A Writer's Guide to Urbana-Champaign

The Main Library is open daily, and its free study rooms hold up to six people for two hours a day. Book one online the day before or the same day. Larger groups can reserve the glass-walled meeting rooms or the 120-seat auditorium.

Two second-floor study rooms seat up to eight. Reserve one online or by phone for up to two hours a day, twice a week. Events in the ground-floor Lewis Auditorium and Satterthwaite Conference Room are free and open to the public.

Writers working on county history or genealogy should start here. The Archives hold a research-level collection on Champaign County and its residents, searchable in a separate local history catalog, and staff take copy orders and interlibrary loan requests. The Archives are open daily with the library.

The third-floor reading room is open to the public on weekdays, and its featured holdings include the Marcel Proust collection and incunabula. Before you come, create an online user account and book an appointment through the Ask-a-Curator form. Bring government-issued photo ID. Anyone can walk into the exhibits and public talks.

The University Archives hold the papers of faculty and alumni along with the records of student organizations. The Sousa Archives & Center for American Music and the American Library Association Archives are part of it too. Request anything marked "prior request preferred" at least one business day ahead.

Jane Addams sells quality used and out-of-print books, more than 70,000 of them on three floors. Much of the stock is academic, with local history mixed in. Bring books to trade for store credit. It is open daily.

The Literary is a woman- and locally owned bookstore selling books and gifts, with its own café and bar. Events gather in the fireplace area, and many of them are free. Local groups doing community work can use the space at no cost.

Priceless Books is a used bookstore on West Main Street known for academic titles, and it stocks recordings as well. Its specialties run from literature and literary criticism to women's studies and philosophy. Signed copies and first editions are listed online.

Volunteers from the Friends of the Champaign Public Library run this shop downstairs at the Main Library. It stocks more than 20,000 nearly new books and movies, and all proceeds go to the library. The shop opens Wednesday through Sunday afternoons.

The Library Café pours Columbia Street Roastery coffee and serves treats and lunch. Sit in the bright room inside or at a shaded patio table; the wi-fi is free in both. Bring your own cup for cheap brewed coffee and refills.

BakeLab is a coffee and pastry café in the lobby of the Yugo building, at Lincoln and University. It is open every day. A second BakeLab sits inside the LoDgic coworking space on South Neil Street in Champaign.

Brewlab is BakeLab's sister café on campus, just off Green Street. A side room next to the café suits focused work, and it has a whiteboard you can write on. There is a patio, too. It is open every day.

Farmhouse is the restaurant inside Harvest Market, with seating on two floors and wi-fi. It is open daily from early morning into the evening, and breakfast runs until early afternoon.

Intermezzo is the café inside Krannert Center. Many of its ingredients are locally produced. It posts weekday lunch specials and sets out a dinner buffet before select performances.

The Literary's kitchen serves food among the shelves, and the bar pours seasonal cocktails and mocktails along with wine and beer. Coffee drinks come from the café side.

Creative Writing and the Department of English sponsor the Carr series, which brings visiting writers to campus and invites the program's alumni back to read. Readings are posted on the English Department calendar.

Ninth Letter, the University of Illinois's literary magazine, pairs poetry and prose with ambitious design. Its web edition adds excerpts and interviews to what appears in print. The magazine also runs the Ninth Letter Literary Awards and the Regeneration Literary Contest.

Local authors and other experts teach the library's Writer's Workshops. Missed one? Recordings of more than 50 past workshops are on the library's YouTube channel.

40 North is Champaign County's arts and culture organization. It keeps artist profiles and posts calls for artists. Writers can use both. Poetry Out Loud and the Boneyard Arts Festival are among its community programs.

HRI is the university's institute for interdisciplinary study in the humanities and related fields. Faculty can apply for HRI Summer Faculty Fellowships or join a Research Cluster. The Interseminars Initiative produces co-taught graduate courses, and HRI also awards Research Prizes.

CAS releases Illinois faculty from teaching to pursue research or creative projects. Tenured faculty apply as Associates and non-tenured faculty as Fellows. The center also brings visiting scholars and artists to campus through the George A. Miller programs, and its CAS/MillerComm events are free and open to the public.

Planning an open access monograph or journal? The Illinois Open Publishing Network takes proposals for both and publishes under the Publishing Without Walls and Windsor & Downs imprints. The Library also runs the IDEALS open access repository and offers consultations on copyright and open access.

Illinois Humanities runs free public programs and gives grants across the state. Its Envisioning Justice Grants are open to individuals as well as organizations, and its Road Scholars Speakers Bureau offers free presentations. It also runs the Illinois State Poet Laureate program.

The University of Illinois Press publishes about 90 new books a year in the humanities and social sciences. It also publishes more than 40 scholarly journals, among them The Pluralist and History of Philosophy Quarterly.

Common Ground is a not-for-profit academic publisher in the University of Illinois Research Park. Its interdisciplinary research networks combine conferences with journals and book publishing. Both the journals and the books have open access options.

The International Journal of Transitional Justice publishes research articles alongside shorter practitioner-focused pieces on how countries emerging from divided histories address past crimes through mechanisms such as truth-seeking and prosecution. Co-Editor-in-Chief Colleen Murphy is at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Law, and her co-editor is at the University of Huddersfield. Oxford University Press publishes it. Preparing an article for the International Journal of Transitional Justice

Slavic Review publishes peer-reviewed research from every discipline on eastern Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, past and present, along with book and film reviews. Editor Eugene M. Avrutin and Managing Editor Dmitry Tartakovsky both work at the University of Illinois. Cambridge University Press publishes the journal for ASEEES. Preparing an article for Slavic Review

Physical Review Letters publishes short reports on significant developments across fundamental, applied, and interdisciplinary physics, from quantum information, cosmology, and particle physics to condensed matter, soft matter, and biological physics. Founded in 1958, it is published by the American Physical Society, whose editorial staff edit it together with a lead editor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Preparing an article for Physical Review Letters

Journal of Machine Learning Research publishes scholarly articles in all areas of machine learning, with all papers freely available online. Founded in 2000, it is edited at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Carnegie Mellon University, and its print volumes are published by Microtome Publishing. Preparing an article for Journal of Machine Learning Research

The Creative Accelerator Fund supports individual Illinois artists with an active, sustained practice, and writers of literature qualify. Applicants must be Illinois residents aged 21 or older, and students enrolled in a degree program are ineligible. Recipients are chosen by random selection within each Arts Council region.

This grant funds art projects that end in a public release or presentation. Individual Illinois artists can apply, and so can eligible nonprofits.

The Society of Midland Authors gives annual book awards to authors from the twelve-state Midwest. Illinois is one of the twelve.

Ninth Letter's literary awards bring in a guest judge for each genre. Winning work runs in the print issue and on the website.

Adult residents of Champaign County can enter the library's annual Short Story Contest. Winning stories go up on the library's website, and most of the prizes are writing-related.

This page gathers scholarships and research grants for University of Illinois students. It also covers campus writing help such as the Writers Workshop.

Skeuomorph Press is a studio sponsored by the School of Information Sciences for letterpress and risograph printing, with bookbinding and papermaking as well. It opens to the public for community hours during the semester and runs workshops on the history of print. Write to skeuomorph-press@illinois.edu with questions.

Dixon Graphics binds theses and dissertations in hardcover in its own shop, and you choose the cover and stamping colors. The University of Illinois Library points writers here for dissertation and book binding.