A Writer's Guide to New York City: Libraries, Bookstores, Writing Groups, and Presses

The Schwarzman Building is NYPL's flagship research library, and its research divisions hold manuscripts and rare books. Writers apply here for the Allen Room and the Wertheim Study. It is closed Mondays.

Central Library is open seven days. A writing group of up to 12 can reserve a free room in the Shelby White and Leon Levy Information Commons, and the building also has meeting rooms and the 189-seat Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture.

The Schomburg is NYPL's research center for Black history and culture, and its collections hold more than 11 million items. Schedule a research appointment through its page for researchers before you go. It is closed Sundays.

The reading room opens weekdays by appointment, booked 7 to 90 days ahead through a Special Collections Research Account. Visitors without a Columbia ID contact staff to arrange campus access. The holdings include the Oral History Archives and the papers of playwright Dolores Prida.

The Society Library is a membership library, though anyone can come in for reading, reference, and many of its events. Members borrow books and can work in individual study rooms. Watch for its Writing Life events.

The Morgan's rare materials run from antiquity to the present, and you can search them in the CORSAIR catalog. Apply online for a reading room appointment well in advance.

McNally Jackson runs five stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Authors read at the Seaport store, 4 Fulton Street, on many weeknights. The SoHo store is open daily.

The Strand opened in 1927 and is the last survivor of the old Fourth Avenue Book Row. Its four floors hold more than 2.5 million new, used, and rare books.

Three Lives has sold books from this corner since 1978, and Toby Cox took it over in 2001. Look for the red double doors.

Book Culture's stores near Columbia carry new academic books and coursebooks. The flagship on 112th Street buys used books and hosts poetry readings and book clubs, and a second store is at 2915 Broadway. Both are open daily.

The cultural services of the French Embassy run Albertine, a reading room and bookshop of French and English books. Its talks are free, and translators will find events on translation. A book club meets monthly. It is closed Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays.

Greenlight holds book launches and author conversations several nights a week, plus book groups. It stays open into the evening every day and also runs offsite events at BAM and Pratt.

Novelist Emma Straub and Michael Fusco-Straub opened Books Are Magic in 2017. Both stores host launches and readings. The Montague Street store adds a wide selection of kids' books.

WORD is a Greenpoint neighborhood store, open daily, with book clubs and a membership program.

Studio Writers get private desks on the second floor and extended hours. Members can use the library and terrace, and day passes are available. Downstairs, the bookstore and the book-lined Café & Bar are open to everyone daily.

The Writers Room is a nonprofit writing loft open around the clock, every day of the year. The workspace keeps silence rules: no talking, no ringing phones, no eating. Take breaks in the kitchen-lounge. Members can store research materials on site.

Both study rooms take applications. The Allen Room is for authors under book contract who need the research collections over a long stretch, and the Wertheim Study is for researchers working intensively in the humanities and social sciences collections.

Poets House is a free poetry library of more than 80,000 books, journals, broadsides, and chapbooks. It reopened in January 2024 and is open Tuesday through Saturday.

The Hungarian Pastry Shop has been open since 1961. There is no Wi-Fi, and you are invited to stay as long as you like. Columbia students have written dissertations here, the shop says, and its author wall shows work by writers of more than 50 books.

KGB is a Soviet-themed bar in a former socialist social club, open since 1993. Its reading series include Monday Night Poetry and Fantastic Fiction on third Wednesdays, and Columbia's MFA program holds alumni readings here. The Red Room hosts performances.

The White Horse opened in 1880 and became a writers' bar in the 1950s. Dylan Thomas drank here, and James Baldwin and Norman Mailer were regulars.

The nonprofit Housing Works runs this secondhand bookstore and café, which pours coffee, beer, and wine and hosts special events. It is open daily.

Pete's has been a restaurant and bar since 1864. O. Henry lived down the street and wrote it into 'The Lost Blend' as Kenealy's.

Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, and Harold Ross met at this hotel in the 1920s as the Algonquin Round Table, and the hotel keeps a replica of the table. It is a national literary landmark. The Blue Bar serves an all-day menu.

The Center for Fiction runs reading groups and writing workshops, online and in person, and livestreams its author events. It also gives the Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellowships and the First Novel Prize.

The Poetry Project holds readings and workshops at St. Mark's Church. It publishes The Poetry Project Newsletter and The Recluse and runs Dial-A-Poem USA. Its Emerge-Surface-Be Fellowship supports emerging writers and curators.

Center for Book Arts holds an annual chapbook competition and mounts more than ten gallery exhibitions a year. It also runs an Artist-in-Residence program.

AAWW offers workshops and fellowships, among them the Margins Fellowship and Residency and the Open City Fellowship. It publishes The Margins, a magazine that runs reportage alongside poetry and fiction.

Poets House runs seminars and the Passwords talk series alongside readings, some in person and some streamed. Its online archive keeps recordings and interviews.

The Brooklyn Book Festival bills itself as New York City's largest free literary festival. Each September it holds a Festival Day and Literary Marketplace at Borough Hall, and its Bookends events run in all five boroughs.

The Cullman Center gives 15 nine-month fellowships a year, September to May, each with an office at the Library and full access to its collections. Academics, independent scholars, and creative writers can apply if their work will draw directly on those collections. Visual artists working on a book project are eligible too.

Columbia's Society of Fellows and Heyman Center run several fellowship programs, including the Public Humanities Graduate Fellows and the Edward W. Said Research Study Award. The center also hosts the Thursday Lecture Series and New Books, which celebrates work by Columbia faculty.

The Center for the Humanities gives grants and fellowships to faculty, students, and community partners, including Humanities Catalyst Grants and CUNY Adjunct Incubator Grants. Its opportunities board posts fellowships and calls for papers. It is also home to Women's Studies Quarterly.

Humanities New York is the state's humanities council. It funds and partners with organizations across New York and runs free public programs such as Humanities Unbound, a reading and discussion program.

Columbia University Press publishes scholarship across academic disciplines and professional fields. Its imprints include Columbia Business School Publishing and Wallflower Press. Preparing a manuscript for Columbia University Press

NYU Press publishes scholarly books that bridge academic fields, combining theory with empirical data. Its Washington Mews Books imprint publishes regional and cultural-interest titles. Preparing a manuscript for NYU Press

Teachers College Press covers education from infant and toddler learning to adult learning. The list also reaches into psychology and counseling and into Indigenous studies. Preparing a manuscript for Teachers College Press

Guilford publishes professional and self-help books in psychology and mental health. Its list also covers education and literacy, research methods, and geography. Preparing a manuscript for Guilford

McGraw Hill, headquartered in New York City, publishes for higher education, medical education, and PreK-12. Preparing a manuscript for McGraw Hill

Alfred A. Knopf was founded in 1915. It publishes fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and cookbooks as an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Preparing a manuscript for Knopf

FSG, part of Macmillan, publishes literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, along with books for young readers. MCD and Hill and Wang are among its imprints. Preparing a manuscript for FSG

Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, publishes nonfiction and literary fiction. Its authors write on history, science, politics, and the arts. Preparing a manuscript for Penguin Press

Doubleday publishes commercial and literary fiction alongside serious nonfiction. It is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Penguin Random House. Preparing a manuscript for Doubleday

Crown Publishing Group, a Penguin Random House division established in 1933, publishes narrative nonfiction and fiction as well as cooking, children's, and graphic books. Clarkson Potter and Ten Speed Press are two of its imprints. Preparing a manuscript for Crown

Simon & Schuster publishes fiction and nonfiction across a range of imprints. Preparing a manuscript for Simon & Schuster

Catapult publishes literary fiction and narrative nonfiction. It belongs to Catapult Book Group with Counterpoint Press, Soft Skull Press, and Hawthorne Books. Preparing a manuscript for Catapult

