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

State Library Victoria is open daily, and you can settle in to work under the dome of the La Trobe Reading Room. A free library card for Victorian residents gives reference access to about 6 million titles and lets you book meeting rooms and creative technology studios. For material that needs handling help or specialist equipment, add a Researcher Membership and read in the Heritage Collections Reading Room.

The Athenaeum is a subscription library of more than 30,000 books, and it counts its crime fiction and biography collections among Victoria's best. Visitors can browse or come to a talk or a play reading. Members can borrow, join the book clubs and use the Library and Reading Room for extended periods. It opens late on Wednesdays and closes on Sundays.

The Archives and Special Collections reading room is in the Baillieu Library on the University of Melbourne's Parkville campus. Students, researchers and the general public can all use the collections. Make an appointment first.

Merri-bek's Brunswick branch is open seven days, with evening hours Monday to Thursday. Members aged 15 and over can book a table or the digitisation station in the Brunswick Makerspace, which also has sewing machines.

Readings is an independent Melbourne bookseller, and its Lygon Street shop, established in 1969, is the flagship. It hosts author events and poetry readings. Readings Kids is next door, and another Readings shop is inside State Library Victoria.

Brunswick Bound is an independent shop on Sydney Road selling books, records and paper goods, and it is open daily. Its Eat the Book series brings cookbook authors in for live cooking demonstrations.

Kay Craddock deals in antiquarian and rare books, from early printed books and Australiana to books about books. It also carries private press books and fine printing. The shop is closed on Sundays.

Hill of Content stocks a broad, selective range of books published in Australia and overseas. When it moved in July 2025, volunteers formed a human chain and passed about 4,000 books hand to hand to the new shop, a short way up Bourke Street.

The Paperback Bookshop has been at the top end of Bourke Street since the 1960s. It stocks new releases and classic titles in fiction, history and poetry, with shelves for philosophy and current affairs.

Happy Valley sells design and art books, new vinyl and gifts on Smith Street. It is open daily.

Guild Cafe is the State Library's café, reached through the Russell Street entry. Its large communal tables suit a laptop session between stints in the reading rooms. Library members get 10 per cent off food and drinks.

ACMI is free to enter and open daily. Its public wi-fi needs no password, and you are welcome to plug in at the power points in the red lounge on the Ground Floor and in the Level 1 lounge. Upstairs, the Cafe + Bar serves coffee and light meals, with longer hours around cinema sessions.

Code Black is a Melbourne specialty coffee roaster, and its Brunswick café on Weston Street has free wi-fi and plenty of sockets for charging a laptop.

The Moat is an Italian restaurant and bar in the bluestone basement of State Library Victoria, under the Wheeler Centre. It pitches itself as the place for dinner before a Wheeler Centre event. It is closed Sundays, Mondays and public holidays.

General entry to the National Gallery of Victoria is free, and the gallery is open daily. The Garden Restaurant serves a seasonal lunch beside the NGV Collection displays. Upstairs, the Level 1 Tea Room does light lunches and high tea.

The Wheeler Centre is a not-for-profit centre for books, writing and ideas, next to State Library Victoria. It holds events in its own CBD performance space, at other Melbourne venues, in regional Victoria and online. Emerging writers can apply for its Hot Desk Fellowships and The Next Chapter, and its residents include Australian Book Review and Express Media.

Writers Victoria is a membership organisation for the state's writers. Alongside workshops and masterclasses, it offers manuscript assessment and pairs early-career and emerging writers with a one-to-one mentor. Members can use its library and meeting rooms, and it runs subsidised Writers Studios with National Trust Victoria. It publishes The Victorian Writer.

The Melbourne Writers Festival has run since 1986. Outside the festival program it holds events through the year and makes the MWF Podcast, and MWF Schools is its education program.

The Emerging Writers' Festival is a not-for-profit festival for new and emerging writers, held in person and online, and it runs the National Writers' Conference at the Wheeler Centre. It awards the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers with Hachette Australia and the Speculate Prize for Emerging Writers with RMIT University. Listen to its Crossings podcast.

