A Writer's Guide to Storrs, Connecticut

Mansfield Public Library is the town library for Storrs, which belongs to the Town of Mansfield. It hosts author talks, and other programs meet in its Program Room. Planning a launch? The Buchanan Auditorium can be reserved through the library's site.

Homer Babbidge Library on the Storrs campus has study spaces and meeting rooms, and its Plaza Gallery hosts exhibitions. Read the Visitors guide, linked from the library's homepage, before you come.

The John P. McDonald Reading Room is open Monday through Friday by appointment, and it takes walk-ins first-come, first-served when a workstation is free. Call or email to confirm a seat. Search finding aids in ArchivesSearch and rare books in the Library Catalog before you arrive. The Schimmelpfeng Gallery keeps the same weekdays.

Eastern's library in Willimantic has study rooms you can reserve and its own Archives & Special Collections. Connecticut residents 18 or older can use the public computers with ID when one is free.

The Wicked Press sells new and used books and runs a coffee bar in the same shop. Its book club is The Wicked Readers Society. Reviewers mention the comfortable seating and reading over a drink.

River Bend is a family-owned, general-interest bookshop with a second store in West Hartford. It hosts author events often, along with book clubs and a Pride Author Series.

Bookworms is a UConn Dining café on the library's plaza level, inside the 24-hour study room. It is open daily during the fall and spring semesters. Cards and mobile payments work as well as campus dining plans.

Dog Lane Café sits at the corner of Storrs Road and Dog Lane, across from campus. Students have gathered here for years over its house-made drinks and pastries.

Silk City is an independent specialty coffee shop about seven miles south of Storrs, and it roasts its own coffee. It is open Monday through Saturday. Each month the shop partners with a nonprofit and sells a Give Back Cookie to support it.

The Beanery is the coffee shop inside the Benton, UConn's art museum, where gallery admission is free. It is open Monday through Friday, though the galleries close Mondays. The museum's First Thursday open houses have brought an open mic into The Beanery.

Willimantic Brewing Company is a brewpub in the town's granite-and-limestone 1909 post office, which stood vacant for nearly 30 years before the restaurant opened. You eat in the old work room and drink in the former customer lobby. Gordan MacDonald's 12-by-17-foot mural shows Main Street in the 1920s, and the mahogany bar runs 60 feet.

The Harp on Church is an Irish pub open Wednesday through Saturday evenings. Musicians play Irish music every Thursday in its candlelit room.

UConn's Creative Writing Program brings guest authors to the Storrs campus for public readings, and student writers read in the Long River Reading Series. The Mark Twain (prose) and Aetna (poetry) writers-in-residence each spend two days on campus every other October and give a public reading. Each spring, Writers Who Edit, Editors Who Write pairs a reading with a Q&A.

The Wallace Stevens Poetry Program began in 1964 with support from The Hartford. It has brought poets from across the country and abroad to Connecticut to read at UConn.

The Connecticut Center for the Book, a program of CT Humanities, is the state affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book. Connecticut authors can submit a profile to its CT Authors directory. Its For Writers pages point to workshops and publishers, among other listings, and its events calendar covers the whole state.

The Connecticut Poetry Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Its site has pages for membership, newsletters and member poems, and it links to the Connecticut River Review.

The Humanities Institute offers residential fellowships, and its conference room is on the fourth floor of Homer Babbidge Library. Scholars from other institutions can apply as Visiting Humanities Fellows, and so can independent scholars, writers among them, with an established professional record. Fellows get a stipend and an office. The institute helps them find housing.

Digital Commons is UConn's open access repository for the scholarship and creative work of the UConn community. Search it for UConn dissertations and master's theses.

CT Humanities, based in Middletown, gives Quick Grants and Major Grants to libraries, museums and other cultural organizations. ConnecticutHistory.org is one of its digital humanities projects.

Psychology of Religion and Spirituality publishes peer-reviewed research on the psychology of religion and spirituality, from experimental and qualitative studies to clinical work. Its editor, Crystal L. Park, is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at UConn, and the journal is published by the American Psychological Association as a publication of its Division 36. Preparing an article for Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

The Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities publishes original research, systematic reviews, and commentaries on the causes of health disparities based on race and ethnicity and on interventions to address them. It is edited at the University of Connecticut and published by Springer Nature. Preparing an article for Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities

The Connecticut Audubon Society runs juried summer residencies for writers and visual artists at Trail Wood, the former home of naturalist writer Edwin Way Teale, in Hampton east of Storrs. Residents may use Teale's preserved writing study and his writing cabin. They present their work at a fall event at Trail Wood and in a winter exhibition at the Center at Pomfret.

The society runs five poetry contests, among them the Connecticut Poetry Award and the Vivian Shipley Poetry Award. Each entry holds up to three original, unpublished poems. Entries go through Submittable.

James Merrill's former home in Stonington gives a writer living and working space to complete a project of literary or academic merit. The house lists public readings by its Merrill Fellows.

The MFA in Creative and Professional Writing at Western Connecticut State University and its MFA Alumni Writers Collaborative give these book awards in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young adult and middle-grade. Winners give a public reading and lead a workshop at the program's residency.

Editors For Students lists grants and writing resources for University of Connecticut students and researchers.

The UPS Store on Storrs Road is open seven days a week. It prints documents and posters, and it offers coil binding and laminating. Call to ask which binding suits a manuscript or thesis.

The Vernon store, about 12 miles west of Storrs, also offers coil binding, with binding and cover options for presentations. Call ahead before you bring in a thesis copy.