A Writer's Guide to Kalamazoo

Central is the main branch of Kalamazoo Public Library's five locations. The Local History Room, on the second floor, holds Kalamazoo County history files and the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1837 to the present. Materials stay in the room. Photocopiers and scanners are on hand.

Waldo is WMU's main library, and the public can use it most days until 8 p.m. For a long session, take a research carrel or an individual study room on the third floor. Guest parking is metered.

The WMU Archives and the Regional History Collections share this building with Rare Books and Special Collections, and nothing leaves it. Email your research questions to arch-collect@wmich.edu, and the curatorial staff can guide you through the materials. Two guest spaces in Lot 108 are free.

Kalamazoo College's library keeps public hours; in the evening you need a K College ID. On the third floor, the A.M. Todd Rare Book Room holds rare and unusual books and manuscripts. The College Archives keep photographs and scrapbooks. Write to RareBookRoom@kzoo.edu or Archivist@kzoo.edu with questions.

The art museum keeps a library that opens three days a week at midday, and the KIA runs book discussions too. Admission is free on Thursdays. The museum is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

Two adjoining independent shops share this address. The adult store, this is a bookstore, is strong in literary fiction, nonfiction, and graphic novels, and it keeps signed first editions and a Kalamazoo-interest shelf. Bookbug is all children's books. The shops host author readings and workshops.

Kazoo Books has been independent and locally owned since 1988. It sells new and used books, and the staff will order a title or help track down a hard-to-find one. Rare and antiquarian books are by appointment. Book groups and writers' groups meet here, and the store rents space for meetings. It is closed Sundays.

Walnut & Park serves breakfast and lunch downtown. A writing group can rent The Room, which seats five, or The Boardroom, which holds up to twenty. It is closed Saturdays.

Water Street is a Kalamazoo roaster, and this café has been its downtown home since 1993. The Oakland Drive café, at 3037 Oakland Dr., has spacious seating indoors and out.

Caffè Casa is a laid-back espresso café on the Kalamazoo Mall, owned by the same couple since 1992. Lunches are made to order. It is open Monday through Saturday.

Five Lakes has roasted coffee in Sturgis since 2004. Its Kalamazoo café has plenty of seating and fast Wi-Fi, and it is open every day from early morning.

Bell's Eccentric Cafe is Bell's Brewery's restaurant and pub, with a scratch kitchen and a beer garden. Its music venue, the Back Room, has shows on many nights. It is closed Mondays.

The café inside this is a bookstore serves locally sourced food and drink with literary themes. Local book clubs meet here, and it holds occasional open mics and writing workshops. It is quiet enough to work and takes reservations.

Sarkozy has baked for Kalamazoo since 1978 and pours coffee too. On Art Hop nights it hangs artists' shows and hosts live music.

WMU's English department runs this series, made possible by a gift from the artist and WMU alumna Gwen Frostic. It brings acclaimed poets, prose writers, and dramatists from across the country to Kalamazoo. Every reading is free and open to the public.

The festival's steering committee formed in 2012, and it became a nonprofit in 2014. Every other year it stages a multi-day festival of readings and workshops with guest poets. The Celebration of Community Poets, held every year, features poets from around Kalamazoo.

Each year Kalamazoo Public Library chooses one book for the whole community. Programs take up its themes from a local angle, and the author comes to Kalamazoo. The Friends of Kalamazoo Public Library sponsor it.

WMU's Medieval Institute hosts the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies, which brings medievalists to Kalamazoo from around the world. Its Rawlinson Center keeps a library and offers a study fellowship and the Szarmach Article Prize. The institute also awards the Gründler Book Prize.

Michigan Humanities is the state's humanities council. Its grants include touring and museum grants, and it runs the Great Michigan Read.

The Medieval Institute's press publishes premodern scholarship across the disciplines in some fifteen book series, among them Northern Medieval World and Studies in Iconography. It also issues the TEAMS classroom texts, including Middle English Texts, and journals such as Medieval Feminist Forum.

The Upjohn Institute has studied labor markets and the workforce from Kalamazoo since 1945. It is nonprofit and nonpartisan. Its press publishes books on employment and public policy, from unemployment insurance to teacher labor markets.

This quarterly peer-reviewed journal applies social science knowledge and methods to social welfare policy and services. Western Michigan University and its School of Social Work sponsor it, and the editor-in-chief is at WMU. Issues more than two years old are free on WMU's ScholarWorks. Preparing an article for the Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The Arts Council runs KADI with funding from the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation. Individual artists can apply for an arts project grant or a professional development grant. A separate KADI Immediate Need grant is also offered.

This is the Arts Fund's grant for individual artists. The Arts Council administers it with funding from the Kalamazoo Community Foundation, and it backs artists and projects that remove barriers and open access for historically excluded communities.

The Library of Michigan picks twenty books a year, each written by a Michigan author or about Michigan or the Great Lakes. They are honored at the Night for Notables the year after publication. Many of the authors go on a statewide tour.

The award honors a living author's published body of literary work. The author must live in Michigan, be a long-time resident who recently moved away, or write work tied to the state, and must have at least three books for adults, teens, or children. Anyone can nominate.

Editors For Students gathers WMU's research and travel grants, dissertation fellowships, and writing support on one page.

Kalamazoo Book Arts Center has letterpress and bookbinding studios, with Vandercook and Chandler & Price presses and about twenty cabinets of type. Its workshops cover bookbinding and letterpress, some online, and a few take up writing. Poets in Print readings take place in the gallery, which is open weekdays.