A Writer's Guide to Omaha

The new main library opened in 2026. Its third-floor genealogy and local history area has plenty of work tables, plus two large feature tables for spreading out materials. Do Space, one floor down, adds a podcast studio. The building sits on the ORBT and Route 18 bus lines, and Zen Coffee runs a café inside.

The Downtown Branch has study rooms and three meeting rooms that seat 10, 20, and 25. Book a meeting room online between 72 hours and 90 days ahead.

Benson's branch has study rooms and a meeting room for 35. A writing group can book it online up to five times a month.

The archives on the first floor of Criss Library are open to the public on weekdays, and no appointment is needed. Writers will find first editions and signed copies of Wright Morris and Weldon Kees, along with a manuscript collection from the poetry magazine Steppenwolf. The LGBTQIA+ book collection runs past 3,000 titles, and the Fine Arts Press collection holds broadsides and artists' books. Bring a laptop and a camera.

The Bookworm is an independent general bookstore with a children's department that runs story time. Local authors have a consignment section of their own, and the store sells signed Rainbow Rowell titles. Signings happen in the store. Larger author evenings are ticketed and held off-site.

The Next Chapter is a local, independent store selling new books and gifts. Readers can settle in on the patio or by the fireplace with a canned wine or beer. A rescue parrot lives in the shop. Book clubs meet here, and author talks keep the calendar full.

Most of the books at Pop Fiction are by women, and the store keeps adding underrepresented voices. Each of its book clubs takes a theme, from horror and thrillers to sapphic fiction and romantasy. The store takes applications from indie authors. It is closed Mondays.

Hardy roasts its own coffee and runs a bakery. Its Benson café opens early every day, in the same neighborhood as the Benson Branch library.

Hardy's Downtown café is open daily. Walk four blocks west on Jones Street and you reach the Downtown Branch.

The Mill on Leavenworth is the Omaha location of The Mill, a Lincoln coffee shop and roaster in business since 1975. It stays open into the late evening every day, with free parking and seating indoors and out.

Zen Coffee Company's flagship is open daily, on the same block of Farnam Street as The Next Chapter. Zen also runs the café inside the new Central Library, which stays open into the evening on weekdays.

The café inside the Joslyn Art Museum serves coffee and lunch. General admission to the museum is free, and it stays open late on Thursdays.

Union Station's original soda fountain serves food and hand-scooped treats inside The Durham Museum. Historians, and novelists setting a book in Omaha, can send a research request to the museum's Photo Archive, which holds more than a million images of the city's past.

The Nebraska Writers Collective teaches creative writing to writers of every age. Adults can join The Generator, a virtual workshop series across genres. The free North Omaha Writers Workshop runs in six-month cohorts with craft circles and publication opportunities, and it is open to writers who live, work, or create in North Omaha. Poetry slams happen monthly in Omaha and Lincoln.

Poets, scriptwriters, and fiction writers at every level have met with the Nebraska Writers Workshop since 1985. Members read from work in progress and review each other's pages, and some teach a lesson. The meetings are free and weekly. They alternate between the Ralston Baright Public Library and Zoom.

UNO's Writer's Workshop, home to the university's BFA in Creative Writing and MFA in Writing, brings guest authors to read every semester. The readings are free and open to the public. They take place at Criss Library and at other venues around Omaha.

Each year Omaha Public Library runs Omaha Reads, a citywide read chosen by public vote, with book clubs and author visits among its programs. If you live in Nebraska or once did, you can submit your book to the library's local author collection through an online form. Authors can also propose a book talk.

Creighton's Kripke Center supports scholarship on religion and society and gives special attention to understanding between faith communities. It publishes the open-access Journal of Religion & Society. Research grant applications are accepted every month.

OLLAS offers educational programming and resources on Chicano/Latino/Latin American peoples at UNO. Besides the Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies, it publishes OLLAS Reports and OLLAS Quick Facts. Its community engagement work includes conferences and events.

Founded in 1973, Humanities Nebraska is a statewide nonprofit and a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It gives grants for public humanities projects, mini grants among them, and its Speakers Bureau books scholars for community programs. Chautauqua and Nebraska Warrior Writers are two of its programs. Some events are held at Omaha venues.

Guy Duncan and Denise Brady founded Gibraltar Editions in Omaha in 2015 to publish contemporary poetry in handmade limited editions. They print from handset type and relief blocks on a Vandercook proof press, and every book is hand sewn. The press carries on the fine press tradition of the printer Harry Duncan, Guy's father.

The Journal of Religion & Society publishes open-access research on religion and its social dimensions, with a focus on American religions and Western religious traditions. It also runs book reviews and a themed Supplement Series. Kripke Center faculty at Creighton University in Omaha make up the editorial board. Preparing an article for the Journal of Religion & Society

This bilingual journal publishes humanities and social science scholarship in English and Spanish on Latino Studies and Latin American and Caribbean Studies, from the Latino experience in the U.S. to diasporas and borders. It is housed at UNO's Office of Latino/Latin American Studies. Preparing an article for the Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies

The Nebraska Arts Council gives these fellowships to working Nebraska artists 19 and older who have lived in the state for at least two years. The money pays for professional development, such as new work or research. The award rotates among disciplines, and literature takes its turn.

Each year the Nebraska Center for the Book honors books with a Nebraska tie. The author, illustrator, or publisher can be from Nebraska, or the book can be set in or about the state. Categories run from fiction and poetry to Nebraska as place.

The Nebraska Writers Collective gives this poetry prize every year. Nebraska residents 19 and older can enter.

The Union's ten-month fellowship is for early-career creatives in the Omaha–Council Bluffs metro, and writers are eligible. Fellows get a private studio and project support, along with monthly workshops, mentorship, and critiques. Each fellow also completes community engagement work and a final project.

Editors For Students sums up funding and writing support for Creighton students, from fellowships to student publications.

The Bellevue guide covers scholarships and the Writing Center at Bellevue University, in the Omaha suburb of Bellevue.

The Union is a nonprofit arts center, and its co-op printmaking studio has a Risograph, screenprinting equipment, and a floor press for relief and intaglio. Book time by appointment with a co-op pass. Passes are for ages 18 and up and come with an orientation. The Union also offers an Intro to Screenprinting workshop.