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

The State Library sits on Macquarie Street opposite the Royal Botanic Garden, and its galleries and reading rooms stay open into the evening. Special Collections holds the Mitchell Library collections. Membership is free, and you can join online.

This City of Sydney branch is inside Customs House, with study desks and harbour views, and it opens daily except public holidays. Planning a launch? The building's meeting room holds about 50 people and the Barnet Long Room about 200, and both can be booked.

Glebe Library opens daily except public holidays and keeps a local history collection. Read in the shaded garden. Gleebooks and Sappho Books are a short walk down Glebe Point Road.

Fisher is the University of Sydney's largest library. Its nine levels hold the arts and social sciences collections, among others, along with silent zones and group study rooms. On level 1, the Rare Books and Special Collections reading room holds medieval manuscripts and early printed books alongside science fiction and comics. The university's theses from before 2013 are there too. Members of the public need a free RBSC Community ID, and items must be requested at least two business days ahead.

Gleebooks has been open for more than 40 years, and book launches at the Glebe Point Road shop are free and open to the public. The secondhand shop is up the road at 191 Glebe Point Road. There are also Gleebooks shops in Dulwich Hill and at the Roslyn Packer Theatre in Walsh Bay.

Better Read Than Dead opens daily and stays open into the evening. Its new books lean toward Australian fiction and non-fiction, and it also stocks out-of-print and rare art books. Author events and book clubs are listed on a separate events site.

Abbey's has been an independent bookshop since 1968, and it opens seven days next to the QVB. Galaxy Bookshop, for science fiction and fantasy, shares the space with the Language Book Centre. Watch for the Authors at Abbey's program.

Ariel opened in Paddington in 1985 and calls itself one of Sydney's oldest independent bookshops. It is best known for art, design and architecture, though poetry and plays have shelves too. The shop is at the top of Paddington, near the Paddington Markets.

Sappho sells secondhand books, more than 30,000 titles across three floors. Out the back are a courtyard café and a wine bar. Poets can read at the monthly Open Stage. It buys used books too.

Gertrude & Alice is a café and bookshop in Bondi Beach, about 7 km from the CBD. New and secondhand books are piled through the room, and coffee and food are served among the shelves. It keeps an events page.

Writing NSW keeps individual quiet writing rooms on the first floor of Garry Owen House. Members can also book the Shared Writers' Space, open seven days, and join the weekly Thursday Writing Retreat. Monthly write-ins and courses run in the same building.

Darling Square Library fills levels 1 and 2 of the Exchange, the round building in Haymarket, with study desks and reading areas. It opens daily except public holidays. Students and library members can book one of two small meeting rooms in person on the day. The Asian-language collection is large.

Industry Beans runs this dine-in café in a heritage building near Wynyard, and it opens daily. The plush bench seating suits a long session with a draft.

Veneziano's Surry Hills café is at the Taylor Square end of Bourke Street and opens daily. Spread out at the long communal table, or take a solo seat.

The State Library runs a café by day and a bar that stays open late. Both are a few steps from the reading rooms and the Library Shop.

On Wednesdays the Art Gallery of New South Wales stays open late for Art After Hours, with pop-up bars in both buildings. The Art Gallery Restaurant, on the ground level of Naala Nura, and The Gallery Cafe both serve into the evening, and MOD Dining in Naala Badu opens too. The restaurant is closed Mondays; the café opens daily.

Writing NSW, formerly the NSW Writers' Centre, teaches courses across genres, in person and online. It also runs industry talks such as First Friday and Talking Writing. Writers can apply for mentorships and manuscript assessments, and the site lists active writing groups.

The Sydney Writers' Festival was first held in 1997, and it brings novelists and poets together with journalists, scientists and other writers. Carriageworks is its home, with events across the city. Between festivals, listen to its free podcast. Live & Local streams sessions to regional libraries and community centres.

Varuna is a writers' retreat in the Blue Mountains, in the former home of Eleanor and Eric Dark, which was given to the Australian public in 1989. It offers residencies and equity scholarships, and it runs workshops online and in person. More than 200 writers a year take part. Varuna also runs the Blue Mountains Writers' Festival.

