A Writer's Guide to Edinburgh
The National Library of Scotland and Edinburgh's Central Library are both on George IV Bridge, and the Scottish Poetry Library lends poetry from a close off the Canongate. Canongate Books and Birlinn publish from the city. Global Constitutionalism and the Journal of Global Health are both edited at the University of Edinburgh. Novelists on deadline and lecturers revising an article for one of those journals end up at the same reading-room desks.
Libraries · Bookstores · Places to Write · Places to Eat · Writing Community · Presses · Journals · Awards and Grants · Printing and Binding · When the Manuscript Is Ready
Libraries
Collect your National Library card in person, and book the university's Heritage Collections before you visit.
Central Library on George IV Bridge houses the Reference Library and the Edinburgh and Scottish Collection among its departments. There is a study space with public computers. Meeting rooms can be hired.
Stockbridge Library has a study area with free Wi-Fi and public computers. It runs book groups, and you register to join one. It is closed on Sundays.
Joining the National Library of Scotland is free; you collect your library card in person. The card gets you into the General Reading Room, with quiet seats for work, and the Special Collections Reading Room. Preorder books online before you come. The library has a café and is closed on Sundays.
The University of Edinburgh's Heritage Collections keep rare books and manuscripts on the sixth floor of the Main Library. Visits are by appointment, after you register through the Heritage Collections pages. Anyone researching the collections can use the enquiries service.
Independent Bookstores
Bruntsfield Place has two of these shops, at numbers 22 and 176. For second-hand and rare books, try McNaughtan's and Armchair.
Topping & Company is an independent bookshop at the top of Leith Walk, open into the evening every day. It holds author events through the year, so check the events page before a late visit.
Golden Hare Books has a wood-burning stove and shelves of booksellers' picks in fiction and non-fiction. It hosts author events and a book group. The shop is open daily.
Lighthouse is a queer-owned, woman-led community bookshop. It specialises in radical politics and feminism, and it also stocks poetry and translated fiction. Lighthouse runs the Book Fringe and Edinburgh's Radical Book Fair.
Typewronger Books is a not-for-profit bookshop and events space for fiction and poetry. It stays open late every day, and you are welcome to stay and read.
The Edinburgh Bookshop has been named Scottish Independent Bookshop of the Year five times. It runs book clubs and events, and it will order books in for you. It is open daily.
Rare Birds is a bookshop and monthly subscription book club devoted to women's writing.
McNaughtan's calls itself the oldest second-hand and antiquarian bookshop in Scotland. It sells old and rare books as well as second-hand ones. The shop is open seven days, and late on Thursdays.
Armchair Books buys and sells second-hand and antiquarian books on the West Port. It also sells through AbeBooks, and the shop is open daily.
Places to Write
If you want a desk for the whole day, The Melting Pot sells a day pass.
The Scottish Poetry Library offers free spaces for work and study beside its lending collection of poetry. You can borrow books here and hire a meeting room.
Artisan Roast's Leith Walk café seats 26 in a former funeral director's office. The café runs offline. Bring a notebook. Comedy nights and art workshops happen here too, and it is open daily.
The Melting Pot is a coworking centre on Calton Road that sells a Desk for a Day pass as well as memberships. It is open on weekdays.
Fortitude roasts its own seasonal coffee in Edinburgh. Its café at 66 Hamilton Place is on the same street as Stockbridge Library and opens daily during the day. The second café is at 4 Abbey Mount.
Places to Eat
The Elephant House is on George IV Bridge, the same street as the National Library and Central Library.
J.K. Rowling wrote in the back room of The Elephant House, which overlooks the castle. Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith were regulars. It is open daily.
The Haggis Box café is inside the Scottish Storytelling Centre on the Royal Mile. The centre is open daily, so check its storytelling programme when you stop to eat.
The café at Castle Mills shares the building with Edinburgh Printmakers' galleries and its print studio. The galleries are closed on Mondays.
Writing Community
Literary Organizations
Poets can borrow from the Scottish Poetry Library and join its Wild Writing sessions.
The Scottish Poetry Library is Scotland's national poetry library, in a close off the Canongate. You can become a borrower or put a question to a librarian. The library runs Wild Writing sessions and awards the Dymphna Bursary for poets.
Scottish Book Trust is a national literacy charity working through reading and writing. It supports writers through monthly competitions such as 50 Word Fiction and through its New Writers Awards. Its Live Literature programme funds author events across Scotland.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival is a charity that brings writers and thinkers together with audiences. Its events are held at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, just off Middle Meadow Walk. Almost 100 of them are available on demand.
The Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust is a Scottish charity based in John Knox House. It runs writer residencies, among them a Writers' Room residency at the Writers' Museum, and it posts resources and opportunities for writers.
