A Writer's Guide to Munich

The Motorama branch of the Münchner Stadtbibliothek, the city library, sits at Rosenheimer Platz and has 147 workspaces, some of them wheelchair-accessible. There is Wi-Fi, and you can print. Its collection includes media in English and seven other languages, and the city library keeps an English welcome page.

The city library's branch at Gasteig HP8 fills Halle E, a listed brick transformer hall, and its collection leans toward music and languages, with English-language books for adults and children. Writers can take one of 66 workstations or an armchair. The soundproofed Musik Lab is free to use. An Open Library area stays open late, and the branch hosts language cafés and readings.

The Schwabing branch near Münchner Freiheit has 29 workstations, with armchairs on the upper floor. Its novels come in English, French, Italian and Spanish. It runs a book club and language cafés.

The Bavarian State Library is a research library whose collections run from manuscripts and personal papers to incunabula, maps, music and papyri. Its reading rooms include one for manuscripts and rare books, and research places can be booked ahead. The card is free for adults with ID and a registered address in Germany; a passport with a municipal residence confirmation also works. The site is in English.

LMU's University Library holds about 3,420 manuscripts and 3,600 incunabula in its Historical Collections, with some 300 personal estates and the University Archive's Weiße Rose Collection. All of it is read in the Historical Collections Reading Room in the LMU Main Building. Order rare books one to two days ahead and archival items three to four days ahead. The collections are open for academic and research use.

Words' Worth sells English-language books from the university's English Philology building. More than 10,000 titles cover fiction and non-fiction along with children's books and classics, and the shop also sells audiobooks and British seasonal goods. It takes mail orders and is closed Sundays.

Literatur Moths calls itself a stage, and evening author readings and conversations fill its calendar. The shelves run from literature to art and design, with children's books and Büchergilde Gutenberg editions as well.

Rauch & König is a neighborhood bookshop with staff recommendations and house products of its own. It hosts readings, and once a year it holds a Buchverkostung, a book tasting. It is open Monday to Saturday.

The owner runs the Glockenbachbuchhandlung and hosts at least one reading a month. It stocks fiction and non-fiction for adults and children, and other titles can usually be ordered for the next day. The shop is open Tuesday to Saturday.

glatteis stocks crime fiction of every kind, from the classics to neo-noir. Its author readings are ticketed, and Munich crime writers are among the authors who read there.

Wortwahl Buchkultur runs two neighboring shops on Reichenbachstraße. Number 15 carries fiction and children's books along with photography and design, and number 17 has cookbooks and gardening books, travel guides and cards. A rare and antiquarian section covers art and photography. Both are open Monday to Saturday.

glitch is a queer-feminist bookshop run by a collective of nearly 30 volunteers, who choose the stock together. It will order any book. Readings and talks take place here, and the room can be rented for events after hours. It is open Wednesday to Saturday.

Buchhandlung Lehmkuhl describes itself as a literary institution of Munich's cultural scene. You can browse over coffee at its reading spots.

Lost Weekend is a café-bar run by a bookselling company, and it keeps a free book-exchange shelf called the Lost Weekend Library. It also hosts live music and poetry slams. Students like it. It is open daily, and some tables carry no-laptop signs.

The Monacensia, the city library's literary archive, lets anyone work or read in its library and two other rooms, with no registration. Wi-Fi is free. In good weather there is a reading garden. Café lev is on site and closed Sundays and Mondays.

The café belongs to Bellevue di Monaco, a housing and cultural center, and is run together with refugees. It serves vegetarian and vegan food from breakfast to evening, with fair-trade coffee and free Wi-Fi. For quiet work, take a seat in the upstairs gallery. It also hosts readings and concerts, and it is closed Mondays.

The Bavarian Center for Transatlantic Relations runs a Research Center at the Amerikahaus, where you can work at a computer, and a Digital Research Center. It is open weekday afternoons. The house also holds book talks and lectures.

The Literaturhaus's restaurant and café takes its name from Oskar Maria Graf, the Munich writer who went into exile. Jenny Holzer made a memorial to Graf here from his texts. There is a cake counter inside, and the terrace is large. It is open daily.

Café Luitpold calls itself Munich's famous coffeehouse, and it has its own cultural program, Salon Luitpold, where the readings and talks include speakers from LMU. Breakfast is served daily. On Sundays a matinée pairs breakfast with live music. The website is in German only.

ELLA is the Lenbachhaus museum's café and restaurant, named after Kandinsky's nickname for Gabriele Münter. Its terrace looks onto Königsplatz. With a museum day ticket, the Blaue Reiter menu comes at a special price. It is closed Mondays.

