A Writer's Guide to Iowa City: Libraries, Bookstores, Writing Groups, and Presses

Iowa City Public Library fills two floors on the Pedestrian Mall, and the public can book its five meeting rooms. Study rooms are free but can't be reserved in advance; show ID or leave contact information to use one. The City of Literature uses the same street address.

Special Collections holds rare books, manuscripts and maps, along with the University Archives. Poets may want the Iowa Archives of the Avant-Garde and the International Dada Archive. Before your first visit, create an Aeon patron account. Bring ID, and take notes in pencil or on a laptop.

The Iowa Women's Archives is open to the public. Its more than 1,200 manuscript collections, together with oral histories, document Iowa women from the 19th century to the present. Among them are the papers of Nancy Drew ghostwriter Mildred Wirt Benson.

Coralville's library is open seven days a week, and its password-free wi-fi covers the building and grounds around the clock. Author talks turn up on the calendar. Local nonprofits can use the meeting rooms.

Prairie Lights has sold new books and signed editions downtown since 1978. Author events run most weeknights at 7 pm under the name Live from Prairie Lights, with Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty among the readers, and larger events move to venues such as The James Theater. The upstairs café occupies the room where a 1930s literary society hosted Sandburg, Frost and Cummings.

The Haunted Bookshop has sold used and rare books since 1978 and now fills the rooms of an 1847 house on the Northside. The shop counts more than 50,000 items on its shelves. It specializes in poetry and Iowa books. It opens Monday through Saturday.

Sidekick Coffee & Books started with children's books and now stocks titles for readers of all ages. It is also a full café, with coffee and baked goods. Authors come in for readings and signings.

Daydreams is locally owned and has sold new and old comics downtown since 1986. Writers working on a graphic novel can see what the shelves carry now.

The café on the bookstore's second floor is open daily and serves coffee, tea, beer and wine along with pastries. It also houses the Times Club Café Art Gallery.

This downtown café belongs to Java House, which roasts its coffee in North Liberty. It opens early and stays open into the evening. Other Java House cafés are on S. 1st Ave. and Mormon Trek Blvd., and a weekday location serves the medical campus.

PorchLight calls itself eastern Iowa's Community Writing Center. Classes, critique groups and residencies meet here, and writing consultants work with writers one on one. Stop by during Saturday open hours. The space can also be rented.

MERGE is a coworking space run by Greater Iowa City Inc. and renovated in 2024. Members can take a bench seat or a dedicated office, and conference rooms are available. Coffee is free, and wi-fi comes with the space. Membership plans are flexible.

George's Buffet opened in 1939 on East Market Street. Benjamin Anastas, recalling Iowa City in the early 1990s, wrote that you could get a decent burger in a basket there at 1 a.m. The burgers still come off a Clark electric broiler from the 1950s. The booths are wooden.

Hamburg Inn No. 2 is open daily on the Northside. In the same essay, Anastas called it "the best place for breakfast after a late night at the Fox Head."

The Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature carries the city's designation and presents the Paul Engle Prize. Its programs include the On the Fly: Writers on Writing series and Anna Barker's Classics Reading Series. It also runs Poetry in Public and a literature walk.

The City of Literature organizes the Iowa City Book Festival, a week of author talks and readings at venues around downtown. The 2026 festival ran October 18 to 25.

The International Writing Program has hosted more than 1,600 writers from over 160 countries since 1967. Each fall its residency brings international writers to Iowa City for readings and panel presentations. Locals can join Write at the Stanley, a monthly generative workshop at the Stanley Museum of Art, or come to Art & Write Night on the first Friday of each month.

The Iowa Writers' Workshop, the University of Iowa's MFA program, posts public readings by faculty and visiting writers. Some take place at Prairie Lights. Others are on campus, including the VIEWS reading and Q&A series in the English-Philosophy Building.

The Obermann Center describes itself as a global interdisciplinary institute. Its Book Ends workshop gathers a panel of senior scholars, two of them from outside the university, to give feedback on a UI faculty member's monograph manuscript. The center also funds collaborative projects by UI scholars and artists and hosts the annual Obermann Symposium.

UI Libraries supports faculty publishing through Iowa Research Online, its institutional repository, and the OpenHawks grant program for open access. Staff also help with copyright, research data and ORCID. These services are moving to the Libraries' Research Commons, announced in August 2026.

Humanities Iowa, based in Ames, makes grants and runs humanities programs across the state. Mini grants are awarded year-round, and major grants go to nonprofits serving out-of-school adults. It also runs the Iowa Poet Laureate program and publishes the journal Voices from the Prairie.

The University of Iowa Press publishes scholarship in American studies and literary studies, among other fields, along with regional books on the Midwest. Its poetry and fiction list carries the winners of the Iowa Short Fiction Award and the Iowa Poetry Prize.

The Iowa Review has been published at the University of Iowa since 1970. Its three issues a year carry short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction in print and online. The magazine also runs the Switchgrass blog.

Nurse Leader is the bimonthly official journal of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership, with practical leadership and management content for nurses who hold leadership roles or want to. Editor-in-chief M. Lindell Joseph is at the University of Iowa College of Nursing. Preparing an article for Nurse Leader

The Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is a monthly, peer-reviewed journal. Its research covers nutritional science, medical nutrition therapy and public health nutrition, among other areas. Editor-in-chief Linda G. Snetselaar is a professor of epidemiology at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Preparing an article for the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

The Iowa Arts Council gives annual fellowships to individual Iowa artists. It also offers an Artist Professional Development Grant and an Iowa Screenwriters Grant.

The City of Literature established the Paul Engle Prize in 2011. Its honorees run from James Alan McPherson that first year to Christopher Merrill, who received the 2026 prize.

The University of Iowa Press presents both national awards for a collection of short stories, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop judges the entries. They are open to writers who have yet to publish a book-length volume of fiction. The Press publishes the winners.

The Iowa Review runs an annual contest in each of its three genres. Editors choose the finalists and guest judges pick the winners, who appear with the runners-up in the December issue.

Editors For Students keeps a guide to grants and writing resources for University of Iowa students.

The Iowa Women's Archives awards the Linda and Richard Kerber Travel Fund for research in its collections.

The Center for the Book is a University of Iowa arts and research program with an MFA in book arts. Its studios cover bookbinding, papermaking, letterpress printing and lettering arts, and there is a digital lab. Visiting scholars and artists give lectures and workshops, and each November the center holds a kozo harvest at its Oakdale paper research facility in Coralville.