A Writer's Guide to Heidelberg
Heidelberg is a UNESCO City of Literature. The city's Kulturamt on Haspelgasse runs the programme, including its open calls and residencies. For books, start at the University Library on Plöck, which gives reader cards to people from outside the university, and at the DAI's English-language library on Sofienstraße. Each autumn the Literaturherbst brings readings to the Karlstorbahnhof, the Gloria cinema and other venues across town. Novelists, poets and university faculty work from the same reading rooms and cafés.
Libraries · Bookstores · Places to Write · Places to Eat · Writing Community · Press · Journal · Awards and Grants · Printing and Binding · When the Manuscript Is Ready
Libraries
Bring a passport or ID card to the University Library if you want a reader card.
The Stadtbücherei is the city's main public library. Groups can talk at normal volume in the ground-floor study room, and the internet workstations have Word and Excel. Wi-Fi is free. It is closed Sundays and Mondays, and its website is in German.
Heidelberg University's main library gives reader cards to people from outside the university. Apply in person with a passport or ID card; a fee applies. Visitors staying in Germany for under three months can use the holdings, but only in the reading rooms. The main reading room is open daily, and the website is in English.
The library's manuscripts and personal papers, along with prints up to 1750, are read only in this room. It is open weekdays. Much of the historic collection is also digitised online.
The DAI's library opened in 1946 as the Amerikahaus, and the institute calls it the only public English-language library in the region. The shelves hold classics, new fiction and non-fiction, along with newspapers and magazines, and there is a coffee corner. The DAI also has a Writing Center. Lending runs Wednesday to Saturday; on Mondays and Tuesdays the room is open for quiet study only.
Independent Bookstores
All three shops hold readings or talks, so ask about the calendar when you stop in.
WortReich is an owner-run literary bookshop in the Weststadt. Bettina Heuer owns it. The shop has hosted readings in the city's series for owner-run bookshops.
This partner shop of the Büchergilde Gutenberg carries the guild's full range, plus selected fiction and non-fiction from other publishers. It will order any book in print and look second-hand for out-of-print titles. Talks are held in the shop now and then. It is closed Sundays, and its website is in German.
Murkelei sells children's and young-adult books, from picture books to youth novels, and puts on a picture-book cinema and pyjama readings. It is closed Mondays. The website is in German.
Places to Write
Take a café table for the morning, and book a desk at Tink Tank when the draft needs a full day.
Tink Tank sells day tickets and flex desks, and its part-time memberships cover four, eight or twelve days a month. Meeting cubicles can be booked. Staff are in on weekdays; members can get in around the clock. A second site is in the Südstadt at Am Paradeplatz 20, with the entrance on Emil-Gumbel-Straße. Its website is in German.
Coffee Nerd is a specialty-coffee café on the Fischmarkt, and it also sells beans online from roasters in Europe and further afield. It is open daily.
NOMAD is a small café and concept store with 24 seats inside. It serves breakfast and bowls, with a large vegan selection, and takes no reservations. It is open daily, and a second NOMAD is in Handschuhsheim. The website is in German.
Places to Eat
Zum Roten Ochsen calls itself one of Heidelberg's oldest student taverns. The building dates from 1703, and the Spengel family has owned the tavern since 1839. Its own song comes from the 'Romantisches Heidelberg' songbook. The kitchen opens on Friday and Saturday evenings. The website is in German.
Café Leitstelle is a gallery café inside DEZERNAT#16, the creative-industries centre in Bergheim, and it calls itself the centre's living room. Readings and talk evenings share the calendar with exhibitions and concerts. Daytime hours run Monday to Thursday; evening events are announced on social media. Its website is in German.
The LiteraturCafé is inside the city's main library and keeps the library's hours. Readings take place in the library's Hilde-Domin-Saal, named for the poet. Both are closed Sundays and Mondays.
The Zentrale is the café-bar of the Karlstorbahnhof cultural centre. The centre's Literatur & Gesellschaft programme runs author readings and poetry slams, and its Shared Reading groups meet on Mondays, in German and in English. Lunch is served on Mondays and Fridays. On event nights the bar opens an hour before the hall. The website is in German.
