A Writer's Guide to Binghamton

Broome County Public Library on Court Street belongs to the Four County Library System. Its Local History and Genealogy Center keeps its own hours. Talks are held in the Decker Room, and work by local artists hangs throughout the building.

Special Collections holds rare books, manuscripts and archives from the fourteenth century to the present, and researchers from outside the university are welcome. Poetry and the history of books and printing are among its collecting strengths. You can work with pencils and a laptop in the reading room. Phone photos are allowed for personal use, without flash.

Your Home Public Library serves Johnson City, the village next to Binghamton's West Side. Its Book Discussion Group meets on the second Tuesday of each month, free and open to anyone.

Riot Act Books is a volunteer-run antifascist and anticapitalist bookstore on Main Street. It opened in October 2020 and puts its income into new titles and running costs. With PM Press, it co-organizes the annual Upstate Anarchist Bookfair.

Spellbound Books is a bookstore café in Owego, about 22 miles west of Binghamton along the Susquehanna, with a folk and fairy-tale theme. It hosts author readings and book launches. Writers' meetups gather there too, and the store sells used books and runs a buy-back program.

Strange Brew Cafe is a downtown coffeehouse where laptops are welcome and Wi-Fi is available. Seating is limited, and it is often busy.

The Coffee Bar sits inside Old Barn Market, a downtown market stocked mostly from local farms and artisans, with a 100 percent gluten-free bakery. There is plenty of seating and Wi-Fi. It closes Mondays.

Two Binghamton natives back from New York City opened Lost Dog Cafe & Lounge in 1994. Since 1997 it has occupied a former cigar factory on Water Street, built out to host bands and hang art. Poets and writers have appeared there over the years, along with musicians and activists. Live music and trivia nights are on the calendar.

The Annex is the Bundy Museum's performance space behind the museum, and its Carriage House Tavern serves food and drinks at shows. It books concerts and film nights. Karaoke runs on Sundays.

WordPlace is the Bundy Museum of History and Art's home for writing, with workshops and readings. Its Poetry Open Mic is hosted by the museum's poet in residence. Readers get five to seven minutes. Prose and spoken word are welcome alongside poems.

The Binghamton Center for Writers is a SUNY research center tied to the university's Creative Writing Program. Its Distinguished Writers Series brings authors from the United States and abroad to read, and the Common Ground series features graduate and undergraduate writers. Students learn publishing on the literary journal Harpur Palate. The Center also keeps the Secret Poetry Room in Bartle Library, a quiet room where students write, made possible by the alumna and author Molly Peacock.

The Binghamton Writers Project, formerly the Binghamton Poetry Project, offers free public workshops in creative reading and writing for youth and adults. Creative writing graduate students take leading roles in it.

The Triple-A Reading Series is a free series at Artisan Gallery presented with Midway Journal. Each event pairs a local author and a Binghamton University creative writing student with a featured author from Upstate New York or New York City. Questions and a book signing take the second hour.

Binghamton's Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities supports faculty and graduate students in the humanities through fellowships and public programs. Faculty finishing a monograph can apply to its Book Manuscript Review Workshop. Faculty from other institutions can apply for its Visiting Faculty Fellowships, which are unfunded.

The ORB is Binghamton University Libraries' open-access repository for scholarly and creative work, from faculty and student research to dissertations and theses. It also hosts open-access journals and monographs.

Humanities New York is the state's humanities council, and it funds and partners with organizations across New York. Its free public programs include Community Conversations and the Humanities Unbound reading and discussion programs.

Nursing Science Quarterly is a peer-reviewed Sage journal that publishes original work on nursing theory development and theory-based practice, along with quantitative and qualitative research grounded in nursing frameworks. Its editor-in-chief is dean of Binghamton University's Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Preparing an article for Nursing Science Quarterly

The Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care is the open-access, peer-reviewed journal of the Rural Nurse Organization. It publishes research on rural health and nursing, including education, practice and policy. Binghamton University Libraries host the journal, and its editor-in-chief is at the Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Preparing an article for the Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care

The New York Foundation for the Arts gives these unrestricted fellowships, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts. They go to originating artists who live in New York State or a Tribal Nation within it and are not enrolled in a degree program. Poetry and nonfiction share one year of the three-year rotation of disciplines, and fiction comes up in another. Residents outside the New York City metro area get priority.

Support for Artists funds new, artist-initiated work by New York State artists at any career stage, and literature is one of its disciplines. A New York State nonprofit sponsors each application and receives the grant on the artist's behalf.

Earlville Opera House administers these NYSCA-funded grants for Broome County and its neighbors. Individual Artist Grants support a new work with a community engagement component. Community Arts Grants go to local nonprofits and groups, and an individual artist can apply with a local nonprofit partner.

The Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts offers juried residencies with stipends in Ithaca, mostly from late May through October. Poets and fiction writers apply alongside visual artists, and all must live year-round in New York State or the Indian Nations within it. Artist and writer parents and caregivers can apply for short residencies. There is no application fee.

Print Solutions is the university's print shop, and it says it serves the local area as well as the campus. It prints digital color and black-and-white work up to 12 by 18 inches, along with large-format posters and banners. It also binds and laminates. Orders can go through its online storefront.