W.o.o.t.s.

On Tuesday November 18th Literary Arts held its annual WITS fundraiser luncheon, hosted by Blue Hour. Members of the Literary Arts staff and Board of Directors gathered with almost 200 friends, writers, teachers and other members of the community to support WITS. We are thrilled to share that the event was a huge success, raising [...]

Are you a motivated high school student who values writing? If you are, you might be interested in applying to the Young Writers Workshop sponsored by the Kenyon Review and hosted at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. The workshop is an intensive two-week summer program for intellectually curious students, and works with young writers to [...]

In November, The Nature of Words, a literature based non-profit serving the High Desert region of the Northwest, will begin accepting entries in poetry, fiction, literary non-fiction and nature writing for the 2012 Rising Star Creative Writing Competition. The Nature of Words aims to foster appreciation of the literary arts through a variety of programs [...]

            Next weekend, October 8th-10th, Wordstock will kick off their annual book and literary festival here in Portland. Wordstock is a non-profit organization that celebrates and supports writing in the classroom and in the community. The festival, one of the largest of its kind in the nation, showcases the literary achievement [...]

Literary Arts kicked off its new “Students to the Schnitz” program by welcoming 65 students from Bianca Espinosa and Stephen Lambert’s Great Books class at Metropolitan Learning Center in Northwest Portland. Funded by the generosity of Literary Arts’ patrons, “Students to the Schnitz” provides complimentary books, transportation and tickets for Portland Public High School students [...]

At the WITS Orientation in early September, new WITS writer Sarah Jaffe read from her response to a writing prompt about what she loved and hated about high school: “I remember that I loved picking out my own classes once I got to high school. And how you didn’t have to just be popular or [...]

My Story by Robel Haile I wanna tell you a story Of myself I’m a person who is hungry Hungry with a big dream Dream like the American dream “The African Dream” Peace, peace, and peace My dreams are heading back to home Heading back to the East To the origin of Lucy and Selam [...]

Having students, teachers, and writers from Jefferson High School read their work at Talking Drum Bookstore/Reflections Coffeehouse lent the event a strong feeling of community. Several students’ work mentioned their experiences coming to America from other countries, and the mix of nostalgia, discovery, and adjustment that accompanies their new lives. Emotions were heightened as readers [...]

In the car on the way to Roosevelt High School, Art Spiegelman made a prediction: he anticipated that he would be asked three questions about his graphic narrative Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. Why mice? Why comics? Why the Holocaust? Spiegelman jokes about the frequency of these questions, but clearly recognizes their importance. These questions are [...]

To add to the excitement of Portland’s tricky spring, WITS has decided to release four, yes FOUR, brand new digital chapbooks, featuring a colorful array of prose, poetry, and graphic art from almost every Portland Public School. (To read the chapbooks, click the links to the right.) These chapbooks, The Best Thing That Could Have [...]