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

The Central Library on Copley Square is the largest location in the Boston Public Library system, and you can reserve its community spaces. Rare books and manuscripts, among them a Shakespeare First Folio and John Adams's personal library, are read in the Special Collections Reading Room. Researchers need an appointment, Wednesday through Friday, booked through readingroom.bpl.org.

Cambridge's main library is open every day, with afternoon hours on Sunday, and you can book its rooms. The Cambridge Room offers archival and genealogy services. Harvard Book Store holds some of its author talks here.

The Athenaeum is a membership library. A day pass or an annual membership opens all 12 floors, including the reading room and the fifth-floor terrace. Its Special Collections hold more than 200,000 rare items, George Washington's personal library among them, and anyone can book a free research appointment to see them. It is closed Sundays.

Houghton is Harvard's rare book and manuscript library, open to all researchers whatever their affiliation. Request materials ahead through HOLLIS Special Request; appointments are recommended. Poets will want the Emily Dickinson Collection, and playwrights the Harvard Theatre Collection.

The Schlesinger Library is open to all and documents the history of women and gender in the United States. Biographers can start with its family papers. Food writers will find cookbooks in its culinary history holdings.

The Massachusetts Historical Society runs a research library that is free and open to the public. Register as a researcher and book your visit through Portal 1791. It is closed Sundays.

Harvard Book Store has been locally owned and independently run since 1932, selling new and used books. It buys used books too. Its author events are held in the store and at the Brattle Theatre and Cambridge Public Library.

The Grolier calls itself the oldest continuously operated bookshop devoted solely to poetry. It hosts readings and closes on most federal holidays.

Porter Square Books has been in Lesley University's University Hall since 2024, with café seating and a larger events area. Senior staff have owned half the store since 2018. Besides frequent readings, it holds Writer's Hour and silent reading parties. Its Boston Edition shares GrubStreet's building in the Seaport.

Brattle Book Shop has sold used and antiquarian books since 1825. General used books fill two floors, rare and antiquarian books fill the third, and an outdoor lot holds sale books in season. It is closed Sundays and buys books by appointment.

Trident is a bookstore and café on Newbury Street, open daily from early morning to late evening. It hosts author events.

Workers and customers own Rozzie Bound together as a cooperative. It hosts author talks and is closed Sundays and Mondays.

Papercuts is an independent, woman-owned neighborhood bookstore in Jamaica Plain, open since 2014.

The Writers' Room is a workspace for writers, open around the clock every day of the year, and you join by application. Members get writing groups and feedback on their work. The Room says no serious author is turned away for financial reasons.

GrubStreet teaches its in-person classes at this Seaport center, which is open weekdays. Porter Square Books' Boston Edition is in the same building.

Page & Leaf sits beside Porter Square Books on Lesley's campus, with seating among the bookshelves. The founders of Somerville's Diesel Cafe and Bloc Cafe run it.

1369 Coffee House has cafés in Central and Inman Squares, both open daily from morning to mid-afternoon. Dead Darlings recommended the Central Square location to writers and noted its many outlets.

Ula is in Jamaica Plain's Brewery Complex and opens every day. It has a patio and local art on the walls. BosToday lists it among the city's laptop-friendly cafés.

DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley founded the literary magazine Ploughshares at this Irish pub in 1971. It serves brunch through dinner, with live music most nights.

Club Passim, a nonprofit music club in Harvard Square, has live music seven nights a week. Its kitchen opens with the doors and serves through the first half of each show.

Charles Dickens and Ralph Waldo Emerson dined here as members of the Saturday Club. The restaurant serves three meals a day, and on Sundays dinner moves to Parker's Bar.

Café G serves a seasonal menu inside the Gardner Museum. You need museum admission or a dining-only hand stamp from the lobby. It is closed Tuesdays.

GrubStreet teaches online and in person, from single-day seminars to year-long intensives. Writers with a draft in hand can look at Draft Feedback and Manuscript Mart. It also runs programs for teens and for writers of color, along with Ask a Writer mentorship.

The free Boston Book Festival brings authors and an exhibit to Copley Square. Its community programs include BBF Unbound and Shelf Help.

Mass Poetry runs the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and the U35 Reading Series. Its statewide poetry calendar lists readings near you.

The Woodberry Poetry Room, in Room 330 of Lamont Library, holds more than 6,000 literary recordings along with poetry books and literary magazines. Bring a photo ID. Its readings and seminars are free during the academic year, and most are live-streamed.

The Athenaeum's circulating collection runs to about 500,000 books. It hosts discussion groups and events and offers research fellowships.

The Radcliffe Fellowship supports 50 fellows a year: scholars, artists, and public intellectuals at different stages of their careers. Each works on an individual project, which can be a book, while drawing on the Harvard community.

The Mahindra Humanities Center sponsors thirty seminars that meet monthly, on subjects from opera to Buddhism. Most sessions bring in a guest speaker and then open for discussion. Past events are archived online.

BU faculty can apply to the Center for the Humanities for research fellowships and project grants. It runs the Lectures in Criticism series and celebrates faculty publications each year.