The Poetry Company commissions and publishes poetry for the page and for performance, and for digital, musical and visual forms as well. Its projects include Poem Forest and a Youth Poet Laureate. Poets should keep an eye on its Opportunities for Poets page. It advocates for paying poets professionally.

The Australian Society of Authors is a membership organisation for Australian writers and illustrators, based in Ultimo. Members can get advice and contract reviews. It publishes benchmark rates of pay and a getting-published guide, and it advocates on copyright, AI and freedom of expression.

The State Library awards most of its fellowships and residencies every year through its David Scott Mitchell Institute. Research fellowships cover Australian history and culture, among other fields, and one draws on the pictorial collections. Writers can apply for the Imago Fellowship, for fiction or non-fiction from the collections, or the CH Currey Memorial Fellowship in Australian history. Summer and Visiting Fellows programs are offered too.

SSSHARC supports multidisciplinary and international collaboration across the humanities and social sciences. It offers Visiting Fellowships and a Research Impact Accelerator. Researchers can sign up as members.

The Writing and Society Research Centre brings humanities scholars together with writers and publishing professionals to study the social power of writing. It offers a Master of Arts in Literature and Creative Writing and holds free public events, including Friday seminars on Zoom. Western Sydney writers can join The Writing Zone mentoring program. Giramondo Publishing is based here, and the Sydney Review of Books is part of the centre's work.

Sydney University Press is the University of Sydney's not-for-profit scholarly publisher, with more than 400 research titles since 2005. Its list runs from Australian literature and history to animal studies, public health and Indigenous issues. Some titles are open access.

Giramondo has published poetry, fiction and non-fiction since 1996, along with translations from Latin America and Asia. It also publishes the literary magazine HEAT. The press works from Western Sydney University's Writing and Society Research Centre, with offices in Parramatta.

The Journal of Advanced Nursing publishes research that advances evidence-based nursing, midwifery and healthcare and can inform practice, education, management or policy. Its Editor-in-Chief, Debra Jackson, is Professor of Nursing at the University of Sydney's Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery. Preparing an article for Journal of Advanced Nursing

The International Journal of Nursing Practice publishes research and professional discussion papers that advance nursing as a profession and an academic discipline. Editor-in-Chief Lin Perry is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Health at the University of Technology Sydney. Preparing an article for International Journal of Nursing Practice

The State Library administers the NSW Literary Awards for the NSW Government, with Create NSW. Prizes go to fiction (the Christina Stead), non-fiction (the Douglas Stewart) and poetry (the Kenneth Slessor), and to children's and young people's literature, playwriting and scriptwriting. There is also an Indigenous Writers' Prize. The awards were formerly the NSW Premier's Literary Awards.

Stories Matter fellowships give NSW writers, illustrators and playwrights twelve months to make new work. Emerging, mid-career and established writers can all apply, and emerging fellows also get structured mentorship. Writing NSW delivers the fellowship with Create NSW.

Creative Australia, the Australian Government's arts investment body, funds projects by individual artists and groups as well as career fellowships. Its literature funding goes through Writing Australia, set up within Creative Australia in 2025 to support writers and illustrators making new work.

The Sydney-based Copyright Agency gives Create Grants from its Cultural Fund as a living allowance for writers working on a second book. Fiction, poetry, graphic novels and literary non-fiction are among the forms that qualify. An independent peer panel judges literary merit, and applicants must be Australian citizens or permanent residents.

Varuna's Residential Fellowships give writers time at the house in the Blue Mountains to work on a manuscript. It also offers equity scholarships.

University of Sydney students will find writing prizes, among them the Wentworth Medal, along with research funding schemes and Learning Hub writing help.

UNSW Sydney student writers have their own page of prizes and awards.

Macquarie students can look up scholarships and research grants, and the Three Minute Thesis competition.

The Rizzeria is a volunteer-run, non-profit risograph co-operative. Anyone can print zines and posters on its two-colour Riso, with a volunteer's help. Beginners can take a learn-to-riso class.

The Guild's Ralph Lewis Bindery is at the back of Garry Owen House, the Writing NSW building. With Sydney Community College, the Guild teaches a two-day beginners' course in hand bookbinding. Students make a cased-in hardcover and a French-stitched notebook, among other pieces.