A Writer's Guide to Austin: Libraries, Bookstores, Writing Groups, and Presses

Austin Public Library's Central Library is open daily. Groups can request its Shared Learning Rooms. The building also has an Innovation Lab makerspace and a café, and it sits right on the Butler Hike and Bike Trail. Park underground, entering from West Avenue.

The Austin History Center, the library's local history archive, is in the Faulk Building. It is open Wednesday through Saturday afternoons. Guides to more than 1,700 archival collections are searchable in ArchivesSpace, and thousands of digitized photos and oral histories are online, including the Tribute to La Música Chicana Oral History Project.

Carver Branch has meeting rooms you can reserve on the branch's online calendar. It is closed Sundays.

The Ransom Center at UT opens its Reading Room to anyone researching its collections. Register at reception with a current photo ID and watch a short orientation on handling materials; bags go in lockers. The free galleries hold one of five complete U.S. copies of the Gutenberg Bible. They are closed Mondays.

Perry-Castañeda is UT's flagship research library. The UT Poetry Center is here, with the Ruth Stephan Poetry Collection, and so is a map collection of more than 250,000 maps. Visitors without a UT affiliation can use materials in the building during public hours. Guests who want to borrow need a courtesy borrower card.

BookPeople calls itself Texas' largest independent bookstore. It hosts author events in the store and at off-site venues, the Central Library among them, and runs about a dozen book clubs. CoffeePeople, its café, is inside.

First Light opened in 2023 in a former post office as a bookstore, coffee shop, and wine bar. Children's books are its largest section, and it also stocks art books and Texana. It hosts author events and book clubs. Members drink drip coffee free.

Melynda Nuss and José Skinner bought this small-press bookstore in 2022. It specializes in literature in translation and poetry, with micropress comics and zines on the shelves as well, and it runs eight book clubs.

Reverie sells new releases and used books in South Austin. It is open daily.

Birdhouse is a queer-, veteran-, and woman-owned bookstore centered on LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC authors and local writers. Its poetry evenings include open mics. The local authors book club meets with the author in the room, and the store also hosts readings and launch parties.

Livra specializes in used and rare books and also carries books in Spanish. It runs a Theory Night series and a book club.

Epoch's North Loop café stays open around the clock except Monday night. The room is big, with many tables and plenty of outlets. Two other Epoch cafés keep shorter hours.

Café Crème is the café inside the Central Library. It is a sunny room where laptops are welcome, and the stacks and meeting rooms are steps away.

Mozart's sits on Lake Austin and is open every day until midnight. Much of the seating is out on the waterfront patio, and the self-serve coffee and cold brew are bottomless. An indoor room called The Loft hosts small artistic showcases.

Cherrywood Coffeehouse is open every day from early morning into the evening and serves breakfast all day. It also hosts trivia nights and other neighborhood events.

Patrizi's Italian Kitchen serves dinner every day on the grounds of The VORTEX, a nonprofit repertory theater. Drinks come from the Butterfly Bar, which the VORTEX owns, and the proceeds support performing artists. The garden is a certified butterfly sanctuary with its own stage. The VORTEX also presents staged readings.

Scholz Garten is a German beer garden and restaurant on San Jacinto Boulevard, within walking distance of the Moody Center. Sit indoors or out in the BierGarten. On UT game days it hosts watch parties.

Radio serves coffee and beer every day, along with food. There is live music, and the patio is laid-back. The Writers' League of Texas holds its One Page Salon reading here, and The Infatuation calls Radio the land of laptops and literature. There are also East and Rosewood locations.

The Writers' League of Texas teaches classes online and in person and holds write-ins and salons. It also runs the Agents & Editors Conference and a Summer Writing Retreat. There is a Fellowship Program too.

Laura Bush founded the Texas Book Festival in 1995. Its free festival comes to downtown Austin each fall, centered on the Texas State Capitol, with author panels, signings, and book sales. The nonprofit also supports Texas public libraries.