The Historical Society awards more than 20 short-term research fellowships a year to advanced graduate students and to scholars who have finished their professional training. With the Boston Athenaeum, it also offers the Loring Fellowship on the Civil War.

Mass Humanities is the Massachusetts affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its grants go to nonprofits and other organizations for humanities projects, and it runs statewide programs such as Reading Frederick Douglass Together and the Clemente Course in the Humanities.

The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and publishes scholarly books and journals. Its bookstore is down the street at 314 Main Street. Preparing a manuscript for the MIT Press

Harvard University Press publishes for general and scholarly readers in history, philosophy, politics, and science. The Loeb Classical Library and the Murty Classical Library of India are among its classics in translation. Preparing a manuscript for Harvard University Press

Harvard Education Press is based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Its books are written for teachers, school leaders, and people who work in education policy. Preparing a manuscript for Harvard Education Press

Beacon Press is a nonprofit publisher that works under the auspices of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Its nonfiction list includes history, politics, religion, and memoir, and it publishes the National Poetry Series. Preparing a manuscript for Beacon Press

Jones & Bartlett Learning publishes print and digital instructional materials for nursing, public health, criminal justice, and other professional fields. It is in Burlington, northwest of Boston. Preparing a manuscript for Jones & Bartlett Learning

David R. Godine founded this small independent publisher in Boston in 1970. Its list runs from fiction and poetry to memoir and cookbooks, under imprints that include Black Sparrow Press and Nonpareil Books.

Sigma's bimonthly journal publishes peer-reviewed research and perspectives on clinical practice, nursing education, health policy, and the nursing workforce. Its editor, Susan Gennaro, is at Boston College's Connell School of Nursing in Chestnut Hill. Preparing an article for the Journal of Nursing Scholarship

The Infusion Nurses Society's bimonthly journal covers clinical best practice, case studies, and policy in infusion nursing. Its editorial office is at the Society in Norwood. Preparing an article for the Journal of Infusion Nursing

Health Services Research publishes original research on how health services are financed, organized, and delivered. Editor-in-chief Austin Frakt is at the Boston University School of Public Health and VA Boston Healthcare System. Preparing an article for Health Services Research

The Journal of Patient Safety publishes research and field applications in patient safety, including system changes that act as barriers to error. Its editor, David W. Bates, is at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Preparing an article for the Journal of Patient Safety

Child Welfare was founded in 1922 and publishes peer-reviewed work that links research on children and families with practice and policy. The Child Welfare League of America publishes it, and editor-in-chief Lenette Azzi-Lessing is a clinical professor of social work at Boston University. Preparing an article for Child Welfare

Harvard Business Review publishes ideas and advice on strategy, innovation, and leadership. It is edited at Harvard Business Publishing in Brighton, and Amy Bernstein is editor-in-chief. Preparing an article for Harvard Business Review

This journal publishes research on preparing educators who serve children, youth, and adults with disabilities and their families, from qualitative studies to policy analyses. Elizabeth Bettini of Boston University is the first-listed of its co-editors. Preparing an article for Teacher Education and Special Education

Mass Cultural Council's Grants for Creative Individuals are unrestricted, and creative writers of every genre can apply. Applicants must be full-year Massachusetts residents and at least 18. The program replaced the Council's earlier grants for individual artists.

The Massachusetts Center for the Book honors books written, illustrated, or translated by current Massachusetts residents. Poetry and translated literature have their own categories, as do books for children and young adults.

The Boston Authors Club, founded in 1899, gives these annual awards in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and books for young readers. Authors must live or work within 100 miles of Boston. Publishers submit the titles; self-published books are ineligible.

The Emerging Writer Fellowship gives writers with financial need a year of tuition-free GrubStreet courses and seminars, along with membership. Writers 18 and up in any genre can apply, with or without a degree, and priority goes to those who can take part in Boston.

This page lists Harvard's research fellowships and writing prizes, along with its campus writing centers.

MIT students get the same kind of guide here.

Boston University's page covers grants and campus writing resources.

Boston College students can start here for grants and writing support.

This guide covers Northeastern University.

Tufts students will find their school's grants and writing resources here.

Suffolk University has its own page.

Lesley University's page lists its grants and writing resources.

This page covers the University of Massachusetts Boston.

North Bennet Street School teaches bookbinding in a two-year, full-time diploma program. Its weekend community workshops are shorter, with sessions such as Bookbinding 101 and Medieval Long and Link Stitch Bindings.

The Harcourt Bindery has bound books by hand since 1900 and describes itself as the largest bindery in the country devoted only to fine hand bookbinding. It takes single books and editions in leather, cloth, or paper. It also makes slipcases and custom clamshell boxes.

Reflex Letterpress prints with antique lead type on old hand-pulled presses, and its broadsides and invitations go on rag papers. It teaches type classes and rents press time by the hour. The studio is open by appointment.

Artisan's Asylum is a nonprofit makerspace with memberships, day passes, and a screen printing shop. Its class calendar has included bookbinding workshops.