers’ use of dream logics, & the forms & rhetorics of how we tell others our dreams. We will write to explore dream logic in narrative, lyric, & personal writing. The goals are to generate work that both bewilders & intimately engages the reader & writer alike.

Mathias Svalina is the author of eight books, most recently, Thank You Terror, published by Big Lucks Books. His first short story collection, Comedy, will be published later in 2024. Svalina was a founding editor of Octopus Books & has led writing workshops in universities, libraries, community spaces, & in prison. Since 2014 he has run a dream delivery service, traveling around the country to write & deliver dreams to subscribers. With the Dream Delivery Service, he has worked with the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, the Poetry Foundation, & the University of Arizona Poetry Center, & has been featured on NPR's Morning Edition & the BBC World News.

"Intention and Obstacle: The Use of a Time-Based Goal to Give Your Story Urgency"

Fiction writers often struggle with plot -- or at least the idea of plot. Writing can come from a place of deep imagination, which is often not harnessed to any kind of mechanical apparatus. In fact, the imagination -- a dreamworld -- often specifically resists thinking in terms of timeline and story container. We will work to open stories that have a clear sense of urgency or, if it's missing, think about ways to get this urgency in existing stories.

Pauls Toutonghi is a first-generation American. His father was born in Cairo, Egypt, and his mother in Riga, Latvia. Both of his parents were refugees to the United States. He has been awarded a Pushcart Prize -- and has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Virginia Quarterly Review, Granta, Tin House, and numerous other periodicals. His four books have been published by Random House and Simon & Schuster. Pauls has travelled for the US State Department, and lives in Portland, Oregon -- where he teaches at Lewis & Clark College.

"Writing Life and Death: How to Raise the Stakes of a Story"

This workshop will be a generative session on how to raise the stakes in your story, something like writing life and death!

Claire Vaye Watkins is the author of the novels I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness and Gold Fame Citrus, and the short story collection Battleborn, which won the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other prizes. A National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, Watkins is a professor at the University of California Irvine and lives in Twenty-nine Palms, California.