Schelling-Salon is a Viennese-style café-restaurant in the university quarter, open daily until late. Its billiard and table-tennis tables can be booked online, and a small billiards museum opens on Sunday afternoons.

Literaturhaus München runs readings and talks year-round, and its literary exhibitions come with guided tours. The Akademie offers seminars for authors and students, including the Bayerische Akademie des Schreibens and an open writing workshop, the Offene Werkstatt. The house co-hosts Literaturfest München.

The Lyrik Kabinett is a poetry foundation with a public library of more than 76,000 volumes of international poetry, which it calls Germany's largest such collection. The library also keeps current poetry journals and rare artists' books. About 45 readings take place each year. The site has an English version.

The International Youth Library, in Schloss Blutenburg, calls itself the world's largest library for international children's and youth literature. Its reference library holds literary estates and archives, among them the Erich Kästner Research Centre and the Michael Ende Research Archive. Visiting researchers come through its fellowship program.

The Monacensia is the city library's literary archive and museum. It holds about 300 literary estates and collections of Munich writers, with a research library on Munich literature and culture, and its exhibitions draw on those holdings. Readings and workshops fill out the program. Its villa also serves as a workspace for Munich authors and artists and hosts a writing residency.

Literaturfest München is the city's annual literature festival. Literaturhaus München and the Münchner Volkshochschule host it with the City of Munich's Department of Arts and Culture, and each edition has a different guest curator.

CAS LMU is LMU Munich's institute for advanced study, set up for dialogue across disciplines and for international cooperation. It hosts Visiting Fellows and a postdoctoral program. Its Research Groups and Research Focuses have taken up subjects such as Narrations of Medicine and Meaning of Life.

The Technical University of Munich's institute for advanced study gives guest scientists from academia and industry, and early-career scientists too, the chance to do interdisciplinary research at TUM. Its fellowships run from the Hans Fischer Fellowship for early-career scientists to a Philosopher in Residence.

The Rachel Carson Center is LMU Munich's international research center for the environmental humanities and social sciences. Researchers come through its Visiting Scholar Program and can use the RCC Library. The center publishes Springs: The Rachel Carson Center Review and runs the Environment & Society Portal.

LMU researchers can publish books through Open Publishing LMU, from monographs and edited volumes to proceedings, dissertations and postdoctoral theses, with professional typesetting and open licenses. Open Journals LMU hosts open access journals on OJS. The library also runs the Open Access LMU repository.

Cureus is an open access, online-only medical journal covering many specialties, published by Springer Nature. Its editor-in-chief, Alexander Muacevic, is medical director of the European Radiosurgery Center in Munich. Preparing an article for Cureus

Biogeosciences, the European Geosciences Union's nonprofit international journal, publishes work on how the processes of life, on Earth or beyond it, interact with their physical surroundings, from the atmosphere down to the geosphere. Its articles include research papers and reviews. Co-editor-in-chief Anja Rammig is at TUM's School of Life Sciences. Preparing an article for Biogeosciences

The City of Munich gives working grants to established Munich authors with a record of literary recognition. Most go to prose projects, novels and literary essays among them, and some to ambitious poetry projects. Emerging writers can look to the city's Literaturstipendien.

The City of Munich awards this international book prize to a recent book that shows intellectual independence and promotes civic freedom and social responsibility. An expert jury recommends the winner.

Munich's translation prize honors the body of work of a literary translator who lives in Munich or the Munich region. Fiction and essays are its focus.

The city's Department of Arts and Culture runs this international residency for guests from the arts and culture and from the sciences, who come through open calls or on nomination by Munich partner institutions. Residents receive financial support and live and work at Villa Waldberta on Lake Starnberg. Munich is about 45 minutes away by S-Bahn.

The International Youth Library offers research fellowships to researchers without German citizenship, from graduates to PhD holders, who work on international children's and youth literature or illustration. Authors who need its international collections can apply too. Fellows spend six weeks to three months in the research reading room, with a scholarship for living expenses.

Students at LMU Munich will find grants and writing resources gathered on this page.

This page lists grants and writing resources for Technical University of Munich students.

Mr. Copy Dog prints and binds theses in about an hour, ready to take with you. Bindings run from embossed hardcover to spiral. The website is in German.

Haus der Eigenarbeit runs open community workshops, paper and risograph among them, and its courses include binding and restoring books. It is open Tuesday to Saturday.