A Writer's Guide to Fullerton

The Main Library has study rooms, and its meeting rooms can be booked. Writers working on the city's past should start in the Local History Room. It holds city directories and local newspapers and is open to the public Tuesday through Friday. The library is closed Sundays and Mondays. Inside, the Friends of the Library run a used bookstore whose proceeds support the library's programs.

Hunt is the library's West Fullerton branch. It opens Tuesday through Thursday and every third Saturday.

Community members and alumni can visit Pollak Library during open hours. Bring ID for a guest pass, which gives you the databases on site only. Borrowing takes an Alumni Membership or a place in the Patrons of the Library program.

University Archives & Special Collections has kept rare and unique materials since 1967, along with university records and master's theses. Search the finding aids online through ArchivesSpace. The reading room is Room PLS 352, on the third floor of Pollak Library South, and it opens weekdays. Email the archives before you visit.

Heartbound, in downtown Anaheim about three miles south of downtown Fullerton, calls itself Orange County's first romance bookstore. It is AANHPI-, women-, and family-owned. Authors who want to collaborate on an event can send the shop an inquiry. It is closed Mondays.

LibroMobile, about ten miles south in Santa Ana, focuses on BIPOC writers and ethnic studies and carries Spanish-language books. Self-published and indie-press books have a section of their own, and the store carries zines. It hosts live readings.

Arvida is a woman-owned used bookstore in Old Town Tustin, about twelve miles southeast of Fullerton. Alongside vintage and upcycled books it sells new ones, plus local handmade gifts and stationery. Monthly book clubs meet here, one of them for speculative fiction. It hosts author events in person.

Intentional Coffee aims for a relaxed, productive room, and it serves food as well as coffee and tea. It is open daily from early morning into the evening.

Chase calls itself a cozy coffee shop and serves freshly roasted coffee and breakfast every day. The business creates jobs for people with disabilities.

MADE has billed itself as a local hangout since 2018, a place where people of all ages come to socialize or get work done. The downtown Fullerton shop is one of several MADE cafés in Orange County.

The Classic Cafe is family-owned and sits on West Commonwealth, the same street as the Main Library. Along with coffee and tea, it makes triangle kimbap to order. It is closed Mondays.

The Night Owl is an independent coffeehouse, open since 2011, with indoor study tables and a patio stage. Something free happens on that stage every night. The Tuesday open mic welcomes spoken word, and Sunday's Community Night brings poetry readings and live music.

Ada's Table serves lunch inside the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, about ten miles south of Fullerton. It is named for Ada Bowers, whose family's gift helped open the museum in 1936. Go Tuesday through Sunday; the museum is closed Mondays.

Orange County Romance Writers welcomes romance writers at every career stage. Its eleven general meetings a year bring in professional speakers on craft and business, among other subjects. Meetings run on Zoom, with hybrid sessions at the Brea Civic and Cultural Center. Members also join weekday writing sprints, and the group has published a member anthology.

Orange County Public Libraries holds free keynote author talks throughout the year. They take place at library branches or with community partners around the county.

Chapman University's poetry center is in Orange, about eight miles south of Fullerton. Its yearly Poetry Reading Series brings readings and lectures and is supported in part by Poets & Writers. The center also hosts poet interviews. It houses TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics, an international journal launched in 2013.

Past the shelves, LibroMobile in Santa Ana runs creative workshops and free BIPOC art exhibits. Its LM Voices program takes reviews and includes a podcast.

Part of CSUF's history department, the center holds more than 6,600 recorded interviews with transcripts and photographs, which it calls the largest oral-history archive in California. Community members, journalists, and filmmakers use it alongside students and scholars. Researchers can get support and consultation or take an oral history workshop.

California Humanities is the state's affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It funds public humanities projects through Connecting California grants and the California Documentary Project.

AERJ is the flagship journal of the American Educational Research Association. It publishes original peer-reviewed analyses of education and learning in every subfield and discipline, at all levels of education across the lifespan. One of its coeditors is at California State University, Fullerton. Preparing an article for American Educational Research Journal

The California Arts Council's fellowship recognizes an artist's practice in any discipline, at Emerging, Established, and Legacy tiers. Arts Orange County administers it for Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties with two partner councils. Applicants must be 18 or older and have lived in the region for at least two years.

Arts Orange County gives these awards each year to artists, arts organizations, and patrons. The Helena Modjeska Cultural Legacy Award is one of them. Nominators put honorees forward.

The Commonwealth Club gives these awards each year for books by authors living in California. Poetry and Californiana have categories of their own, as does a first work of fiction.

Cal State Fullerton students can find grants and writing resources on this page.

Biola University students have a guide of their own.

Chapman students in Orange have one too.