A Writer's Guide to Blacksburg, Virginia
Blacksburg's book life centers on South Main Street, where Blacksburg Books hosts author talks and a monthly MFA Salon for Virginia Tech's MFA writers. On campus, Newman Library holds Special Collections and University Archives, home to the International Archive of Women in Architecture. The English department's Visiting Writers Series holds craft talks there too. Novelists and poets work at its tables beside faculty revising articles for Administration & Society, a journal edited at Virginia Tech.
Libraries · Bookstores · Places to Write · Places to Eat · Writing Community · Journal · Awards and Grants · Printing and Binding · When the Manuscript Is Ready
Libraries
Virginia residents can borrow from Newman Library on campus. For Special Collections, request material from off-site storage at least two business days before your visit.
The Blacksburg Library is the town's branch of the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library, a short walk from Main Street. Study groups and community groups can reserve its meeting room online. Local-history researchers can search its digital archive of Montgomery County newspapers. The regional system also hosts talks by visiting authors.
The Christiansburg Library is the regional system's branch in the county seat, about 8 miles south of Blacksburg. Study groups and nonprofits can book its meeting rooms online. It has the same Montgomery County newspaper archive.
Newman is Virginia Tech's main library, on the Drillfield, with study spaces for individuals and groups and a set of creation studios. Virginia residents may borrow. Visitors can search the databases from inside the building and use guest Wi-Fi, while Virginia Tech students and staff get priority at the library computers.
Special Collections and University Archives keeps manuscripts and rare books on the first floor of Newman Library. Its strengths include the International Archive of Women in Architecture and a culinary history collection. The reading room is open weekdays. Appointments are encouraged. Search the finding aids through ARVAS (Archival Resources of the Virginias) before you come.
Independent Bookstores
Old New River Books is in Christiansburg, so plan it as its own trip.
Blacksburg Books is an independent bookstore downtown that sells new and used books, and you can trade in used books for store credit. Virginia Tech MFA writers read poetry and prose at its monthly MFA Salon. Anyone can drop in to the poetry open mic. The store also hosts author talks, and its book clubs meet at Moon Hollow Brewing. Park around back.
Old New River Books sells used and rare books. It specializes in out-of-print scholarly titles, and its strengths include Appalachian books and Virginiana. The shop takes up the first floor of Cambria Station Antiques, a three-story railroad freight warehouse in historic downtown Cambria. Book clubs can meet there at no charge. The store also holds potluck swap nights.
Places to Write
Mill Mountain Coffee & Tea roasts its own coffee and serves breakfast and lunch made to order. Local art hangs on the walls. It is open daily.
Places to Eat
Moon Hollow Brewing is a taproom on Prices Fork Road with a patio and garden. On weekend mornings its coffee bar serves house-made pastries. Blacksburg Books holds its monthly book clubs here, a banned-book club among them, along with an annual book fair.
Writing Community
Literary Organizations
Valley Writers meets on Zoom, so you can bring pages to its critique sessions from home.
Virginia Tech's Department of English brings visiting writers to campus through this series, which includes craft talks in Newman Library. Admission is free.
Valley Writers is the Roanoke Valley chapter of the Virginia Writers Club, and it draws members from five counties, Montgomery among them. The chapter meets on Zoom on the first and third Thursdays as an open critique group for poets and prose writers. It holds craft workshops now and then. The statewide club runs the Golden Nib contest and an annual symposium.
For Faculty and Researchers
Virginia Tech humanities faculty can apply to the Center for Humanities for a summer stipend.
The Center for Humanities, in Virginia Tech's College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, supports humanities work across disciplines. It awards Humanities Summer Stipends and backs faculty working groups. Write On! is its monthly writing retreat for faculty and students on humanities projects. Public programs include Books at the Brewery and Humanities Week.
Virginia Tech Publishing is the University Libraries' open access publisher. It publishes books and edited volumes with campus partners and hosts open access journals across disciplines. Everything it publishes is free to read online, and authors generally publish at no charge. In Newman Library it runs the Athenaeum, a digital humanities space.
