About Us
Write Around Portland uses creative writing to help people heal, change, and transform.
Our programs are designed to show participants that they are already writers. That their stories are worthwhile not just for their content but how they’re told.
We bring our programming directly to the people who need it, writing with them in convenient places where they already live or receive services.
Our Programs
Agency Program
The goal of our Agency Program is to give participants a lifelong tool they can use for healing and processing. We believe writing can be fun, social, and beneficial, and we work hard to distinguish our program from others that depict writing as academic, lonely, and only for publication, judgment, or profit.
We partner with agencies and organizations (including hospitals, schools, prisons, treatment centers, assisted living communities, low-income housing buildings, homeless shelters, and other healthcare and social service agencies) to provide creative writing groups for the adults and youth they serve.
- Writing Groups are sequential gatherings that build upon each other over 6-10 weeks and culminate in the publication of a book. Writing groups are offered in two program seasons each year — spring and fall.
- Writing Circles are single sessions that allow folks to try our unique, low-stakes model without committing to a writing group.
Our highly-trained volunteers facilitate the groups. We include journals, pens, refreshments, childcare (“guided playtime”), transit tickets, and other services and accommodations to ensure that everyone has access to writing in community — and the sense of creativity and security that comes with it.
Resonate: A BIPOC Writing Circle
Resonate writing circles offer Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) an affinity space to write together and access support from each other. Resonate writing circles do not result in publication or build on each other, and the program is open to writers at any level who identify as BIPOC.
Prompt
Prompt writing groups are a supportive community of writers who meet in-person or virtually across 8 weeks. Prompt writing groups are typically structured around a theme.
Freewrite
Freewrite writing circles provide a supportive community of writers who meet for a single session. Typically, Freewrite circles are structured around a theme — find our latest offerings here.
Our Mission
Write Around Portland changes lives through the power of writing.
We believe:
- Everyone can be a writer and benefit from and contribute to their community through the literary arts.
- Writing is a powerful tool for individual and societal change, self-expression, healing, and the realization of the dignity of one’s self and others.
- Writing and sharing stories helps us access our common humanity and connects individuals and groups who may be separated by age, race, income level, gender, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, health status, education level, and the geographic and social boundaries of neighborhoods.
- In any life, especially one lived in poverty or isolation, there is a vital need for art, community, and joy.
Our History
Write Around Portland was founded in 1999 by Liza Halley and Ben Moorad. Watch the video to learn more about their inspiration.
Our Financials
We employ a bookkeeping firm and hire an external CPA to conduct an annual financial review. Learn more below:
“The only problem with Write Around Portland is knowing how good it is, how necessary it is, and how unfortunate it is that it doesn’t exist in every city and town in the country.”
Dave Eggers
“Write Around Portland is an organization that makes me proud to be a Portlander.”
Ursula K. Le Guin
“We are surrounded by poems not written, by songs felt but not heard, by those few saving words we lack courage to say. Write Around Portland helps bring forth the most important literature of our time: the unwritten.”
Kim Stafford
“If you haven’t been to a Write Around Portland reading, you’re missing out on one of the most engaging, amazing literary events in this city.”
Willamette Week