Australian Poetry is a national poetry organisation based at the Wheeler Centre. It publishes the Australian Poetry Journal and Best of Australian Poems. Poetry Lab offers mentoring, and unpublished poets can enter its Theresa Matheson Bequest Award.

The State Library offers fellowships each year in three streams. Research Fellowships go to mid-career and established researchers working in the State Collection, Creative Fellowships to practitioners making new work from the collections, and Creative Residencies to people responding to the Library's site and civic role. Fellows get an office in the Dome annulus for twelve months and help from a liaison librarian.

The non/fictionLab is a research group in RMIT's School of Media and Communication, aligned with Writing and Publishing. Its public events include the Reading Publics series, and its publishing partnerships include essay series with Mekong Review and Landfall. More than 60 PhD, Masters and Honours candidates in creative writing, design, media and literary studies are part of it.

Monash University Publishing sits within Monash University Library and publishes nonfiction and scholarship, with an emphasis on politics, biography, history and memoir. Its scholarly titles go open access on Bridges, Monash's repository, soon after they appear in print.

Founded in 1922, Melbourne University Publishing describes itself as Australia's first university press. General nonfiction and scholarly books appear under the Melbourne University Press imprint. The Miegunyah Press imprint publishes illustrated books on Australian art, photography, history and biography.

Text publishes literary and commercial fiction and nonfiction for adults and young adults. Its authors are Australian and international.

Scribe is an independent publisher based in Brunswick, with editors in Melbourne and London. It publishes Australian and translated literary fiction, along with nonfiction on climate, politics, justice, health, science and technology. Children's books come out under the Scribble imprint.

Nursing Reports is an open-access MDPI journal of nursing research for practitioners, educators, academics and the public, covering practice, policy, midwifery and mental health. Its Editor-in-Chief, Richard Gray, is at La Trobe University's School of Nursing and Midwifery in Melbourne. Preparing an article for Nursing Reports

The Journal of Business Ethics, published by Springer, carries original multidisciplinary research and philosophical work on business ethics. Michelle Greenwood of Monash University in Melbourne is its first-listed Co-Editor-in-Chief. Preparing an article for Journal of Business Ethics

This Emerald journal reviews management thinking about leaders and organisations. Its first-listed Co-Editor-in-Chief, Leila Afshari, is in the School of Management at RMIT's City Campus. Preparing an article for Leadership and Organization Development Journal

The Victorian Government funds these awards, and the Wheeler Centre administers them. They honour Australian writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama, and in categories that include Indigenous writing, humour writing (the John Clarke Prize) and writing for young adults (the John Marsden Prize). Victorian residents can enter the Unpublished Manuscript award, and category winners compete for the Victorian Prize for Literature.

Creative Victoria's grants support projects led by Victorian-based professional artists and creative practitioners, groups and collectives, and small creative organisations. Separate streams serve First Peoples creatives and Deaf and Disabled creatives.

Practising artists who are Australian citizens or permanent residents can apply for these federal grants, and a Literature panel assesses writers' applications. They fund new work, research, mentoring, residencies and publishing.

A Hot Desk Fellowship gives an emerging writer a stipend and a desk at the Wheeler Centre for ten weeks, with contact with its resident organisations and a reading at The Next Big Thing. The University of Melbourne's Faculty of Arts is the major supporter. Partner fellowships go to an emerging female or non-binary playwright and an emerging Young Adult writer.

The Melbourne Prize Trust runs this annual prize for Victorian writers, musicians and sculptors with public and private funding.

University of Melbourne students and graduate researchers can find scholarships, thesis prizes and writing help in one guide.

Monash students will find the same guide for their university here.

RMIT University has its own page of scholarships and writing resources.

Deakin University students can start here.

Volunteers run Sticky Institute, a non-profit zine shop and open workspace in Campbell Arcade. You can photocopy there, use its zine-making and badge-making supplies, and sell your own zines through the shop. It is open Tuesday to Saturday.

The Hungry Workshop is a letterpress studio whose work includes notebooks, invitations and packaging. Its small-group workshops cover wood type posters and custom letterpress notebooks. Book ahead and aim for a weekday.