A Writer's Guide to Fort Collins

Old Town Library is the Poudre Libraries branch in Library Park, with meeting and study rooms and a 3D printer. The Friends of the Library run the Old Town Nook inside. It is open daily, with evening hours Monday through Thursday.

Poudre Libraries shares Harmony Library with Front Range Community College's Larimer Campus. Along with meeting and study rooms, it has a Business & Nonprofit Center and document scanning. Between drafts, browse the Friends' Harmony Book Shop or get a coffee from Malegría Coffee Roasters. It is open daily.

At Morgan Library, Colorado residents 18 and over and CSU alumni can get a community borrower card to check out books and use the public computers. The library's databases and full-text journals are open to card holders on site.

The special collections are strongest in Vietnam War literature and feminist presses. Papers on Colorado's water and agriculture sit alongside the University Archive and manuscripts from Northern Colorado.

Old Firehouse Books started in 1980 as a paperback bookstore and now sells new and used books in the city's old fire department building. It hosts author signings and several monthly book clubs. The store also works with Fort Collins Reads.

Two local co-owners opened Cherry On Top in 2026 as a romance bookstore, and they stock Black, Indigenous and LGBTQIA+ centered stories. The shop holds release parties and author signings and runs a book club. It is open daily.

Perelandra is the bookshop inside Wolverine Farm's Publick House, run alongside the nonprofit literary publisher. It is strong on poetry. The same building hosts poetry workshops and Small Press Fest.

Bookstore on the Square is an LGBTQ- and woman-owned independent bookstore that features underrepresented authors. It sells new and used books and offers book-box subscriptions. The store is open daily.

Bindle roasts its own coffee and runs this café in the Jessup Farm Artisan Village. Its couches and hardwood tables suit a laptop or a book. It is closed Sundays.

Harbinger is a local roaster with a café in Old Town, across from the Armstrong Hotel. Visit Fort Collins describes Harbinger's cafés as a peaceful place to focus and get work done. It is open daily.

Lima has roasted coffee in Fort Collins since 2018. Besides this Old Town shop, it has cafés in Campus West and in Midtown, where the roastery is. Visit Fort Collins suggests its cafés for solo work as well as group project meetings.

Happy Lucky's is next door to Old Firehouse Books, and the teahouse lists its own events and classes. It is open daily and stays open later on Friday and Saturday.

The Publick House is Wolverine Farm's café and bar, and it shares a building with Perelandra Books. Along with seasonal food, it pours coffee, tea and draft kombucha, plus beer and wine. Profits support the press. Writing workshops and a comedy writing group meet here.

Avogadro's Number is a restaurant, bar and music venue with vegetarian and vegan options. It hosts an open mic every Tuesday and an open bluegrass jam on Wednesdays. There is live music every weekend, and one of its two patios has an outdoor stage.

Wolverine Farm is a nonprofit publishing house that also runs a café and bar and a music venue, with Perelandra Books in the same building. It names a local Writer in Residence every three months and has residencies for makers and musicians. The Fort Collins Poet Laureate program started here in 2011. Its calendar includes poetry workshops and Small Press Fest.

Every semester, CSU's English Department brings poets and prose writers to Fort Collins for public readings, with audience questions and book signings. Final-year MFA students give thesis readings too. Every event is free and open to the public, and most take place in the Lory Student Center.

Fort Collins Book Fest is an annual celebration of literature and storytelling. Authors give talks and lead writing workshops, and they can apply to present or reserve a table at the book marketplace. Young writers have programs of their own.

The Joe Blake Center in CSU's College of Liberal Arts connects humanities research at the university with community members across Colorado. Its monthly newsletter announces upcoming events.

Colorado Humanities has worked in humanities education across the state since 1974. Its Colorado Center for the Book presents the Colorado Book Awards and the Colorado Poet Laureate program. It also runs Community Conversations and history programs such as Chautauqua festivals and Black History Live.

CSU's English Department established the Center for Literary Publishing in 1992. It publishes three issues of Colorado Review a year, with fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Each year it also brings out two or three single-author poetry collections through the Colorado Prize for Poetry and the Mountain/West Poetry Series.

The WAC Clearinghouse has published open-access work on writing across the curriculum and writing studies since 1997. Its books, edited collections and journals are free to read. CSU's Department of English and the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum sponsor it, and it became a Colorado nonprofit in 2024.

Wolverine Farm's nonprofit press publishes Matter, a handcrafted literary journal of poetry and prose. Boneshaker, from the same press, treats the bicycle as a tool for social change and community building. The press also publishes the Fort Collins Courier and books such as A Poetic Inventory of the Cache La Poudre River, and it awards a Poetry Broadside Prize.

Feminist Economics publishes peer-reviewed work on gender and power in the economy, on how economic knowledge is built and legitimized, and on feminist theory and methods. Its editor, Elissa Braunstein, is a professor of economics at Colorado State University. Preparing an article for Feminist Economics

The Center for Literary Publishing has run this poetry book-manuscript contest since 1995. Poets 18 and older can enter from anywhere. The winner receives an honorarium and publication by the Center, with distribution through the University Press of Colorado.

Colorado Humanities' Colorado Center for the Book presents these awards. They honor Colorado authors and editors, along with illustrators and photographers.

Wolverine Farm created the two-year Poet Laureate post in 2011 for poets who live in Fort Collins. The public nominates, a panel of local poets and writers picks finalists, and then the public votes. Laureates host free monthly workshops and readings.

The City of Fort Collins gives this grant through FoCo Creates to individual artists 18 and older who offer a free public art experience in Fort Collins. Applicants must live in Larimer, Weld or Jackson County, Colorado, or in Laramie County, Wyoming. Emerging and part-time artists can apply. Recipients are chosen by lottery, and the funds are unrestricted.

Every three months Wolverine Farm picks one local writer, in any genre, as Writer in Residence. The resident spends the term at the Publick House alongside the monthly residents and gives a free public reading or workshop.

Our sister site's guide for Colorado State University students gathers grants and writing resources in one place.

This UPS Store is an independently owned franchise that prints reports and presentations. It handles binding and laminating along with color and black-and-white copying and scanning.