The Scottish Storytelling Centre programmes live storytelling and theatre year-round. It hosts the Scottish International Storytelling Festival with TRACS, which runs its national work from the building. Writers can hire the venue for a book launch.
For Faculty and Researchers
For maps, go to the National Library's Maps Reading Room at Causewayside.
IASH gives humanities and social science scholars time and space for research at the University of Edinburgh. It hosts more than 60 fellows a year, from early-career postdoctoral fellows to senior scholars, and its IASH-Traverse fellowship is for playwrights. Fellows present their work at weekly work-in-progress seminars.
Edinburgh Diamond is the University of Edinburgh Library's publishing service for Diamond Open Access books and journals. The university's own academics and students lead it. Its pages include publishing guides and a proposal form.
Researchers at the National Library of Scotland can search the main catalogue alongside its archives and manuscripts. Maps are read in the Maps Reading Room at Causewayside. The library also keeps a Moving Image Archive.
Presses in Edinburgh
Canongate is an independent publisher with an eclectic list that includes Alasdair Gray's Lanark and Yann Martel's Life of Pi. Its head office is on the High Street in Edinburgh. A second office is in London.
Birlinn publishes fiction and non-fiction, from crime and poetry to history and memoir. Polygon is one of its imprints, and John Donald is another.
Journals Edited in Edinburgh
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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.
Read each journal's author guidelines and a recent issue before you shape an article for it.
Global Constitutionalism is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed Cambridge University Press journal on constitutional principles of political order at the global scale, including their foundations and their limits. The journal is based at the University of Edinburgh, where Jo Shaw, listed first among its editors, works. Preparing an article for Global Constitutionalism
The Journal of Global Health is a peer-reviewed open-access journal on global health, with practice guidelines for health issues in the developed and developing world. Its co-editors-in-chief, Igor Rudan and Harry Campbell, are at the University of Edinburgh's Usher Institute. Preparing an article for Journal of Global Health
Review of International Studies publishes theoretically informed, empirically grounded, and methodologically careful research on global politics, including interdisciplinary work, from contributors across a global community. Its lead editors are at the University of Edinburgh, South Asian University, and the Australian National University, with the editorial manager at Edinburgh, and it is published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the British International Studies Association. Preparing an article for Review of International Studies
Awards, Grants, and Fellowships
For Scottish Writers
Emerging writers over 40 should look at the Next Chapter Award.
Creative Scotland's Open Fund for Individuals is for freelance and self-employed creative practitioners, writers among them, who live in Scotland and are 18 or over. It can fund a specific project or a period of creative work.
Scottish Book Trust's New Writers Awards are a development programme for emerging writers who have yet to publish a full-length work. Each awardee receives a cash award and mentoring. The Gaelic awards are run with the Gaelic Books Council.
The Next Chapter Award is Scottish Book Trust's award for Scotland-based emerging writers over 40. It comes with a cash award and mentoring. The writer's work is also showcased to publishers and agents.
The Saltire Society gives Scotland's National Book Awards each year. Its categories include Book of the Year and Research, and the fiction and poetry categories each carry a debut award.
The University of Edinburgh runs the James Tait Black Prizes, which it calls Britain's oldest literary awards. Scholars and students judge them. One prize goes to fiction and one to biography.
For Students and Researchers
University of Edinburgh students can find scholarships and writing prizes on our sister site, Editors For Students.
Editors For Students gathers grants and writing resources for University of Edinburgh students on one page.
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 Edinburgh are listed below.
Students binding a University of Edinburgh thesis can order from the Central Copy Centre on Infirmary Street.
Edinburgh Printmakers calls itself the UK's first open-access print studio. Anyone can join as a member or book a course.
Typewronger Riso is the risograph print studio of the Typewronger community interest company, run alongside its bookshop. It also teaches workshops.
The Central Copy Centre prints theses and dissertations to University of Edinburgh specifications. You can choose a hard-back binding with gold foil lettering or a soft-back one. Commercial and private customers can order here too.
Mail Boxes Etc. in Morningside binds theses in library-standard hardback, with foil-blocked titles if you want them. It also offers softback binding and a same-day service.
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.
- Crafting a Book Proposal That Academic Publishers Cannot Ignore
- De-Dissertationizing Your Prose: Stripping Away Academic Language for a Broader Audience
- Condensing 200 Pages Into 25: Strategies for Extracting a Journal Article from a Dissertation
- Tracking Source Material: Best Practices for Archival Citations in History and Humanities
- Table and Figure Design: Presenting Complex Data for Maximum Clarity
Compiled by James Peterson Brown, PhD, Off the Grid Editing. Places and links checked November 2026.
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