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

Besides the Seattle Room collections, the Central Library keeps map and zine collections. Meeting rooms can be reserved online. Readings and talks take place in the 275-seat Microsoft Auditorium, and the building is open daily.

The Capitol Hill Branch has a study room and a meeting room you can reserve. It is open daily.

Ballard's branch, a few blocks from The Secret Garden Bookshop, has study rooms and a reservable meeting room. It stays open into the evening Tuesday through Thursday.

UW's main libraries are open to the public as well as the campus community. Visitors can use the guest research computers on the Allen North ground floor. For silent study, climb to the Suzzallo Reading Room on the third floor. Both libraries close on Saturdays.

Special Collections holds the Pacific Northwest Collection, Book Arts and Rare Books, and the Labor Archives of Washington. Anyone may use it. Create a free account in the request system first; appointments are strongly encouraged. Enter through Suzzallo's ground floor, and plan for weekday afternoons, when the reading room is open.

Elliott Bay has been a full-service general bookstore since 1973, with more than 150,000 titles. Author events come often. There is a café inside.

Open Books stocks more than 10,000 poetry titles, from new books to rare and out-of-print ones, with chapbooks and journals on the shelves too. Poetry in translation has its own section. The shop takes event proposals and opens Wednesday through Sunday afternoons.

Third Place Books in Ravenna runs a full calendar of in-store readings and is open daily. The store's page also links to Café Arta.

Phinney Books opened in 2014. NYRB Classics are always on hand, and each week the store names a New and an Old Book of the Week. Its Ridge Readers book club meets monthly, and local authors sign at the Holiday Bookfest.

Queen Anne Book Company hosts author conversations and a monthly book club, QABC Reads. It is open daily.

The Secret Garden is a women-owned bookstore for readers of all ages in historic Ballard. It holds a monthly book club in the store and makes school visits.

Arundel sells new books alongside rare titles and vintage paperbacks. Art and photography monographs and poetry each get their own sections. It is open seven days a week.

Magus has bought and sold used books in the University District since 1978, near the UW campus. It is open daily. The Magus Annex in Wallingford carries new books, Thursday through Monday.

A collective has run Left Bank Books in Pike Place Market since 1973. It specializes in anarchist and radical titles and small-press books, with more than 10,000 new and used books in close to 70 sections. Watch its events calendar.

The Writers' Room is a residency: six desks in a shared room on Level 9, with windows facing southwest. A cohort of 70 writers uses it during library hours, and residents get two gatherings and a public reading. Applicants need a defined project. Publication history doesn't count.

Hugo House opens to the public on set days each week, no membership required. Write-ins and writing parties happen in The Salon, and the House bar serves drinks. Drop-in writing circles meet here as well.

The Parlor is a quiet studio next door to Open Books, with a large library table, rare books, and literary journals. An archive of poetry readings on vinyl and cassette is kept there too. Book it by email by the hour, in four-hour blocks, or by the month; off-hours are available on request.

Caffe Vita's flagship café and roastery on Pike is open every day. Hugo House and Elliott Bay Book Company are a few blocks away.

One regular called Victrola's 15th Avenue café the "living room of Capitol Hill." It is open daily, and a writing group can reserve the community room online for free.

The Pink Door serves Italian-American food in Post Alley. Live music and aerial performances take place in the lounge. There is tarot too. It closes Sundays and Mondays.

A family has owned and run Jazz Alley since 1980, and the club serves dinner with the music. Touring artists play multi-night runs.

The Frye Art Museum's café is run with MariPili Tapas Bar and serves Galician-inspired lunch, espresso, wine, and beer. Admission to the galleries is always free. The Frye closes Mondays and Tuesdays and stays open late on Thursdays.

Vermillion, on 11th Avenue near Hugo House, is an art venue with changing exhibitions and openings.

Hugo House teaches creative writing and craft classes in person and online, with sliding-scale options and class scholarships. Writers taking a draft toward submission can join Book Lab or work with a writing coach. The Works in Progress open mic meets twice a month, and visiting writers come through for the Speaker Series.

Seattle Arts & Lectures presents author talks and readings for readers and writers of all ages. It also runs the Youth Poetry Fellowship and WITS, its program in K-12 schools.

Jack Straw has been a community resource since 1962 and calls itself a multidisciplinary audio arts center. Writers chosen for the Jack Straw Writers Program take residencies in its recording studios and present their work in sound. The center also teaches audio workshops.

Clarion West is a nonprofit for writers of speculative fiction. Its intensive six-week summer workshop in Seattle pairs group critiques with instructor conferences. Online, it offers a nine-month Novel Writing Workshop and Flash Fiction Groups. Public readings and writing meetups run year-round.

Seattle City of Literature stewards the city's UNESCO City of Literature designation, granted in 2017. Its Literary Calendar collects book and author events. The Seattle Literary Map marks literary points of interest around town.

Looking for a writing group? Seattle Writes, the library's writing program, keeps a guide to local groups. It also posts reading lists on craft and publishing and a writing events calendar, and it offers occasional classes.

The Simpson Center, UW's humanities center, funds Society of Scholars fellowships and Faculty Summer Fellowships. Collaborative research projects and course development receive funding as well. The center also runs a Digital & Data Humanities program and hosts the Katz Distinguished Lectures.

Humanities Washington is a statewide nonprofit. It runs the Speakers Bureau and the Washington State Poet Laureate program, publishes Spark magazine, and makes grants.

Faculty preparing a book or article can get guidance here on copyright, author rights, and open access. Data Services helps with data management, visualization, mapping, and text mining. You can also book a one-on-one appointment with a subject expert.

The Washington State Library runs the state's affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book. It administers the Washington State Book Awards and announces Washington's picks for the National Book Festival.

The University of Washington Press has published for more than 100 years. Its list covers American studies, Asian American studies, Native American and Indigenous studies, and environmental history, among other fields, along with nonfiction about the Pacific Northwest. Many of its books are made with museums, cultural organizations, and Indigenous nations.

Wave Books is an independent poetry press based in Seattle. It publishes contemporary poetry and poetry in translation, with some fiction, criticism, and essays, and it also issues limited editions and audiobooks.

Fantagraphics publishes comics and graphic novels, international work and manga among them. Prose and memoir are on the list as well, along with comics history and criticism and archival reprints of classic strips. It also publishes for kids and young adults.

The Journal of Interpersonal Violence publishes individual studies of domestic violence, rape, child sexual abuse, and other interpersonal violence, using qualitative or quantitative methods. Its editor, Jon R. Conte, is professor emeritus at the University of Washington School of Social Work. Preparing an article for the Journal of Interpersonal Violence

Artist Trust's GAP awards are unrestricted, project-based grants for Washington artists and artist teams in every discipline. Applicants must be Washington residents, 18 or older, and not enrolled as students.

Artist Trust gives fellowships to Washington artists, among them the Fellowship Award for Black Artists. It also presents the Arts Innovator Award.

The Washington Center for the Book gives these awards each year, naming finalists first and winners after. Submission guidelines are posted on the Center's site.

Seattle City of Literature offers microgrants and announces applications on its website.

University of Washington students can find grants and writing resources on this page.

Seattle University students have a guide of their own.

Northwest University students can use the same kind of page.

Partners in Print is a print shop that teaches printmaking classes, among them linocut and printing on a platen press. It also hosts Print Socials.

Pratt is an arts center with a 2D and printmaking studio and printmaking classes. For studio access, look at its membership options.

Paper Press Punch is a risograph studio. You can rent the presses at its Riso & Bindery Open Studio, or learn in a riso workshop or a one-on-one session.