A Writer's Guide to Adelaide

The Research Library, on Level 1 of the Spence Wing, holds the State Library's Special Collections, among them the Royal Geographical Society of SA Collection. Newspapers and photographs are here too, along with the Indigenous collections. The Research Library opens daily except public holidays, with a late night on Wednesdays. Meeting rooms can be booked.

The City of Adelaide's main lending library shares Level 1 of the Spence Wing with the Research Library. Membership brings the State Library's collections, research services and events with it. Late nights are Wednesday and Friday.

The Hutt Street branch has a first-floor conference area for up to 20 people, plus a meeting room, and both can be booked. It is closed Sundays.

North Adelaide's branch shares a building with the North Adelaide Community Centre. It has a Reading Room, and its meeting rooms are on the second floor, up the stairs. Writers working on local history can join its History Hub sessions. It opens late on Thursdays and closes Sundays.

The Barr Smith sits off North Terrace beside Hub Central, and the library calls its Reading Room one of the most beautiful scholarly spaces in Australia. Quiet study is on Level 2. Collections are strong in Australian history, politics and literature, and in women and gender studies. People outside the university can join as community borrowers.

Adelaide University's Special Collections include rare books and manuscripts as well as the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Library collections. Members of the public can use them by appointment, booked through Ask Library. Access to collections that may contain Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges is temporarily paused.

Dillons has been family-owned since the early 1980s and has grown to about 700 square metres on The Parade. The local council's Look East blog calls it South Australia's largest independent bookseller. Author events are regular, and many are held at Norwood Town Hall.

Mostly Books opened in 1977 and calls itself Adelaide's oldest bookstore. It runs book clubs and author events. Staff write up what they're reading on the shop's blog.

Michael Treloar deals in out-of-print and antiquarian books, and in manuscripts and autographs too. The shop faces the State Library across North Terrace. It issues catalogues and exhibits at rare book fairs.

Orchard Bookshop keeps a small, rotating stock of hand-picked new and vintage books, some of them collectible. It opens Tuesday to Saturday.

East Avenue Books sells quality books at affordable prices, and its rare books section has first editions and signed copies. It opens Tuesday to Saturday.

Matilda is in Stirling, in the Adelaide Hills. Booklovers own and staff it. The shop keeps a local authors section and runs book clubs for adults and children, along with Meet the Author events.

The upper levels of the heritage Mortlock Wing have study areas with large wooden desks, and you can stay and work without buying anything. The lift in the glass foyer goes up to the Mortlock Chamber. The Chamber can close for private events.

This free group meets every Saturday late morning in the library's upstairs attic. Brief introductions come first, then a quiet block of focused writing and an optional chat at the end. Nobody reads aloud or critiques. Just turn up.

West Oak Deli is the West Oak Hotel's daytime café, open weekdays only. It serves coffee, sandwiches and the day's baking, with seats inside the hotel and tables outdoors. CityMag recommends it as a study spot near the City West campus.

The Mill is an arts organisation that rents out artist studios and creative offices. It also runs residencies and professional development programs. Galleries and offices open weekdays, and studio tours run every fortnight.

The Art Gallery's café is open daily, with a late night on the first Friday of each month. The gallery is on North Terrace between the South Australian Museum and the university's campus.

The State Library runs its own café, steps from the Research Library and the Mortlock Wing desks. It opens weekdays and Saturdays.

Writers SA, the state's peak organisation for writing and literature, is based at the State Library. Visits are by appointment. It runs writing groups, workshops and a mentorship program, and offers manuscript and pre-submission assessment. It also publishes Splinter, a literary journal that comes out twice a year.

Adelaide Writers' Week is a free literary festival presented by the Adelaide Festival. For six days, established and emerging writers from Australia and around the world come to Adelaide for conversation and debate.

Friendly Street Poets was founded in Adelaide in 1975 and calls itself Australia's longest-running open-mic poetry reading community. Its City Meetings, open-mic nights at The Box Factory, fall on the first Friday of each month. Bring a poem. It publishes an annual anthology and two series, New Poets and Single Poet.

J.M. Coetzee is patron of this research centre, which brings researchers and practitioners in creative writing and literary studies together with music and the performing and visual arts. It runs masterclasses and residencies. Precarity and southern perspectives are among its research areas.

Assemblage is Flinders University's research centre for artistic enquiry and creative practice. Its annual Artist in Residence scheme brings artists to work with Flinders staff and higher-degree researchers. The centre also runs the Writers Assemble! program and hosts AusStage, the Australian Live Performance Database.

Wakefield Press is an independent Adelaide publisher that brings out about 40 titles a year. The list runs from fiction for adults and young readers to history, biography, poetry, and food and wine. It publishes the winner of the CreateSA Wakefield Press Unpublished Manuscript Award. Its bookshop is on Rose Street.

JBI Evidence Synthesis is a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal of systematic and scoping reviews and evidence synthesis methodology. It is edited at JBI, in Adelaide University's School of Public Health in North Adelaide. Preparing an article for JBI Evidence Synthesis

JBI Evidence Implementation publishes implementation projects, reviews and discussion papers on how evidence-based recommendations are put into practice and sustained in healthcare settings. One of its two editors-in-chief is at JBI, in Adelaide University's School of Public Health. Preparing an article for JBI Evidence Implementation

The State Library presents these awards every two years, with CreateSA as major funder. National awards for published books include the Premier's Award and the John Bray Poetry Award, alongside categories for fiction, non-fiction, young adult fiction and children's literature. South Australian writers also have awards of their own, among them the Jill Blewett Playwrights Award and an award for an unpublished manuscript.

This fellowship goes to a South Australian writer of fiction, poetry, drama or non-fiction prose. It is awarded within the South Australian Literary Awards, alongside the Tangkanungku Pintyanthi Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Fellowship and the Carclew Max Fatchen Fellowship for writers for young people.

CreateSA runs the state government's arts funding. Its development grants include Fellowships and the South Australian Living Artist Publication grant, and independent artists can apply for project grants. Fellowships are open at any career stage.

The Friends of the State Library support this fellowship. It funds research in the Library's collections toward an original creative work.

Each year the History Council awards this fellowship to someone researching and writing about South Australian history. The fellow gets a workspace at the State Library and help from its research staff.

This page lists scholarships, writing prizes and writing resources at Adelaide University.

Openbook Howden is a South Australian printer whose work includes education materials, books and publications. One case study on its site is a 268-page chemistry study guide, reimposed for digital printing, with PUR binding and a gloss-laminated cover.