A Writer's Guide to Boca Raton

The Downtown Library is one of the city's two branches, and it is open daily. Poets read here in the Versed in Verse – Poets on the Fringe series. The calendar also carries book talks on nonfiction and biography.

Spanish River, the city's other branch, is also open daily. Its reading programs include Adventures in Reading and a teen book club. Art exhibitions rotate through the building.

Wimberly is FAU's main library. Community members can join the Community Borrowers or Community Researchers program for limited borrowing. Bring a photo ID to register; you will also need a local mailing address and an email address. The bookable group study rooms on the third floor are reserved for FAU students and employees. The Jaffe Center for Book Arts shares that floor.

Special Collections holds rare books and manuscripts along with the University Archives. Its named collections include the Larkin American Presidential Study and the Weiner Spirit of America Collection, and music researchers will find the Recorded Sound Archives and print sheet music. Research is by appointment, Monday through Friday. Search the finding aids first, then send the Research Request Form.

Delray Beach's library is about six miles north of downtown Boca Raton. Its quiet study rooms on the second floor are free with a library card. Call at least a day ahead to reserve one, or sign up for standby at the second-floor Reference Desk. The events calendar lists a Saturday Writers Studio, and the library rents meeting rooms.

Bookwise is a family-owned shop for used and rare books, with comfortable chairs and cozy nooks for browsing. It also buys books. The store is closed Sundays.

Volunteers run this nonprofit used bookstore in the Downtown Library's lobby, and its sales support the library. Fiction and nonfiction fill most of the shelves, and classics and vintage titles have a section of their own. Look for the Gems section of special books by the entrance. It is closed Mondays.

Murder on the Beach specializes in mysteries and thrillers. It sells new and used books, and it bills itself as the leader in signed books by Florida authors. For larger signings, the central shelves roll aside to make room for seating.

Pyramid Books is a Black-owned and veteran-owned independent bookstore that specializes in literature by and about the African diaspora. Rare and hard-to-find titles turn up in its stock. The store supports local and emerging authors. It also hosts a Sankofa Study Group, and its website sells books online.

The Dancing Elephant, about 20 miles north of downtown Boca Raton, calls itself a metaphysical bookstore. It specializes in philosophy and world religions, with shelves for Jungian psychology and mythology as well. Crystals share the floor. It is closed Mondays.

Third Place calls itself a community space, and it suits working or relaxing. Free Wi-Fi and plenty of outlets keep a laptop going. Seating runs indoors and out. The café hosts open mic nights and book clubs.

Mane is a large café with standing desks and an outdoor patio. Atly lists it among Boca Raton's best work-friendly spots. It is open daily.

Carmela's café on the Boca Raton Innovation Campus is set up for study sessions and meetings. Atly describes the room as quiet and spacious. There is an outdoor patio.

Carmela describes its Uptown Boca café as a modern, urban room suited to remote work and meetings. It is the west-side choice, on Glades Road.

The Cornell Café overlooks the Japanese gardens at the Morikami Museum, about seven miles north of downtown Boca Raton. Tables sit on open-air terraces, and there is an air-conditioned area. The Pan-Asian lunch menu runs to bento boxes and sushi. Seating is first come, first served, and non-members pay museum admission. The café is closed Mondays.

The Funky Biscuit is a live music venue with a full restaurant menu. Blues and jazz share the calendar with soul and funk, and there are shows most nights.

Arts Garage has a main theatre and a bar. Two galleries share the building. Its Spoken Word Open Mic meets on the third Tuesday of each month, and poets and storytellers each get three to five minutes for original work; songwriters can bring lyrics. Sign up in person.

Off the Page is FAU's free series of events for readers and writers. The MFA program also runs eight-week community workshops that meet one evening a week, and the genre changes by semester. Senior MFA students teach them. Writers at any level can enroll.

Festival of the Arts BOCA comes to Boca Raton each March, with Mizner Park Amphitheater as its main site. Its Authors & Ideas program brings writers and thinkers to speak, and each year one or more of them visit area schools. Festival venues also include the Boca Raton Library and FAU's Carole and Barry Kaye Performing Arts Auditorium.

The Boca Raton Branch of the National League of American Pen Women brings together women in the arts. Members work in writing and publishing as well as the visual arts and music. Monthly program luncheons run from November through April, and members and the public can attend the branch's writing workshops and book talks. Its Achievement Awards give money to Palm Beach County high school seniors and college students headed for careers in the arts.

The Jaffe Center studies and teaches the book as contemporary art. Its collection of artists' books and fine bindings includes the Arthur J. Williams Pop-Up Book Collection and an archive of Italian Futurism. The center is on the third floor of Wimberly Library.

FAU Libraries helps faculty choose a publisher and avoid deceptive ones. Its guides also cover public access mandates and copyright, and they explain how to share data and preprints through repositories. Instructors can embed its teaching materials on scholarly publishing in a Canvas course.

Philosopher Richard Shusterman directs this interdisciplinary center for research and teaching on the body-mind-culture nexus. It holds conferences and colloquia. Doctoral students can apply for its Dorothy F. Schmidt Doctoral Fellowship in Somaesthetics.

Florida Humanities is a nonprofit in St. Petersburg with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its Public Humanities Program Grants and Book Festival Grants fund public programs at libraries and museums. It also runs the Florida Center for the Book and publishes FORUM magazine.

CRC Press is a Taylor & Francis imprint, and Taylor & Francis lists its Boca Raton office under the CRC Press name. The group's brands cover the sciences and medicine as well as the humanities and social sciences.

Journal of Big Data is an open access journal for research on data science and big data analytics. Survey papers and case studies are considered alongside original research. Both editors-in-chief are at Florida Atlantic University. Preparing an article for Journal of Big Data

Multimedia Tools and Applications publishes research on multimedia systems, from images and video to extended reality and digital twins. It gives particular attention to work driven by AI and machine learning. Editor-in-chief Borko Furht is in FAU's Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Preparing an article for Multimedia Tools and Applications

The Cultural Council for Palm Beach County awards these competitive fellowships to professional artists based in the county, in any discipline, and it names poets among those it encourages to apply. The money is unrestricted. Fellows can put it toward research or a new creative direction.

Florida State University Libraries coordinates the Florida Book Awards in eleven categories, from poetry and general fiction to cooking and Spanish-language books. Authors must be full-time Florida residents. In three categories, Florida nonfiction among them, a Florida subject takes the place of residency.

Miami Book Fair at Miami Dade College gives year-long fellowships to unpublished writers finishing a book-length project. Fellows receive a stipend and mentorship from established authors. The prose track takes fiction or nonfiction, and the Mindich Fellowship is for Jewish fiction.

The Cultural Council gives this unrestricted prize each year to an established woman artist with a proven track record. It goes to an artist at an inflection point in her career.

Editors For Students keeps a guide to grants and writing support for Florida Atlantic University students.

Nova Southeastern students have a guide of their own on the same site.

Palm Beach Atlantic University students can find their school's grants and writing resources here.

The Jaffe Center serves the general public along with the university. Its hands-on study covers letterpress printing and hand papermaking, along with bookbinding and book structures.

Minuteman Press prints booklets and catalogs in virtually any size and takes a job from concept to finished piece. If your print file has problems, its designers can fix it.