The Attic Institute

Portland's best alternative to the MFA. Focus on your writing. One-on-one mentoring. Vibrant writing community.

APPS DUE: July 15 | Atheneum Master Writing Program for 2024-2025 | In-person | Attic Institute An annual certificate program, the Attic Atheneum melds independent study under close faculty supervision, student receptions, public readings, and other special Atheneum events created around good food and great conversation, dialogue, and literary community. What do you experience? Writing salons....

Today begins the the The Attic Institute's 25th year as a welcoming, vibrant writing studio where writers from across Portland and from around the globe come to get inspired, build literary community, and find their voices.

As a haven for writers, the mission at the Attic has always been to help people turn that glimmer of an image or overheard bit of conversation or the difficult (or joyous) memory into new writing.

Our greatest resource is our students — some 15,000 writers have studied at the Attic since 1999.

And, so many great writers have taught at the Attic — Karen Karbo Whitney Otto Matthew Dickman Cheryl Strayed Merridawn Duckler Wendy Willis Brian Benson Ashley Toliver Joanna Rose Erica Berry Wayne Gregory Ruben Quesada Ariel Gore David Ciminello Zahir Janmohamed Paulann Petersen — too many to list.

Stay tuned for details for a special anniversary event next month at Mother Foucault's Bookshop.

cc: The Oregonian Wilamette Willamette Week Portland Mercury

Attic founder David Biespiel's much-anticipated first novel to be published Oct 2023. In his thirteenth book, acclaimed poet, critic, and memoirist, David Biespiel turns to the novel to tell a story about Texas that has few, if any, parallels in Texas literature. Pre-order: http://atticinstitute.com/node/2816?fbclid=IwAR0naYrB1fIaO8TZ6oyKYq7hDhAUSencMkgeNl-pqBzHeon22FfCxNOIsP4

Q: How has your editorial work informed your own writing practice?

A: My editorial practice…I love working as an editor and feel I have an intuitive knack in understanding story by authors other than myself. I have decades of experience as an editor and ghostwriter. So, the short answer is I guess I wish I was as smart as a writer as I am as an editor. It may be a case of the cobbler’s children having no shoes. All to say, I sometimes feel as though I have wood for brains when it comes to evaluating my own work.

I’m sure my editorial work has rubbed off on my writing though I don’t know that it has always been positive. I have many many many pieces stored away because I don’t feel they are quite finished or are not good enough, whatever that means...

Read Lee Montgomery's full interview: http://atticinstitute.com/node/2762

Q: How has living and writing in Oregon influenced your work? What has been your experience of the PNW writing community?

A: The literary scene in Oregon has always been strong and it’s a pleasure to be part of it. Portland Arts and Lectures and Powell’s were two reasons I wanted to come to Portland. The literary community has exploded since I arrived almost 25 years ago. Since then Tin House, Glimmer Train, a myriad of other publications, and a graduate program at PSU and OSU have created a city crawling with writers and why not. It rains all the time in the winter, so the cocoon of clouds creates a fertile atmosphere for reading and writing.

I don’t know that Oregon has influenced my writing. It sounds stupid, but I feel like I’m in exile from New England, a place I grew up and loved. I couldn’t stay for complicated reasons that are hard to articulate. But that’s my work, making sense of those people and that place.

Read Lee Montgomery's full interview: http://atticinstitute.com/node/2762

As a prolific writer, editor, ghost writer, manuscript consultant, teacher, and more, is one of the Attic Institute's beloved writing fellows.

In her interview with us, Montgomery talks bout her literary pursuits, her love for Melissa Febos, and her time in the Portland writing community.

Read the full interview at the link in bio

As a prolific writer, editor, ghost writer, manuscript consultant, teacher, and more, Lee Montgomery is one of the Attic Institute's beloved writing fellows. In her interview with us, Montgomery talks bout her literary pursuits, her love for Melissa Febos, and her time in the Portland literary community:

"Q: What have you read recently that you really enjoyed?

A: I am reading Melissa Febos’ Bodywork and loving it. (I love pretty much everything she writes.) I just finished and admired Very Cold People by Sarah Manguso and am attempting (again) Matrix by Lauren Groff. I am a fan of Groff but am having a little difficulty getting into 12th century nuns. I’m off to War and Peace this summer along with this companion piece Tolstoy Together, edited by Yiyun Lee.

Q: As a writer working across multiple genres, do you start a new writing project without thinking about how it might be categorized upon publication, or is it the other way around?

A: I usually do know what genre I am working. Fiction and nonfiction use different muscles. That said, I often cross over. A great deal of my fiction—my stories for example are all autobiographical. And I have a finished book of essays that I’ve been thinking about changing into stories. A side note, I never intended to write nonfiction. I learned to write on community newspapers but was wholly committed to writing fiction. Until I wasn’t."

Read the full interview: http://atticinstitute.com/node/2762

Mixtape Poems: Building a Sequence Workshop w/ Michael Dickman

"In this workshop we will read and explore sequential poems and where they might overlap with hybrid literary forms and even film. We will build our own sequential poems using some of the moves we've discovered together. You will leave with your own "mixtape poem", a poem as thrilling as the chaotic, elliptical and surprising worlds we all inhabit."

Learn more: http://atticinstitute.com/node/2759

Introduction to Flash Nonfiction w/ Brian Benson

"Flash nonfiction, simply put, is true-to-life writing defined by extreme compression: it's saying what you've got to say using as few words, and as much beauty, as possible. An endlessly accessible, playful, potent form, flash nonfiction is evermore popular; from Brevity to 100 Word Story, The Forge to The Sun, legions of journals are eager to publish great flash.

In this prompt-driven workshop, we'll read short nonfiction by masters of the form; we'll talk about what stories are suited for flash, how to tell them well, and where to publish them; and most of all, we'll write and write and write, via in-class exercises and take-home prompts. Students will leave the class with reams of new writing and ideas for where to publish."

Learn more: http://atticinstitute.com/node/2758

Need some book recs? You're in luck! Matthew Dickman talks books and writing community in his interview with us:

"I loved Nina Maclaughlin's 'Wake, Siren' as well as Gwen E. Kirby's 'S**t Cassandra Saw,' Missouri William's novel 'The Doloriad,' Tove Ditlevsen's 'The Faces,' Eimear McBride's 'Mouthpieces,' Ali Smith's 'Public Library,' and Wanda Coleman's complete 'American Sonnets' which Black Sparrow Press just put out…"

Read the full interview: http://atticinstitute.com/node/2753

Portland native and poet extraordinaire Matthew Dickman answered a few questions about his work and life as a writer:

"When it comes to writing about your family, how do you honor them in your work? Do your considerations of how to render them as characters shift as you approach sending a manuscript out for publication?

This is a great question. One way I honor my family is by not writing about everything they do. For instance, with my new book Husbandry—which is mainly about parenting, being a single father to two boys, the anxieties of parenting, etc—the majority of my experiences with my children have not been written about in the book..."

Read the full interview: http://atticinstitute.com/node/2753

Mixtape Poems: Building a Sequence Workshop w/ Michael Dickman

"In this workshop we will read and explore sequential poems and where they might overlap with hybrid literary forms and even film. We will build our own sequential poems using some of the moves we've discovered together. You will leave with your own "mixtape poem", a poem as thrilling as the chaotic, elliptical and surprising worlds we all inhabit."

Learn more: http://atticinstitute.com/node/2750