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

Burton Barr is the central library of the Phoenix Public Library system. Groups of up to 26 can book either of its two meeting rooms, and four second-floor study rooms hold two to four people. A Phoenix Public Library card reserves any of them online at no charge.

Saguaro, a Phoenix Public Library branch, has a meeting room for up to 105 people. It is free to book. A writing group fits easily, and so does a reading.

Hayden sits at the center of ASU's Tempe campus and has collaborative study rooms. Visitors can use ASU Guest WiFi. If you have no ASU affiliation, you can buy a Community Borrowing Card and check out most items in the open stacks.

ASU's special collections are read in Room 138 of Hayden Library in Tempe. Among them are the Chicano/a Research Collection, the Greater Arizona Collection, and the Labriola National American Indian Data Center. Request most materials through Ask An Archivist.

ASU's downtown library is on the lower level of the University Center building. Visitors get the same Guest WiFi and community borrowing cards offered at Hayden.

Changing Hands has sold books since 1974, and its Phoenix store is on Camelback Road. It sells new and used books, and you can trade in your own. The Changing Hands calendar runs from author readings to First Friday Poetry. Groups can rent its meeting space.

The Tempe Changing Hands is on McClintock Drive in south Tempe. Its classes and author events share one calendar with the Phoenix store.

The Poisoned Pen is an independent mystery bookstore in Old Town Scottsdale. Authors appear often. The events stream on Facebook Live and YouTube, and the store sells signed books and runs subscription book clubs.

Palabras is a bilingual Spanish-English bookstore with an emphasis on BIPOC authors and banned books. It sends books to incarcerated youth. Readings and book clubs meet here, and the store is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

Grassrootz is a Black-owned activist bookstore with a café. Its shelves lean toward social and political books and Black poetry, art, and photography. The Hey Sis Reads book club meets here, and the store is open seven days a week.

Bookmans buys and sells used books, along with music, movies, and games. Trade credit never expires. The Tucson-based chain has a second metro store in Mesa, at 1056 S Country Club Dr.

Copper Star is a coffeehouse in a repurposed service station on Seventh Avenue. Sit inside or out. The WiFi is free, and local artists hang their work on the walls.

Cartel is a local roaster. Its Tempe café on Ash Avenue stays open into the evening, later than most of its other cafés, and ASU's Tempe campus is a short walk away.

Songbird is a café in a 1904 house on Roosevelt Row. A Grand Canyon University student guide recommends it for homework and points to the front porch and the couches inside.

The Henry is a restaurant with its own coffee bar, open daily from the morning. The kitchen runs into the evening. You can arrive for coffee and stay through dinner.

First Draft is the bar inside Changing Hands Phoenix. It pours wine, mead, and craft beer, and you can drink at the bar or while you browse. Its book club meets monthly on Zoom.

The Courtyard Café is at the Heard Museum, a museum of American Indian art and culture. The museum also keeps a research library and archives. Its shop sells work bought directly from American Indian artists.

Crescent Ballroom is a music venue in a 1917 building downtown. Its kitchen, Cocina 10, cooks from scratch.

ASU's Piper Center was founded in 2003 with a gift from the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. Its Piper Writers Studio runs classes and workshops across genres, for writers at every skill level. Readings come through the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series, and veterans can join the Veterans Writing Circle. Take light rail to College Avenue/Veterans Way.

Each year the Piper Center holds Desert Nights, Rising Stars at ASU. More than 300 writers come for three days of craft sessions and book signings.

Desert Sleuths is the Phoenix-area chapter of Sisters in Crime, and it welcomes crime writers of every gender and experience level. Its monthly programs on Zoom are free and open to the public. Members also meet at informal Sippin' Sleuths gatherings in Old Town Scottsdale and at the Tempe Library. WriteNow! is the chapter's annual conference.

Ghost Poetry Show is a spoken-word slam in Phoenix. Twelve poets compete at The Rebel Lounge, and five audience members picked at random judge them. It also runs writing nights for local poets and writers at Changing Hands.

ASU's Humanities Institute, part of The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, funds faculty research and creative work through fellowships, seed grants, and micro-residencies. It also pays publication subventions and gives a Book Award.

ACMRS is ASU's research center for medieval and early modern literature and culture. It offers short-term residencies and travel awards, and its resources are open to faculty, students, and independent scholars in Arizona and beyond. It hosts RaceB4Race, a cross-institutional community for premodern critical race studies.

ASU researchers can get publishing and research support from the library's Open Science and Scholarly Communication division. The library also hosts the Hub of Open Access Publishers, where ASU journals and presses, ACMRS Press among them, share open-access publishing resources.

Arizona Humanities is the state's humanities council, founded in 1974 and affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities. It funds public humanities projects by organizations and runs AZ Speaks, a speakers bureau. Its office is on Central Avenue in Phoenix.

ACMRS Press publishes scholarship in premodern studies, in print and free to read on its open-access platform. Its Play On Shakespeare series puts the plays into contemporary language. The Bard in the Borderlands collects Shakespeare adaptations from Chicanx and Indigenous theater of the US-Mexico borderlands.

Hayden's Ferry Review is an international literary journal that ASU publishes through the Piper Center. It prints literary work and art, and its online companion, The Dock, runs on the website.

Criminal Justice and Behavior, the journal of the International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology, publishes peer-reviewed evaluations of correctional programs, from classification and prevention to treatment. SAGE publishes it monthly. Its editor, Kristy Holtfreter, is at Arizona State University. Preparing an article for Criminal Justice and Behavior

The Arizona Commission on the Arts gives this grant to individual artists in any discipline, at any stage of a career, for work that develops their practice or broadens their range. Poets and essayists have received it. Applicants must be Arizona residents 18 or older.

The Governor appoints Arizona's poet laureate to a two-year term, and the Arizona Commission on the Arts runs the program. Anyone can nominate a poet, including themselves.

The Piper Center awards this stipend for a significant literary project with a cross-cultural, multicultural, or international focus. The lead artist must be based in Arizona. It is open to community writers and ASU students, working alone or in small teams.

Arizona State University students can find grants and writing resources on this page.

Grand Canyon University students have a guide of their own.

The University of Phoenix page gathers the same kinds of resources for its students.

Hazel & Violet is a letterpress studio and commercial print shop open to the public. It teaches group workshops, takes custom orders, and rents out its presses. The shop is open Tuesday through Saturday.

Pyracantha Press is the letterpress and book arts studio of ASU's School of Art in Tempe. Its printers work with wood type and an 1800s Columbian handpress. Students print broadsides here, and the press has collaborated with poets and outside artists. It now sits in the Mill Avenue residence hall, where people in the hallway can watch the presses at work.