The IPRC will be hosting an informational session with instructors and alumni of the IPRC Certificate Program on July 27th at 7pm.

With instruction from many of Portland’s finest writers, cartoonists and self-publishers, Certificate Program students will write, design, hand-craft and publish modest print runs of their own books, zines, comics and E-books.

Our low student-teacher ratio and individual advisor program guarantees personal attention and care. One of our main goals is to help each student develop their own independent style and craft. We strive to make our Certificate workshops student-centered, discussion-based and lively.

Many writing and cartooning programs cost roughly the price of a new BMW. Our program, on the other hand, costs about as much as a nice new bike. And as a program we are much like a bicycle: not flashy, but nimble. Human powered. Something old that is also new. The future.

Furthermore, while we are all for traditional undergraduate and MFA programs (many of our instructors have MFAs), we’re critical of the skewed exchange that sometimes takes place between students and large educational institutions, especially when it comes to writing and the arts.

At the same time that many students graduate with large debt loads, they’re also denied further access to the very institutions that created that debt. On the other hand, tuition in our Certificate Program is also an investment in the IPRC’s publishing resources and vibrant community which are forever available to all our students, and that will continue to develop and grow with each “investment.”

Jon Raymond
Oregon Book Award-winning author of Livability