Virginia Humanities is the state humanities council, based in Charlottesville. It makes grants to nonprofit cultural organizations. Its Virginia Center for the Book presents the Virginia Festival of the Book.
A Journal Edited in Blacksburg
Our Promise
We will ensure that the final draft you receive from us is completely ready to publish or submit. We work with you until it is ready or refund your payment in full.
Check the journal's author guidelines for citation style before you submit.
Administration & Society is a peer-reviewed Sage journal that seeks to further the understanding of public and human service organizations and their administrative processes. Its editor, Karen Hult, is at Virginia Tech. So is its managing editor. Preparing an article for Administration & Society
Awards, Grants, and Fellowships
For Virginia Writers
If your book is about Virginia's history or culture, read the Virginia Humanities fellowship guidelines first.
The Library of Virginia gives these annual awards to books by Virginia authors. Nonfiction about a Virginia subject also qualifies, whoever wrote it. Independent judging panels choose the winners, who are honored at a gala in Richmond. Readers vote for the People's Choice Awards.
Virginia Humanities opens these fellowships to writers and to scholars inside or outside a university. Fellows receive funding and institutional support for public projects on Virginia's history and culture, books among them. The Rosel Schewel Fellowship supports projects on Virginia women.
The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts runs an artist residency at Mt. San Angelo, near Amherst, Virginia. Each writer gets a private bedroom and studio and shares meals with artists in other disciplines. Fellows are chosen by peer review. Some fellowships are fully funded, and financial assistance is available throughout the year.
The Poetry Society of Virginia runs this annual contest for adult poets. Many of its named categories are open to poets anywhere, and others are reserved for PSV members who live in Virginia or study there full-time. The society also gives the North American Poetry Book Award and holds monthly Virginia Voices readings on Zoom.
The governor appoints Virginia's poet laureate. The Virginia Commission for the Arts lists the post among its initiatives.
For Students and Researchers
Virginia Tech and Radford students will find grants and campus writing help on our sister site, Editors For Students.
This page gathers grants and writing resources for Virginia Tech students and researchers.
Radford University is about 15 miles southwest of Blacksburg. This page collects grants and writing resources for its students.
Printing and Binding
Off the Grid Editing offers book printing and binding at competitive rates. We handle layout, cover design, and print-ready files once your manuscript is edited. See our book publishing and printing services. Local printers and binders in Blacksburg, Virginia are listed below.
This independently owned franchise makes copies and does coil binding. Virginia Tech's University Libraries point students here for thesis binding. ProQuest offers hardcover and softcover binding for dissertations.
Radford University Printing Services is the university's print shop, about 15 miles southwest of Blacksburg, and it serves the surrounding community as well as the campus. It prints complete documents and publications along with wide-format display graphics.
When the Manuscript Is Ready
Off the Grid Editing has edited books and scholarship since 2002.
Publishing Scholarship
For a monograph, an edited collection, or a revised dissertation headed to a university press: dissertation to book editing, our guides to academic press requirements, English language editing for researchers, and journal article editing.
Publishing Fiction, Memoir, and Poetry
For a novel, a story collection, a memoir, or a book of poems: fiction and creative nonfiction editing, memoir and biography editing, developmental editing, and our guides to trade and literary publishers.
Every manuscript can also go through copy editing, line editing, or proofreading. The book editing services page compares all four levels.
- Condensing 200 Pages Into 25: Strategies for Extracting a Journal Article from a Dissertation
- Writing for the Peer Reviewer: Anticipating and Addressing Methodological Criticisms
- Crafting a Book Proposal That Academic Publishers Cannot Ignore
- Tracking Source Material: Best Practices for Archival Citations in History and Humanities
- The Art of the Academic Abstract
Compiled by James Peterson Brown, PhD, Off the Grid Editing. Places and links checked November 2026.
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