A Writer's Guide to Indianapolis

Central Library is open daily. Its Nina Mason Pulliam Indianapolis Special Collections Room keeps local authors' works and manuscripts, along with scrapbooks and photographs, and the Center for Black Literature & Culture gives special attention to Black figures with Indiana roots. Anyone can reserve a study room or a meeting room.

The Irvington branch traces its roots to the 1903 Bona Thompson Library. The public can reserve its meeting rooms and a study room. It is closed Sundays.

This north-side branch has meeting rooms the public can reserve, along with free Wi-Fi and document scanning. It also proctors exams, and it is closed Sundays.

The State Library holds Indiana history collections and digitized historic newspapers, and it is open weekdays and on the second Saturday of each month. Its Rare Books and Manuscripts Division sees researchers on weekdays by appointment only; email manuscripts@library.in.gov at least two business days ahead. Park in the Senate Avenue garage across the street. The library validates.

Butler's rare books include items as old as 1473, and its Etheridge Knight Collection holds the poet's manuscripts and photographs. Special Collections works out of the Hugh Thomas Miller Rare Book Room on the third floor of Irwin Library. Community members are welcome. Visits are on weekdays by appointment, so contact the staff at least 24 hours ahead and bring a photo ID. Notes are taken in pencil only. Laptops are allowed.

Indy Reads runs adult literacy programs, and purchases at its community bookstore help support them. It hosts writing workshops and open mics with IndyUntitled. The store is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

Golden Hour gives all its space to new books and leans toward art and poetry. Children have a room of their own. Its Read. Act. Repeat. book club meets monthly at the store.

Novelist Leah Johnson founded Loudmouth. The shop specializes in banned and challenged books and in stories by and about marginalized people.

Tomorrow stocks books from across the globe and keeps a Read Around the World list. Book clubs meet in the store. It is closed Mondays.

The Whispering Shelf sells new and used books. It runs six book clubs, each built around a genre, from Spanish literature to dark academia and the classics, along with a Books to Kids Fund. The store is closed Mondays.

Kids Ink has sold children's and young adult books since 1986, and it is open daily. It holds story times and book clubs, and schools can arrange author visits through its Authors in Schools program.

Bog Books is the new name of Irvington Vinyl & Books. It sells used books and new horror, along with small-press poetry and zines, under the motto "Local. Weird. Rare." The shop hosts Queery: A Radical Queer Book Club and is open Wednesday through Sunday. The Irvington branch library is on the same street.

Coat Check is inside the historic Athenaeum and has plenty of community seating. AIGA Indianapolis has called it relatively quiet, with tables that are easy to claim. It is open daily.

This is the larger of Hubbard & Cravens' two cafés, and it keeps longer hours than the Broad Ripple shop. It opens early every day. The tables can fill up.

Quills is a short walk from Central Library, so it works as a break from a morning of research. The café has open tables and plenty of natural light. It is open daily.

Monon has served organic fair-trade coffee since 1997 in a living-room-style coffeehouse. When the front is busy, take a table in the back room, where there are outlets. It is open daily and closes mid-afternoon.

The Rathskeller serves German food in the 19th-century Athenaeum, the same building as Coat Check Coffee, and one of its event rooms is named the Vonnegut Room. Live bands play Wednesday through Saturday and some Sundays.

The Jazz Kitchen has been a jazz club and restaurant since 1994. Its dinner menu is Nola-meets-Midwest, and guests must be 21 or over.

Bluebeard takes its name from a Kurt Vonnegut novel. Its farm-to-table kitchen serves bread from Amelia's, the in-house bakery. It is open daily, for dinner only on Sundays.

The Indiana Writers Center serves Indiana writers of all ages and reaches out to people whose voices are rarely heard. Published writers teach its classes and workshops. Its critique groups are open to members and non-members, and its members range from beginners to award-winning Indiana authors. The center also publishes Flying Island, an online literary journal for writers with Indiana ties.

The museum gives tours of its exhibitions, and members can borrow from its lending library. It publishes the literary journal So It Goes. Veterans can join the Writing In Peace workshop, and a collection of their work is presented each year at VonnegutFest, which celebrates Vonnegut's birthday along with Veterans Day.

Butler's Department of English brings 10 to 12 contemporary writers a year to read and take questions from the audience. Events are free and open to the Indianapolis community. Most take place at Shelton Auditorium or the Schrott Center for the Arts.

Indiana Humanities hosts this festival of Midwest writing with local poets Mitchell L.H. Douglas and Chantel Massey. Writers can meet publishers and literary magazines, and a book fair brings in local booksellers. The festival is held at the Harrison Center and in the Old Northside around it.

The institute serves students and scholars from anywhere and houses the editions it supports, among them the Frederick Douglass Papers and the Peirce Edition Project. It describes its holdings as the largest consolidated accumulations of the extant papers of Peirce, Santayana, and Douglass. Materials from the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies are here too. Its associated journals include Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society.

Indiana Humanities is a statewide nonprofit based in Indianapolis, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its programs include Novel Conversations and Bookmark Indy. Indiana nonprofits can apply to it for Mini-Grants and Action Grants for public humanities programs.

The Historical Society keeps the William H. Smith Memorial Library at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, along with extensive research archives. The Indiana State Library is on the same street.

Sigma, the international honor society of nursing, has its headquarters in Indianapolis. It publishes more than 100 nursing books, from the classroom to clinical practice. Its two journals are the Journal of Nursing Scholarship and Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing. Preparing a manuscript for Sigma

Hackett, an independent publisher, has served the humanities since 1972. It publishes philosophy and classics, and its list also covers history and religion, along with writing guides and rhetoric.

The Historical Society's press publishes nonfiction on Indiana history, including biography and letters. It also puts out Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History, a quarterly popular history magazine.

Clinical Nurse Specialist, the official journal of the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists, publishes work on CNS competencies and education and on the outcomes of CNS practice. Its editorial offices are in Indianapolis, and its editor-in-chief is emerita faculty at the Indiana University School of Nursing. Preparing an article for Clinical Nurse Specialist

Eugene and Marilyn Glick founded these awards in 2009 to honor Hoosier authors. Indiana Humanities now runs them as one of its programs, and the awards also offer a speaker program and writing workshops.

The Indy Arts Council has offered this fellowship to central Indiana artists and arts administrators since 1999, with support from Lilly Endowment Inc.

The Indiana Arts Commission runs On-Ramp with Minerva Financial Arts for early-career artists and creative professionals building a portfolio career. It begins with a three-day intensive on entrepreneurship and community engagement. Then participants can apply for project funding.

Indiana's poet laureate holds an honorary two-year post administered by the Indiana Arts Commission. The laureate visits schools and libraries and advises the Commission on furthering poetry in the state.

The Art Center's print shop runs letterpress, lithography, etching, screenprinting, and woodblock presses. It also teaches book arts and papermaking. The building is open daily.