A Writer's Guide to Lexington, Kentucky: Libraries, Bookstores, Writing Groups, and Presses

Central Library is on East Main Street and opens daily. Writers working on Kentucky subjects will want the Kentucky Room, which holds the genealogy and local history collection. The building also has a gallery and the Farish Theater. Book a meeting room online.

Northside's Digital Studio Lab includes a podcast studio, handy for recording a reading or an author interview. You can reserve a room here or book a librarian for an appointment. LexTran Routes 6 and 17 serve the branch.

Young is the central library in UK's system. Study rooms are booked through LibCal, and the building stays open late. Questions about borrowing go to the Circulation Desk on the first floor.

The Special Collections Research Center is home to the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, with more than 17,000 interviews. Rare books, Kentuckiana and the Bert T. Combs Appalachian Collection are here too. Before you visit, read the center's Conduct Research page or email scrc@uky.edu.

Transylvania's library houses the Farris Rare Book Room, with an extensive collection of nineteenth-century medical texts, and the university archives. Reference librarians take research questions. Email library@transy.edu to ask about visiting.

Glover's Bookery has kept a shop in Lexington since 1978. Most of its roughly 80,000 volumes are hardbacks. Horse books and Kentuckiana are two of its specialties. The shop will search for a title or appraise a collection, and it belongs to the ABAA and ILAB.

Mike Courtney has run Black Swan for more than 40 years. Look for the Wendell Berry section and the modern first editions. The store has carried Larkspur Press's hand-printed books since the 1980s, and author talks and signings come up now and then.

Sqecial Media has sold "the important, interesting, and hard-to-find" since 1972. Books share the floor with tarot decks and crystals. The store is on South Limestone near the UK campus.

The Carnegie Center rents office-sized writing cubbies along the walls of its Arnow Reading Room, each with a desk built into the wall. Nikky Finney wrote Rice in them. Rentals run month to month; email the Center for a tour. The building is open Monday through Thursday.

Lexington Writer's Room is a nonprofit coworking space for writers, on the second floor above Frank and Dino's. Open-desk members have 24/7 access to quiet nooks and group work areas. Supporting and virtual memberships cost less, and scholarships are available. Members can attend readings in the space, and it hosts free Poezia generative writing workshops.

Brevede runs two cafés, one in Chevy Chase and one in the Distillery District, both open daily. Upstairs from the Chevy Chase café is a small coworking space. Members rent furnished office rooms by the month with 24/7 access and fiber Wi-Fi, and day passes are sold too.

A Cup of Common Wealth pours Magic Beans coffee across from Thoroughbred Park and is open daily. It stays open into the evening Wednesday through Sunday. Those evenings suit a session that runs past dinner.

Kenwick Table is a community coffee shop and wine bar with local pastries and small plates. On the first Wednesday of each month it hosts Poetry at the Table, a free reading and open mic founded and hosted by B. Elizabeth Beck, with two featured poets. Its calendar also lists music and an open mic night.

Brontë Bistro serves lunch and dinner inside Joseph-Beth's Lexington Green store. The store holds regular author talks and signings, so dinner can come before or after a reading. Joseph-Beth belongs to Barnes & Noble.

The Greenery is a café and social space inside The Grove on West Main Street, filled with plants. It serves coffee, tea and local grab-and-go food, and it's closed Sundays. Groups can book it for a private party.

The Carnegie Center is a nonprofit learning and literary arts center in Lexington's historic Carnegie building. Its classes cover fiction, poetry, nonfiction and screenwriting, with others on revision and on publishing and marketing; many meet online. Writers can join a writing group, work with a mentor or send in a manuscript for review. The Center also runs the Author Academy and the Books in Progress Conference.

Kentucky Humanities brings authors and readers together each year at the Kentucky Book Festival in Lexington. Check the festival site for the author lineup.

The Kentucky Black Writers Collaborative is a Carnegie Center program for Kentucky's Black writers, published and unpublished, and participants of any background are welcome. Author Claudia Love Mair coordinates it. Programs include the Black&Lit Book Club and the Burn the Mic series. Through the Chethik Family Fund, members can take Carnegie classes and one-time seminars at no cost.

The Kentucky State Poetry Society works to develop Kentucky's poets. It holds readings, workshops and an annual conference, and it publishes the journal Pegasus. Kentucky's Poet Laureate leads its virtual Reading Kentucky Poets series.

The Gaines Center supports humanities research and collaboration at UK. Faculty, staff and graduate students can apply for Gaines Humanities Cooperatives grants, which give interdisciplinary working groups funding, space and institutional support. There are Gaines Mini-Grants as well. The center runs the Bingham Seminar and the Lafayette Seminar in Public Issues and hosts the Bale Boone Symposium.

With funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and private donors, Kentucky Humanities has supported public humanities projects since 1972. Its grants go to organizations, for programs from book discussions to radio and video productions. It also runs a Speakers Bureau and Kentucky Chautauqua and publishes a magazine.

Outside scholars use the Special Collections Research Center alongside the UK community. Besides the Nunn Center and the Appalachian collection, it holds the university archives and the Wendell H. Ford Public Policy Research Center.

The University Press of Kentucky is the statewide nonprofit scholarly publisher, serving Kentucky's public universities and nine private colleges. Alongside scholarly books in many fields, it publishes on the history and culture of Kentucky, the Ohio Valley, the Upper South and Appalachia. Film and military history are particular strengths.

Katerina Stoykova founded Accents Publishing in 2010 and serves as its senior editor. The press has published more than 100 books. Poetry, anthologies and short story collections are on the list, along with novels and nonfiction.

The Journal of Rural Health is the National Rural Health Association's quarterly, peer-reviewed journal. It publishes original research and rural public policy analysis, among other work. Its editor, Tyrone Borders, is a professor in the University of Kentucky College of Nursing. Preparing an article for the Journal of Rural Health

Violence Against Women is an international, interdisciplinary journal of peer-reviewed research on all aspects of violence against women, including domestic violence, sexual assault and sexual harassment. Editor Claire M. Renzetti is at the University of Kentucky. Preparing an article for Violence Against Women

JONA publishes peer-reviewed research and evaluation studies on nursing leadership eleven times a year. Quality improvement projects appear too. Editor Karen S. Hill is based at Baptist Health Lexington. Preparing an article for JONA

The Kentucky Arts Council gives Individual Artist Fellowships to working professional Kentucky artists who have shown excellence and significant achievement. Writers apply in prose fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or dramatic and screen writing.

The Emerging Artist Award goes to working Kentucky artists early in their careers, generally within their first ten years of professional practice. The literary categories match the fellowship's.

The Carnegie Center runs the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, and committees at the Center and the Kentucky Arts Council choose the inductees. It honors published writers of enduring stature with a significant connection to Kentucky. Anyone can submit a nomination.

The governor appoints the Kentucky Poet Laureate to a two-year term after a public call for nominations, coordinated by the Kentucky Arts Council. Nominees must be Kentucky residents with a long tie to the state and a critically acclaimed body of published work informed by Kentucky life. Writers in any literary form qualify. The laureate leads Kentucky Writers' Day each April 24.

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

King Library Press has hand-set type and printed on hand-operated presses since 1956. It makes its own decorative paper and bindings too. Students and community members can attend lectures and one-day workshops or apply for an apprenticeship. Write to KingLibraryPress@uky.edu to ask about visiting.