Soft Skull, an imprint of Catapult Book Group, publishes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction that take up art, culture, and current events in new and radical ways. Preparing a manuscript for Soft Skull

Soho is an independent publisher based in Manhattan that puts out 80 to 100 books a year. Its four imprints include Soho Crime and Soho Teen, a young adult line. Preparing a manuscript for Soho

Dan Simon founded Seven Stories in New York in 1995. It publishes political nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, and its imprints include Triangle Square for young readers and the Spanish-language Editorial Siete Cuentos. Preparing a manuscript for Seven Stories

The New Press publishes mostly nonfiction on social and political subjects, from criminal justice and education to labor history and climate. It publishes some fiction as well. Preparing a manuscript for The New Press

Overlook, an imprint of Abrams, publishes literary and genre-bending fiction by emerging and established authors from around the world. Preparing a manuscript for Overlook

Europa brings international fiction to English-language readers. Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet is on its list. Preparing a manuscript for Europa

Skyhorse is a general trade publisher whose list runs from sports and the outdoors to true crime and history. Its Arcade imprint publishes fiction and narrative nonfiction from around the world. Preparing a manuscript for Skyhorse

Akashic is an independent Brooklyn publisher of literary and crime fiction, including the Noir series. It also publishes political nonfiction and children's picture books. Preparing a manuscript for Akashic

The journal publishes peer-reviewed work on evidence-based doctoral nursing practice, from clinical care and case studies to ethics and law. Its editor, Stephen A. Ferrara, is an associate dean at Columbia University School of Nursing. Preparing an article for the Journal of Doctoral Nursing Practice

The Journal of Community Health publishes peer-reviewed articles on the practice, teaching, and research of community health, from preventive medicine to health care delivery. Editor Pascal James Imperato is at the SUNY Downstate School of Public Health in Brooklyn. Preparing an article for the Journal of Community Health

Taylor & Francis has published this peer-reviewed public health journal since 2006. Its editor-in-chief, Richard G. Parker, is professor emeritus of sociomedical sciences and anthropology at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. Preparing an article for Global Public Health

The New York Foundation for the Arts gives these unrestricted fellowships with support from the New York State Council on the Arts. Applicants must be New York State residents, at least 25, who are not enrolled in a degree program. Fiction, Nonfiction Literature, and Poetry come up in rotation over a three-year cycle.

The New York State Council on the Arts funds new work by New York State artists through Support for Artists, and literature is one of its eight areas. A New York nonprofit sponsors each artist's application and receives the grant on the artist's behalf.

The Jerome Foundation gives three-year fellowships for self-designed creative work to early-career artists in Minnesota and New York City. Literature is one of the eligible fields.

The Center for Fiction picks nine early-career fiction writers who live in New York City each year. Fellows get a grant, an editor's critique of their manuscript, and access to the Writers Studio.

The Asian American Writers' Workshop runs The Margins Fellowship, along with The Margins Residency and the Open City Fellowship.

This page gathers grants and writing resources for NYU students.

Columbia students get the same guide here.

Fordham students can find grants and writing resources here.

Pace University's grants and writing resources are collected on this page.

The St. John's page lists grants and writing resources for its students.

Yeshiva students will find the same kind of guide here.

This guide covers grants and writing resources at Touro.

CUNY students can start here for grants and writing resources across the university.

The Manhattan University page lists grants and writing resources for its students.

Center for Book Arts teaches bookbinding, marbling, and hot-stamping in workshops, some in person and some virtual. Artists can rent studio time. The exhibitions are free, and the center is closed Sundays.

Lower East Side Printshop is a nonprofit printmaking studio, founded in 1968, that rents studio time and offers printing services. It also teaches classes and runs Keyholder and Publishing residencies. It is open weekdays.

Artists and art workers founded Printed Matter in 1976 to distribute and promote artists' books. It organizes the NY Art Book Fair and runs bookmaking workshops at its Chelsea store.