Website of the Week: Write Around Portland

If you're a literary minded individual who happens to live in Portland and you're looking for a great way to contribute to your community, volunteer opportunities abound! Be a workshop facilitator, anthology production assistant or event planner for Write Around Portland.

Or, if you or someone you know is "unable to participate in traditional writing workshops because of income, isolation or other barriers," the nonprofit runs eight-ten week writing workshops:

To ensure that everyone in our community has access to writing, we remove all obstacles to participation by providing writing journals, pens, bus tickets, food, and childcare. We hold these workshops in partnership with social service agencies providing services to people living with HIV/AIDS, adults and youth in recovery from alcohol or drug addition, people with physical and/or mental disabilities, survivors of domestic violence, and people who are homeless, incarcerated or living in poverty.

Write Around Portland also offers workshops for new and seasoned writers, offered at Powell's City of Books and HOTLIPS Pizza. Fees help fund their programs. You can order one of their snazzy t-shirs, featured above. If you've got any journals to donate, you can drop them off at their office:

917 SW Oak St. #406 Portland, OR 97205      503.796.9224

info@writearound.org

Writer's Website of the Week: Petals and Bones

If you happen to live in northern California (or more specifically Sonoma County), check out Petals and Bones Writing Workshops, started by writers Leilani Clark and Dani Burlison. According to their website: "Clever, fun, supportive—and sometimes brash—our classes will help you to discover your own brilliant and unique voice." They've also got a great blog, filled with inspiring musings on such topics as taming the inner critic, as well as a new zine. Though I've always been a bit intimidated by writing prompts (or at least sharing the raw writing that arises from them), I'm thinking of joining P&B at the Whiskey Bar for the following Writing Bonanza. Maybe I'll see you there!

First Friday Pens and Pints Writing Bonanza                  

Date: Friday October 1^st 2010
Time: 5:30 p.m.-8 p.m.
Jack and Tony’s Restaurant and Whisky Bar @ 115 Fourth Street in Santa Rosa 
Unwind and start your weekend right—with a pen and a $2.00 pint (or a shot of your favorite whisky or maybe a delicious margarita). We’ll bring you writing prompts that will definitely spark comedic, sassy, lively, and some seriously side-splitting prose. Join Petals and Bones for what’s sure to be an evening of hazy-dazy creativity and plenty of lyrical tomfoolery.
Drop in at 5:30pm for drinks. Writing prompts will go from 6-8pm.
Limited to 8 people, so sign up early at petalsandbones@gmail.com.
$5-$20 slide scale (plus yr drink monies)

826 Valencia: Where Aspiring Pirates Can Write

What kid doesn't love pirates, space travel, robots, Big Foot, and superheroes? When you walk into one of the storefronts for the "826" writing centers in SF, NYC, LA, Chicago, Boston, Ann Arbor or Seattle, you can size up for a pirate's peg leg or a superhero cape. Then peek behind the supply stores where children gather to write.

Founded in 2002 by Dave Eggers, the original 826 Valencia offers innovative community outreach for neighborhood school kids to benefit from on-site tutoring, student publishing, field trips, in-school volunteers, workshops and scholarships. Watch this video about the Young Author's Book Project to see how 826 can help young people "explore their love of writing... and better express their ideas through the written word."