A Writer's Guide to Kansas City

The Central Library has five study rooms and six meeting rooms you can book. Up on the fifth floor, the Missouri Valley Room keeps the Missouri Valley Special Collections, thousands of photographs and maps of Kansas City history. The room closes Sundays. The library also hosts evening author talks and poetry readings.

Linda Hall is an independent research library for science, engineering, and technology, and anyone can sign up for a free library card. An arboretum covers the grounds. It is closed Sundays.

Every visitor can use the collections on site, and adults can sign up as Guest Borrowers at the first-floor desk. Bring a photo ID for a two-hour guest computer login. LaBudde Special Collections has its own third-floor reading room and keeps its own hours, so check before you go. Its manuscripts center on music, especially Kansas City jazz, and it is home to the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America.

The State Historical Society keeps its Kansas City archive inside UMKC's library. Its collections cover minority communities and religious life, and it holds more than 17,000 sets of architectural drawings along with the Jewish Community Archives. It is open Tuesday through Friday. Ask for an appointment through the online research request form.

The Black Archives is an archive and museum of African American history in the Kansas City region. Its holdings include the Alvin Ailey Papers and a run of oral histories. Researchers ask for help through its Research Services form. It is open Monday through Saturday.

Wise Blood sells new and used books, art books and poetry among them, from a space inside Mills Record Co. It keeps a New Politics & Radical Reading section. Readings happen here, and the shop works with local nonprofits on literacy.

Afterword sells books and drinks under one roof, in a much larger space near Martini Corner. Book clubs and other groups can reserve the room.

Rainy Day Books has been an independent bookstore since 1975, and its calendar is full of readings and signings by visiting authors. This downtown shop is open daily. The original store is in the Fairway Shops, 2706 W. 53rd St., in Fairway, Kansas.

Under the Cover is a woman-owned romance bookshop in the historic House of Flowers building. It bills itself as Kansas City's first. Author release events and signings come up often.

Bliss pairs a bookstore with a wine lounge and stocks diverse authors and social justice titles. Writers can read at ART: Word + Sound, the open mic held every third Wednesday. Author talks and launches fill out the calendar.

New Material Books sells small press and international books, with shelves for translation and for theory and philosophy. It hosts poetry readings and free writing workshops. Check the hours page first. The shop opens on posted dates, mostly weekends and West Bottoms open-studio nights.

Messenger roasts its own coffee, and its Grand Boulevard café is open daily. Visit KC lists it among the city's spots for working away from the office.

Blip roasts coffee in a sunny brick building in the West Bottoms. It is open daily from early morning to early evening, and you can book its conference room.

Messenger's Plaza-area café opens early every day. The space can be reserved after hours for events.

Thou Mayest roasts locally, and its River Market café looks out over Delaware Street. It opens early daily and stays open into the evening most nights. Seats are first come, first served, so arrive early.

Thou Mayest runs a coffee café inside the museum's Bloch Building, with its own entrance. Museum admission is free, and so is parking across 45th Street.

Rozzelle Court serves a self-service lunch of seasonal salads, sandwiches, and soups in a courtyard styled after a 15th-century Italian one. Come in the afternoon for coffee and dessert. It is on level one of the Atkins Building, near Kirkwood Hall, and admission is free with registration.

Oil on Linen is the restaurant inside the free Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Its seasonal menu sometimes draws on the art on display. Art hangs in the dining rooms, too, including a large piece Kevin Townsend painted on site. The museum stays open late on Thursdays.

The Writers Place, formally the Midwest Center for the Literary Arts, works to build greater Kansas City's literary community. Its reading series usually puts three writers on each evening's bill, and you can ask to read through a request form. A monthly open mic at the Quaker House is open to all writers. Writers can also propose a workshop and teach it, or get help connecting with a writers group.

New Letters began in 1934 as The University Review at the University of Kansas City, now UMKC. The magazine publishes new literary writing. It also produces New Letters on the Air, a half-hour radio program of writers reading and talking about their work.

Johnson County Library, a suburban system headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, holds a two-day Writers Conference every year at its Central Resource Library. Writer's Block, a drop-in writing group, meets monthly. The library also hosts open mics and writing programs for all levels, and it publishes the literary magazine elementia.

Linda Hall funds research in the history of science and related humanities fields. Residential fellowships of one to four months bring scholars to the collections in Kansas City, and virtual fellows work with support from the reference staff. Doctoral students, postdoctoral scholars, and independent researchers are eligible for the general fellowships, and Kansas City-area scholars are encouraged to apply. The Presidential Fellowship covers books and manuscripts as physical objects, including printing and publishing practices.

The Truman Library Institute, nonprofit partner of the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, gives research grants and dissertation-year fellowships for work on Truman's presidency and legacy. It also presents a Scholar's Award and the Harry S. Truman Book Award.

Missouri Humanities is the state's humanities nonprofit, with offices in Kansas City and St. Louis. It gives major grants and mini grants to Missouri organizations for public humanities projects. Its literature program includes a Center for the Book.

The Journal of Transcultural Nursing is the peer-reviewed official journal of the Transcultural Nursing Society. It publishes theory and research on how culture shapes health care, with culturally congruent care as the goal. Its editor-in-chief is based at UMKC's School of Nursing and Health Studies. Preparing an article for the Journal of Transcultural Nursing

The Kansas City Public Library, the University of Missouri, and UMKC sponsor this national award, founded in 2020 to honor Missouri-born Maya Angelou. It goes to poetry and fiction in alternating years, by authors committed to social justice. Publishers submit the books. The winner gives a reading tour at the partner institutions.

ArtsKC, the regional arts council, gives project grants to individual artists and small groups, writers and poets among them. Projects should involve risk or change for the artist, or have community impact; workshops and other continuing education can qualify. Applicants must be 18 or older with a record of professional achievement and live in Jackson, Clay, or Platte County in Missouri or Johnson or Wyandotte County in Kansas.

New Letters has run this annual contest since 1986. Judging is anonymous, and the best entries are published in the magazine.

Missouri Humanities runs this annual anthology of poetry, fiction, essays, and photography by veterans, service members, and military-connected family members from anywhere in the country. Entry is free. A judging panel awards a first prize in each category. It also offers free Veterans Writing Workshops.

The Missouri Arts Council has presented the state's arts honors since 1983. An independent statewide panel chooses the honorees, and Individual Artist is one of the categories.

Greenhouse Print Space is a community printmaking studio deep in the basement of the Hobbs Building. Its letterpress gear includes a Vandercook proof press and drawers of movable type, taken over from the Kansas City Center for the Ink & Paper Arts. Anyone can try printing at its Print Club. Members get studio access and classes, and visits are by appointment.

Two Tone Press takes custom letterpress work, posters and invitations included, by quote from a restored 1925 laundry building in Midtown. Its community printshop, Print League KC, has letterpress, silkscreen, and etching equipment, plus table space for members. Weekend workshops include typesetting and bookbinding.