A Writer's Guide to Marquette, Michigan

Peter White Public Library is Marquette's public library, on North Front Street downtown. Writers can reserve a meeting or study room or work in the Local History & Genealogy collection, and there is a recording booth for audio. The library hosts author presentations and book groups. NMU's English Department reads in its Shiras Room. It is closed Sundays.

Ishpeming's Carnegie library sits about 15 miles west of downtown Marquette. It keeps research guides for house history and genealogy, and its calendar fills with book clubs and author visits. Clubs and classes meet in the Ray Leverton Community Room. The library is closed Sundays and Mondays.

The archives in Harden Hall hold Northern Michigan University's records alongside central Upper Peninsula collections, from mining and logging records to family records and oral histories. Any member of the public can use them. Walk-ins are welcome, though staff ask you to get in touch ahead so your boxes are pulled before you arrive. The archives also manages UPLINK, a digital collections database for more than 30 U.P. heritage organizations.

The Longyear belongs to the Marquette Regional History Center, a nonprofit founded in 1918, and it specializes in the Lake Superior region. Its holdings run past 16,000 titles, rare books and diaries among them, and the photograph collection tops 100,000 images. The library prefers appointments. Call the librarian about your project first so materials can be pulled, and plan around Mondays, when it is closed.

Snowbound Books sells new and used books downtown, and audiobooks through Libro.fm. Authors appear in the store. It is open daily.

Chelsea Bromley owns Bromley's Books, an independent store that opened in Marquette in 2025 with many books by Indigenous writers on its shelves. She also turned a city bus into a mobile bookstore, the Book Bus. The shop sells literary gifts alongside its books and runs a book club and events.

Read My Lips sells romance only, and it bills itself as Michigan's first romance bookshop. Signings and book discussions are ticketed through Eventbrite. The shop is open daily.

231 West is a patisserie serving coffee, pastries, and lunch, open daily from morning through mid-afternoon. The Northwind, NMU's student paper, reported free Wi-Fi and plenty of seating. A manager told the paper you could sit there for eight hours.

Velodrome roasts its own coffee and serves it on North Third Street with waffles and sandwiches. There is Wi-Fi. A second Velodrome café is in Ishpeming, at 105 S Main.

The Delft Bistro serves dinner and brunch inside the Delft Theater, which opened in 1914 and ran mostly as a movie theater. Classic films play in the dining room, and the old balcony is now a loft dining area. Check its events page for live music. It is closed Mondays.

Ore Dock's taproom spans two adjacent historic buildings on Spring Street, just off Front Street, and one of them spent a century as a car garage. Live music and community events fill the calendar every week. It is open daily.

Blackrocks is a microbrewery taproom with live music every month. Food trucks come on a posted schedule. The taproom is open daily.

UPPAA, founded in 1998, is a nonprofit for authors and publishers who live in or write about Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Anyone with a U.P. connection and an interest in writing and publishing books can join. It publishes the annual U.P. Reader anthology and runs workshops and a spring conference. Members can list their books in its catalog.

Northern Michigan University's English Department presents readings by visiting authors, NMU alumni, and MFA students. Readings have been held on Thursday evenings in the Shiras Room of Peter White Public Library.

The city's Office of Arts & Culture runs MQTCompass, the arts and culture calendar for Marquette County. Its Poetry & Literature category lists readings. For calls and opportunities, read the Creative Classifieds. The office also runs a public gallery program.

This endowed grant helps researchers cover the costs of archival and library work on the history and culture of the Upper Peninsula, done in the Central Upper Peninsula and NMU Archives or NMU's Lydia M. Olson Library. Literature, labor, and religion are among the eligible topics. A thesis or dissertation qualifies, as do papers and publications. Applicants need no connection to NMU.

Michigan Humanities is the state humanities council, founded in 1974 and funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. It runs the Great Michigan Read.

Western American Literature, the Western Literature Association's peer-reviewed journal, publishes literary and cultural study of the North American West, including western Canada and northern Mexico, with special interests in ecocriticism, settler colonialism, and borderlands studies. It is edited at Northern Michigan University in Marquette. Preparing an article for Western American Literature

UPPAA started the U.P. Notable Books List in 2019. Each year it honors books by Upper Peninsula authors and about the U.P., and an online book club features the listed authors.

Passages North, the literary magazine published at Northern Michigan University, runs its contests in alternating years: poetry and nonfiction in odd-numbered years, fiction and short-short prose in even-numbered ones. The Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize and the Ray Ventre Memorial Nonfiction Prize are two of them. Work must be previously unpublished, and NMU students cannot enter. Winners are published in the print issue.

The city's Annual Art Awards recognize Marquette people and organizations for artistic excellence or significant contributions to the arts. One category is the Writer award. Nominations come from an open call each year.

Each year the Library of Michigan selects twenty books written by a Michigan author or about Michigan or the Great Lakes. Many of the honored authors go on a statewide tour and take part in virtual Author Conversations.

UPPAA's Regional Grants help members organize gatherings of writers and others in publishing, from open mic nights and library panels to regular writers' circles. Recent grantees worked with libraries and an arts center.

Our sister site's guide gathers grants and writing resources for Northern Michigan University students.

The UPS Store on US-41 West copies and prints documents and binds reports. It also prints large-format posters and banners, and a notary is available seven days a week.

Globe Printing is a print shop in downtown Ishpeming, about 15 miles west of Marquette. It prints newsletters, brochures, signs, and art prints. It prints apparel as well.