American Short Fiction has published fiction since 1991. It teaches online master classes under the name MFA for All and gives fiction prizes. In Austin, look for its Story Sessions conversation series and the Field Day literary festival.

The Austin Poetry Society meets monthly on Zoom and gathers in person now and then around Austin. Many of its programs are free to the public. Members can enter its poetry contests, and anyone can read the Museletter, its monthly e-newsletter.

The Michener Center is UT Austin's fully funded three-year MFA in Writing, with fiction, poetry, playwriting, and screenwriting. Its public readings, by guest faculty and visiting authors, take place at the Texas Union Theater on campus.

The Ransom Center funds on-site research in its collections, from literature and photography to film and the performing arts. Postdoctoral fellowships go to PhD holders, unaffiliated scholars included, and doctoral students can apply for dissertation fellowships. Travel stipends are open to graduate students, faculty, and independent researchers such as journalists and artists.

The Humanities Institute calls itself the hub for humanities research at UT, connecting faculty, students, and staff. It helps researchers secure and manage funding, and it runs grant services and professional development.

Humanities Texas is the state humanities council, based in Austin. Its grants, from mini-grants to rural and exhibition grants, help communities across Texas build public programs in history and culture. It also runs professional development for Texas teachers of social studies and English language arts.

The Briscoe Center holds fourteen subject collections, among them Texas history and Western Americana. Researchers can use the reading room on weekdays or ask for reference help remotely. Its digital collections are online.

The University of Texas Press is the university press of UT Austin, publishing scholarly and general-interest books. Its current list runs from music and photography to Texas food culture and sports.

Host Publications, an Austin small press, was founded in 1988 to publish international literature in translation, including Pablo Neruda and Wisława Szymborska. Today it publishes poetry, fiction, and chapbooks by emerging LGBTQ+, BIPOC, intersectional feminist, and immigrant writers. It also runs a Chapbook Prize.

Research in Higher Education publishes empirical studies of postsecondary education, from student access and retention to faculty issues and higher education policy. It takes a particular interest in advanced quantitative methods. Its editor-in-chief, Lauren Schudde, is in UT Austin's Department of Educational Leadership and Policy. Preparing an article for Research in Higher Education

UT Austin's Dobie Paisano Fellowships give writers in any genre a residency at J. Frank Dobie's Paisano Ranch on Barton Creek, west of Austin. There are two: the Ralph A. Johnston Memorial Fellowship and the Spring Writing Fellowship, which asks for an established publishing record. Fellows live at the ranch full time on a monthly stipend.

The Texas Institute of Letters, founded in 1936 to celebrate Texas literature, gives annual awards in fourteen categories for books by writers with Texas roots. Its Jesse H. Jones Fellowship helps working writers at any career stage finish a work of fiction, poetry, or nonfiction.

The City of Austin's Arts, Culture, Music and Entertainment department makes grants to creatives based in the Austin-Round Rock metro area. Nexus is for emerging artists and organizations. Elevate funds individual artists as well as arts organizations and creative businesses. Work funded by either program must be open and advertised to the public in Austin.

The Texas Book Festival gives this annual award, formerly the Bookend Award, to a writer for outstanding contributions to Texas literature. The recipient is honored at a public session during the festival.

The Writers' League of Texas runs annual Book Awards and a Manuscript Contest for writers in its community.

Editors For Students keeps a guide to grants and writing resources for students at the University of Texas at Austin.

Editors For Students keeps the same guide for students at St. Edward's University.

Texas State University students have a guide of their own.

Researchers coming to work in the Briscoe Center's collections can apply for its Research Travel Awards. Graduate students can also apply for its Graduate Research Fellowship in American History.

The Austin Book Arts Center is a nonprofit, open by appointment. Its workshops in letterpress, bookbinding, and other book arts run in person and on Zoom. Qualified users can work on the equipment during Open Studio times.

PhD Bookbinding binds theses and dissertations in fabric or printed hardcover. It also produces perfect-bound softcovers for reports and short books. Upload files, or mail in printed copies.