A Writer's Guide to Exeter

Exeter Library is on Castle Street. The charity Libraries Unlimited runs it, and the wifi is free. Four of its spaces, among them the Pod and the Rougemont Room, can be hired through Libraries Unlimited room hire. The Owl and the Pussycat café is in the same building.

The Cathedral Library keeps the Exeter Book, a tenth-century manuscript of Old English poetry and riddles. It goes on display at sessions through the year, and scholars whose research needs the manuscript itself can request access. Research appointments run Monday to Friday. Book them in advance.

Special Collections holds the archives of Daphne du Maurier and Charles Causley, with Henry Williamson and Jack Clemo material as well. External readers work in the Ronald Duncan Reading Room by appointment. Register first, book at least 48 working hours ahead and bring photo ID. In term the reading room opens Tuesday to Friday.

The Devon Heritage Centre holds the archives of Devon and of the City of Exeter, along with the West Country Studies Library. Research visits run Tuesday to Thursday in two bookable sessions of ten places each. On your first visit, bring ID showing your name, current address and signature, such as a driving licence or utility bill, and you will be issued a four-year reader's ticket. The 4 and 4A buses from the city centre stop on Honiton Road in Sowton.

Bookbag, in McCoys Arcade, opened in 2020. It stocks poetry and zines as well as fiction and children's books, and it sells a book subscription box. The shop hosts launches and poetry nights and co-produces the Echoes festival. It is closed Mondays.

The Topsham Bookshop sells second-hand and antiquarian books on three floors of a 17th-century building in Topsham, an old port on the River Exe. It has been open for over twenty years. Modern first editions are a specialty, and so is twentieth-century poetry in first edition. It opens Monday to Saturday.

Book-Cycle began with this volunteer-run charity shop on West Street. Customers choose what to pay for up to three items a day. The proceeds send free books to children around the world.

The Writers' Room in the Custom House is free and has a writer's desk with a view over the Quayside. Book it by email at customhouse@literatureworks.org.uk with a contact name and number, the date and time you want and the size of your group. Opening days change from month to month. Quay Words, the programme Literature Works runs at the Custom House, has a writer-in-residence.

The Devon & Exeter Institution is an independent library and educational charity, established in 1813. Members use its early-nineteenth-century galleried libraries as a quiet place to read and write, and there is a members' book group. It opens Tuesday to Saturday. Tours run on Wednesday afternoons.

Exeter Phoenix is a multi-arts venue on Gandy Street. On Tuesday lunchtimes Raw Writing runs a free Silent Writing Club in its Meeting Room, and nobody needs to book; when the room fills, the rest write in the café bar. The vegetarian café bar takes walk-ups. It is closed Sundays except for events.

Boston Tea Party is in a Grade II listed Victorian building, with high ceilings on the first floor and large windows. The wifi is free. The café is walk-in only and says it welcomes people who work all day. It is open daily, and Book-Cycle keeps a shelf here.

The Turk's Head, on the High Street, says it has served customers for over 700 years. Local legend holds that Charles Dickens drank here and saw the model for the Fat Boy of The Pickwick Papers. Its in-house microbrewery makes Fat Boy IPA. Food is served daily.

The café is inside the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, which opened in 1868 with a free library and reading room. It serves paninis and cream teas. The museum is closed Mondays.

The Glorious Art Cafe has a courtyard garden and a rotating display of work by local artists. Its workshops include bookbinding, and it has hosted poetry nights. A Book-Cycle shelf is kept here too. The café is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Exeter City of Literature is the registered charity behind the city's UNESCO City of Literature designation, awarded in 2019. Writers can use its Author Pack of writing and publishing advice and join the Devon Writers Mailing List. It also lists creative opportunities, along with courses and retreats. Readers can join the Silent Book Club Exeter.

Literature Works is the regional literature development agency for South West England, and it is based in Exeter. Writers can join its Writers' Register and book an advice surgery. It also offers TLC Free Reads and a Writers' Academy, and it runs the Exeter Young City Laureate scheme.

Uncut Poets meets at Exeter Phoenix on the last Tuesday of the month. Chrissy Banks and Matt Bryden host. Published guest poets read, and poets can book an open-mic slot to read two or three of their own poems.

Word Kitchen is an East Devon community interest company that runs spoken-word events and writing workshops in Exeter, Budleigh Salterton and Sidmouth. Its prose events take place at Exeter Phoenix. Workshops run in person and online, and beginners are welcome alongside published authors. Its projects include the Power of Place anthology.

The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum is the University's public museum and research facility for the history of cinema and the moving image. It holds over 95,000 items, and Arts Council England has designated its collections as outstanding and of national importance. The galleries are free. Researchers book the study facilities, open on weekdays, through the University library guides.

The Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences hosts visiting scholars, normally full-time members of another university, for an agreed period. Its research centres include the Centre for Victorian Studies and the Centre for Literature and Archives.

Early-career researchers who want to hold a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship or a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at Exeter go through the University's internal expression-of-interest process. The Faculty's funding page sets out how it works.

The Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies is a department of the Faculty, housed in a purpose-built centre for Middle East and Islamic Studies. It keeps a digital bookcase and runs exhibitions and an events programme.

University of Exeter Press combines peer review with Open Access and electronic publishing. Its subject lists include folklore and South-West studies, and its book series include 1,000 Years of Cornish and Exeter New Approaches to Comics Studies.

David and Charles publishes illustrated craft and practical books. Its subjects include knitting and embroidery, and also folklore and witchcraft. Veloce and Verbena are its imprints.

The Journal of Roman Studies, the annual journal of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, publishes papers on Italy and the Roman Empire to about AD 700. Its editor, Neville Morley, is at the University of Exeter, as is its reviews editor, Rebecca Langlands. Preparing an article for Journal of Roman Studies

Arts Council England's Developing Your Creative Practice supports individual creative and cultural practitioners who want to take creative risks in their practice. It runs in rounds, so check the page for whether one is open.

The Royal Literary Fund gives grants to professional writers in financial difficulty through illness or changed circumstances. It also pays writers to hold Fellowships in UK universities, where they help students with academic writing.

Word Space is Literature Works' year-long talent development programme for emerging writers in South West England. It runs online, through mentoring and workshops. Bursaries are available.

The Exeter Novel Prize is an annual prize for unagented novelists, whether published, self-published or unpublished. Adult writers anywhere can enter in any genre except middle grade. Creative Writing Matters ran the prize for twelve years before handing it to Word Kitchen, and Exeter Writers supports its bursary places.

Exeter Writers, a group of authors in South West England, runs an annual short story competition with first, second and third prizes and a separate Devon Prize. The group's site publishes winning stories.

Editors For Students gathers grants and writing resources for University of Exeter students on one page.

Double Elephant is an open-access community printmaking studio at Exeter Phoenix, and some of its presses are over 100 years old. It offers membership. Its courses include linocut and screenprinting for beginners.

Print Services binds dissertations and theses. Staff and students can use it, and so can local businesses and the public. Jobs from outside the University should be discussed with the team first at printservices@exeter.ac.uk. It is open weekdays.