Gordon Portman

Gordon Portman is a writer and performer experienced in theatres, classrooms, and rehearsal halls from coast to coast. His practice is as an actor, playwright, dramaturge, director, producer, and teacher; his most recent play, After Sundown, was premiered in 2023 in a self-produced production under the auspices of Live Five in Saskatoon.

His project focuses on the wide range of experiences lived by older, cis-gender, non-heterosexual men like himself. These stories are not nearly as apparent/available to the reading public as the stories of younger non-heterosexual, male-identified persons. Gordon states that “such stories have value and need to be told, but in a world where the experiences of elders in general are often devalued and/or absent, the voices of non-heterosexual elders are particularly silent – the occasional glimpse of “the elder gays” on RuPaul’s Drag Race notwithstanding.”

Gordon performed a public writing workshop titled “The Story in the Telling”. He explored different ways that writing craft— from structure to voice, metaphor to dialogue, grammar and punctuation to genre, setting, and style—shaped the author-reader relationship across disciplines.

The workshop offered writers across the four primary genres—non-fiction, fiction, drama, and poetry—a chance to consider and reconsider their approaches to writing, using lenses that might challenge habits and open new paths to connection. Gordon invited participants to bring work, questions, and ideas for discussion during the workshop.

This hybrid in-person and online workshop included an introductory talk, followed by facilitated discussion, and concluded with a Q&A session.