A Writer's Guide to Aurora, Colorado

Central is the main library in Aurora's public system. With a library card you can reserve a study room up to 48 hours ahead, for at most two hours a day, and unreserved study rooms go first come, first served. Groups book the community rooms through an online system. It closes Sundays.

The King branch on East Colfax has a study room and a café space. Its makerspace has sewing machines and a Cricut. Open makerspace hours on Friday afternoons are for anyone 12 and up.

Tallyn's Reach is the branch out on East Arapahoe Road. It has a two-sided community room, a conference room, and a fireplace open space where the Mysteries Book Club meets. Community rooms are booked through the city's online system. The branch is closed Sundays.

Strauss is the health sciences library of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Its doors open with a campus badge, and the library's access policy lists other options for members of the public with health sciences questions, so call ahead. The Strauss-Wisneski Virtual Lecture is given online.

The city's history museum is on the Aurora Municipal Center campus, and its parking advice points to the lots by the Central Library. Researchers can review archival materials in person, by appointment and under staff supervision. Check the online finding aids first. For a specific request, write to the Curator of Collections and allow up to two weeks; fees apply. The museum is open Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday.

Haven is an independent coffee shop and bookstore that sells new and used books and features local authors such as Sandman Jones. Local artists show and sell their work here. Tabletop gamers have room too. It is closed Sundays.

Hermitage, in Denver's Cherry Creek, calls itself the city's oldest independent bookstore. It specializes in used, rare, and antiquarian books, with fiction and nonfiction for every budget, and the shop is closed Sundays.

Little Blue Pigeon is an independent bookstore on Larimer Square in downtown Denver, with room on its shelves for every genre. Events run monthly. Authors can ask about one through the store's website. It is closed Mondays.

West Side Books & Curios is a neighborhood bookshop in Denver's West Highland, open daily. Staff picks and local books have sections of their own. The shop runs a book club and holds evening author events.

Lighthouse is Denver's literary center for classes and festivals. Members get weekday writing hours and a monthly gathering called the Friday 500. University students, teachers, and seniors pay less to join. Its writing communities include Writing in Color and Write Age.

Stanley Marketplace fills a former airplane factory in northwest Aurora with independent restaurants and shops. Eat at Annette or Boychik. For an evening out, Cheluna Brewing books live music and Stanley Beer Hall books comedy.

Dazzle is a Denver jazz club with a kitchen at the Denver Arts Complex, and it has music seven nights a week. Come for the Sunday jazz brunch.

Aurora Public Library runs this weekly group on Thursdays for writers of all genres. On the last Thursday of each month it becomes a peer workshop. The Central Library also hosts nonfiction and daytime book clubs.

Colorado Humanities runs the state's Center for the Book from Denver. It presents the Colorado Book Awards, and its Author Talks send local authors to schools and cultural centers.

On the Anschutz Medical Campus, this center works in clinical ethics and the arts and humanities, and it counts the local community among its audiences. Its Arts and Humanities in Healthcare Program mounts public art exhibitions in the Fulginiti Pavilion gallery and publishes digital anthologies, among them The Human Touch, with work by members and friends of the center. Each year the Henry and Janet Claman Endowed Professorship brings a visiting professor in the medical humanities. The center also offers a Graduate Certificate in Bioethics and Humanities in Health.

Colorado Humanities has worked in humanities education across the state since 1974. It publishes the Colorado Encyclopedia, and it keeps a History Speakers Bureau. In Black History Live, a scholar portrays a historical figure on a February tour.

The University Press of Colorado is a scholarly publisher with a Denver address. It brings out forty to forty-five new titles a year under four imprints, among them Utah State University Press and University of Alaska Press, and recent lists include Western history and folklore. It also distributes the winners of the Colorado Prize for Poetry.

Counterpath is a publisher and exhibition space on East 14th Avenue in Denver, with a list of poetry and experimental work. The Nafas Reading Series meets there. Its free bookstore runs on donations and opens during events and the Friday food bank.

The Journal of Nursing Education publishes original articles for nurse educators in every kind and level of program, aimed at better teaching and curriculum development. Its editor is at the University of Colorado Anschutz College of Nursing in Aurora, and SLACK Incorporated publishes it. Preparing an article for the Journal of Nursing Education

Colorado Humanities' Center for the Book gives these awards each year for Colorado books published the year before. They honor Colorado authors, editors, illustrators, and photographers.

Lighthouse's Book Project is a two-year program, by application, for writers finishing a novel, memoir, story collection, or narrative nonfiction book. Each writer works with a personal mentor. The Book Project Fellowship and the Nighthawk Nature Writing Fellowship cover part or all of tuition, and participants can take part virtually.

The Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University, publisher of Colorado Review, runs this annual prize for a poetry book manuscript. Poets need not live in Colorado or the United States. The Center publishes the winning book, and the University Press of Colorado distributes it.

University of Denver students can find grants and writing resources on this page.

Regis University students have the same kind of guide.

Colorado Christian University students have a page of their own.

Denver Bookbinding has been a family business since 1929, now in its fifth generation. It binds theses and magazines and restores old Bibles and books, with custom hand binding and leatherwork when a job calls for it. Visits are by appointment.