Writing Community
Literary Organizations
Sign up for the City of Literature's weekly newsletter to hear about open calls and readings.
The city's Kulturamt coordinates Heidelberg's programme as a UNESCO City of Literature. It publishes open calls and residency opportunities for local and international writers, in Heidelberg and in other Creative Cities. Its pages also cover the city's literary prizes and festivals. The site is mainly in German.
The DAI is devoted to international exchange, with science, literature and politics as its main subjects. It runs a public events programme and a language school, and its English Library lends DVDs and audiobooks as well as books. Register to borrow. The website has an English version.
feeLit is Heidelberg's international literature festival. German-language and international authors read at halle02, the main venue, and the FilmLit. series takes the festival to the screen with the Karlstorkino. The site is in German and English.
Literaturnetz Heidelberg e.V. runs the Literaturherbst over four weeks each autumn, with special events through the year. Some readings come with music or theatre. Authors come from the Rhine-Neckar region and from across Germany and abroad, and the festival also supports local writers. Most of the programme is in German.
For Faculty and Researchers
Doctoral researchers should look at the Marsilius Academies and the HCA's Spring Academy.
The Marsilius-Kolleg is Heidelberg University's Institute for Advanced Study, for research that joins the natural, life and engineering sciences with the humanities and social sciences. Its Marsilius Academies are short themed events for doctoral students from Germany and abroad. A Nature Marsilius Visiting Professorship supports science communication.
The HCA is Heidelberg University's centre for research and teaching on the United States. It offers doctoral study in American Studies and runs a Spring Academy for doctoral researchers. The centre gives the James W.C. Pennington Award. Its lectures, panels and exhibitions are open to the public.
Founded in 1909, the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften is the state academy of sciences of Baden-Württemberg. Its edition projects include the Karl-Jaspers-Gesamtausgabe. The Young Academy, for early-career researchers, runs WIN research projects and WIN conferences. The website has an English version.
A Press in Heidelberg
Read a recent title or two from the list before you approach the press.
Das Wunderhorn is an independent Heidelberg publisher of poetry and prose. Its translations from French and English include bilingual editions. The list also covers art and design, and nonfiction on contemporary history and politics. Books on Heidelberg and the region have a category of their own.
A Journal Edited in Heidelberg
Our Promise
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.
The EMBO Journal publishes research papers of broad general interest that bring a conceptual advance and functional insight, on topics from molecular cell biology to ecology. Its scientific editors work at EMBO in Heidelberg, and EMBO Press publishes it. Preparing an article for The EMBO Journal
Awards, Grants, and Fellowships
For German Writers
Read the eligibility rules first. Most of these ask for work in German or a tie to Baden-Württemberg.
The Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg gives working stipends to writers whose main home or main place of work is in the state, or who spent a substantial part of their life there. Literature applicants need a university degree finished within the past ten years. German citizenship is not required.
The City of Heidelberg gives this prize each year to a German-language writer whose debut has already drawn notice from critics and readers. The category rotates among poetry, short fiction, the essay and the novel. A jury of critics and students from the university's Germanistisches Seminar chooses the winner.
Every three years the city gives this prize, named for the poet Hilde Domin, to a writer living in exile in Germany, or a descendant with a connection to exile, who takes up exile in work published in German.
The Kulturstiftung Rhein-Neckar-Kreis runs this three-month residency every two years with UNESCO City of Literature Heidelberg, for authors from UNESCO Cities of Literature. The writer receives a work grant and must live in the Kommandantenhaus at Dilsberg Fortress for the stay.
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 Heidelberg are listed below.
Unicopy is on the Plöck, the same street as the University Library.
Unicopy prints and binds bachelor's and master's theses and dissertations in hardcover or softcover, for pickup or delivery. Email a PDF for a quote, or order online. It also handles large-format printing and brochures. It is closed Sundays, and its website is in German.
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.
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Compiled by James Peterson Brown, PhD, Off the Grid Editing. Places and links checked November 2026.
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