Workshop Descriptions

Weekly Writing Practice

    Turn your notebook to the next blank page. Breathe. Dig in. Give yourself a weekly writing workshop to tease out the stories you carry, to take risks, to listen to the call and response of your own voice. Interesting and challenging prompts let you explore and move forward in your craft. Giving and receiving insightful feedback develops your ear and your intuition.

Weekly Practice with Jennifer Springsteen

Summer Manuscript Development, Tuesday Evenings

  • 5 sessions: July 10- August 7
  • Time: 7-9:30pm
  • Location: NE Portland, Alberta District
  • Cost: $100 for session; $20 extra for full page typed response including suggested prompts and potential changes on your manuscript (otherwise, facilitator still gives a complete edit on the manuscript itself)
  • Register for this workshop


Novel, short story, memoir, creative nonfiction, bring your works-in-progress or your work ready for revision to this workshop and spend six weeks of intensive focus on your current project. We will write in workshop to prompts aimed at moving your characters, setting, and plot forward, and also exchange manuscripts for critique. Come prepared to write, read the work of fellow writers, and receive and offer insightful feedback.

Weekly Practice with Thea Constantine

Spring  Wednesday Mornings


Lots of fresh coffee, lots of fresh prompts! Whether you’ve been up for hours or you’re just starting your day, let the lure of your busy pen and great Stumptown coffee bring you to BeaterVille Cafe each Wednesday to keep your writing practice in steady balance.

Spring Thursday Evenings

Here is your chance to step up your groove and create a pattern for your writing. For five weeks, you will write to prompts, and give and receive feedback to your community of writers.

Monthly Workshops

Saturday Open Workshops

Bring your notebook, grab a coffee from the espresso bar and join us for a couple of hours of writing and responding to prompts. Whether you’re an old hand or just wondering what a PDX Writers workshop is all about, this is a good opportunity to settle in and surprise yourself by what you come up with. What a great way to start a weekend! Space limited to 10 writers, so pre-registration is recommended.

Special Workshops

Flash Fiction Workshop with Jennifer Springsteen

Sunday Afternoons

Flash is hot! Supported by digital media and consumer’s request for a quick read, new literary magazines and websites are popping up, devoted to the art of flash fiction. Even National Public Radio has a 3 minute fiction series. Let’s get into the nuts and bolts of what makes for good flash. We’ll write, give feedback, and revise our pieces together. At the end of four weeks, you’ll have a well crafted flash manuscript, ready for our submission party on the last day of our workshop!

Erotica Workshop with Alida Thacher (women only)


Spend an afternoon writing on the wild side! We promise lots of juicy prompts, a relaxed atmosphere, and some astounding writing. Whether erotica is your genre or it’s a place you never imagined you could go, this workshop always inspires and entertains. Note this workshop is open to women only.

Summer Day Retreat with Jennifer Springsteen

Day Long Saturday in July

  • Saturday, July 21, 2012
  • Time: 8:30am -5pm
  • Location: NE Portland
  • Cost: $100 which includes continental breakfast and delicious lunch
  • Register for this retreat

What could be better than an entire day this summer devoted to your writing? Join us in the lovely study at McMenamin’s Edgefied Hotel to get down to work. We’ll spend half the day writing to prompts and offering each other feedback. There will be opportunity for extended writing times to deepen your story, and then we’ll gather in community to share our day’s accomplishments.

After the retreat, we may just wander the grounds, find a nice happy hour spot, and continue our conversations. Participants are free to make arrangements to stay over night at the hotel. Find lodging information here: http://www.mcmenamins.com/54-edgefield-home

3rd Annual Autumn Writing Retreat

There’s no better way to spend October than at the beautiful retreat center of Silver Falls among fellow writers. We’ll write with great fury, respond with deep insight, hike and bike, read, do yoga, and eat lots of delicious food. It’s a fabulous weekend. Join us!

You have the option of staying alone in a room, or finding a friend to bunk with and saving some of your room cost. (*We aren’t able to guarantee or arrange a shared room. The only way to insure you have a roommate at the discounted price is to bring one along!)

Please just ask if you need to arrange for a payment plan. We are happy to work with you. Questions? Email us: info@pdxwriters.com or phone: 503-890-3127


Refund Policy:

We are happy to give writers a full refund for any writing workshop if you cancel within three days of the workshop start time/date (that’s 72 hours). After that, we will retain half the workshop fee. You can also opt to pay your workshop fee forward to a workshop being held in the future.

We are sorry, but we don’t pro-rate our workshops. If you know you will be out of town for several of the workshops in a series, you can ask the facilitator to send you the prompts so you can write on your own.

We don’t refund workshop fees after the workshop has started. If you are unsure if a particular workshop will meet your writing needs, email us about observing a current workshop. Or you can always come to a Saturday open workshop to get a feel for our style of workshop. It’s just $10 for writers new to us!

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