As we face the myriad challenges and changes in our ever-changing world, we are looking forward to being able to come together again and draw strength from one another. Our 2025 conference Exploring the Beauty of the Pacific Northwest: Sustaining Innovation, Creativity, and Hope in an Ever-Changing World is scheduled for Wednesday, April 2 - Sunday, April 6, 2025 in the beautiful city of Portland, Oregon. Joining us as our Keynote Poet will be Kim Stafford. Deborah Eve Grayson will give our Keynote Address. Slamlandia Poetry will be opening our conference on Thursday evening featuring Brennan DeFrisco, Marcus Lattimore, Myrah Rafi'ah Beverly, and Ty Brack! Natalia Uribe, MT-BC will be leading a drum circle for our closing event! In addition, there will be a wide range of workshops to bring us all together again!

Our Call for Proposals deadline is Sunday, September 15th!  Learn more about how to submit a proposal here.

Registration will open mid-January.

Hotel & Room Registration: To register for your rooms at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Portland - Downtown at our group rate, click here.

Our 2023 Keynotes & Special Events

Kim Stafford was born and grew up in Oregon. He is the author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, and editor of half a dozen others. His works include The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft and 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do: How My Brother Disappeared. His most recent book is the poetry collection As the Sky Begins to Change (Red Hen Press, 2024).

He attended the University of Oregon, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in English and a doctorate in Middle English literature.  He has worked as a printer, photographer, oral historian, editor and visiting writer at a host of colleges and schools, and also offered writing workshops in Italy, Scotland, Mexico, and Bhutan. In 1986, he founded the Northwest Writing Institute and co-founded the Oregon Folk Arts Program in 1988.

Stafford has received creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Governor’s Arts Award, and the Stewart Holbrook Award from Literary Arts for his contributions to Oregon’s literary culture. He has produced two CDs of his original songs and a radio series for National Public Radio. 

In 2018 he was named Oregon’s 9th Poet Laureate for a two-year term. He is the second Stafford to serve as Oregon’s Poet Laureate; his father, William Stafford, held the appointment from 1974 to 1989.

He is currently the Emeritus Professor at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. He writes, teaches, and travels to raise the human spirit through poetry. He lives in Portland with his wife Perrin Kerns, a teacher and filmmaker. You can learn more about Kim Stafford and his work here.

Deborah Eve Grayson, PhD, LMHC, PTR, is a Clinical Sexologist and AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Registered Poetry Therapist and Expressive Arts Specialist. Deborah is also an award-winning author and photographer. Deborah was trained as a Poetry Therapist by Ann White, a direct “disciple” of Dr. Jack Leedy. She served as NAPT’s credential chair for 7 years, enjoyed decades as a Mentor/Supervisor and received the Distinguished Service award in 1997. A keynote speaker for NAPT’s 25th annual conference, she continues to utilize poetry and the expressive arts therapies as her constant companion in both her counseling and teaching professions. She has enjoyed a solo private practice for over 40 years and is also an Adjunct Professor at Lynn University in the College of Arts and Sciences. Her area of specialty includes working with the LGBTQ+ populations, all aspects of sexual functioning, anxiety, depression, trauma, and bereavement, eating disorders, and natural healing and wellness. She enjoys a work/life balance by utilizing time to travel, ski, write, photography, running (she has completed 9 marathons) anything that involves the arts, animals (especially sloths, ring-tailed lemurs, and otters) being in nature and laughing.

Brennan DeFrisco is a poet, teaching artist, editor, voice actor, & arts coordinator from the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s been a National Poetry Slam finalist, a Pushcart Prize nominee, Grand Slam Champion of the Oakland Poetry Slam, & program coordinator for California Poets in the Schools, Poetry Out Loud, the Redwood Poetry Festival, and the San Francisco Arts Commission. He’s the author of A Heart With No Scars, published by Nomadic Press and Black Lawrence Press, Honeysuckle & Nightshade, published by Swimming with Elephants Publications, and has served as poetry editor on the Mastheads of Lunch Ticket and multiple California Poets in the Schools State Anthologies. Brennan facilitates creative writing and performance workshops, serving K-12 classrooms, incarcerated youth, adults, seniors, and various arts education programs. His work has been published in Red Wheelbarrow, Oracle Fine Arts Review, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Gemini, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles.

myrah rafi'ah beverly is a Black, Asian, and Indigenous writer from the Chicagoland area. As a young girl, myrah turned to writing as a way to tell her story to when no one was listening. What started as a hobby At 25, myrah has been featured on various platforms for her poetry, including the Tamron Hall Show to speak on her experience as a mixed race woman. She also used her poetic abilities as the student speaker at her 2022 graduation at Michigan State University.

Marcus Lattimore is a spoken word artist, poet, and former collegiate and professional football player, coach, and Director of Player Development. Famous for football, he moved to Portland in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and pursued new paths, including poetry and acting. Diving into poetry with his vintage typewriter, he has since then performed in local theatres as well as winning Slamlandia’s 2024 Grand Slam, and represented Oregon at the BlackBerry Peach Poetry Slam in Georgia this past June. He co-owns ZEN:MNM, a creative wellness business with his wife, Miranda,  where they offer mindfulness, nature and movement-based workshops. Marcus is a proud dog-dad to his standard poodle, Mocha, and loves exploring the PNW with his family.

Ty Brack  (he/him/his) is a 2023 top-10 nationally ranked slam poet. He is Portland's 2023 Slamlandia Grand Slam champion, and that same year, he represented the Oregon Poetry Association in the BlackBerry Peach National Poetry Slam, where he made finals stage. He is an educator and poet living in Tigard with his wife, Kelley, and their three-year-old, Kylo. In addition to various spoken word engagements and Slam accomplishments, Ty's poetry has been featured in WritersResist, Ragtag Magazine, Solstice Literary Magazine and WinningWriters.com.

Originally from Bogotá, Colombia, Natalia Uribe, MT-BC (She/They/Ella/Elle) specializes in using music therapy to support diverse communities, including LGBTQIA+, survivors of domestic violence, TBI and those in end-of-life care, and are passionate about breaking down barriers to access mental health and music therapy services.