A Writer's Guide to Utrecht

Bibliotheek Neude, Utrecht's central public library, fills the former post office. Inside are work and study places and an exhibition space. Study cabins for two can be booked online. Neude11 rents out eleven rooms in the building, among them a theatre for up to 180. The library is open daily.

Bibliotheek Zuilen is one of three Bibliotheek Utrecht branches with study cabins you can book for a call or a private room. Bring your own laptop. Wi-Fi is provided, and the branch is closed Sundays.

Utrecht University's library on the Drift has Espressobar Lodewijk just inside the main entrance. Visitors without an account can sit in the reference spaces and read from the shelves. For Wi-Fi or borrowing, apply online for a guest Solis-ID and activate it at the service desk with valid ID. It lasts a year.

Special Collections holds the Utrecht Psalter and the Zwolle Bible. Among its early printed books is Newton's Principia. Any visitor can request material for the reading room at the Science Park library; ask at the University Library service desk, using a guest Solis-ID activated in person.

Bijleveld has been independent since 1865 and shares its building with the publisher Erven J. Bijleveld; the shop calls the two the oldest surviving bookshop-publisher pairing in the Netherlands. It carries Dutch and English fiction as well as books about literature. It is open seven days a week.

Savannah Bay stocks literature and poetry alongside gender studies and LGBTQIA+ books. It hosts book presentations and author events, among them Lazy Queer Sunday. The shop is open daily.

Broese traces its roots to 1845 and fills two floors of the former post office. The shelves run from Dutch and foreign-language literature to scholarship and children's books. There is a brasserie.

Steven Sterk opened in 1989 as a remainder shop, and its founder has owned it again since 2016. History and philosophy sit beside Dutch and English literature, and books from small publishers get shelf space. Look for nijntje books in regional languages and dialects.

De Utrechtse Boekenbar is an independent bookshop that serves coffee, with a terrace. Alongside literature and art and photography books, it stocks zines and lesser-known titles. The shop once published a book about itself, with stories by writers and interviews with regular customers.

Interglobe has been an independent travel bookshop since 1983. Travel writing shares the shelves with maps and hiking guides, and the owner gives advice in person.

The Stadsstudiehuis is a quiet study space on two floors of the central library. Seats are booked online in blocks of up to three hours, two blocks in a row; members book free, and non-members get one free trial. For calls or co-writing, reserve a two-person cabin. Meneer Potter on the ground floor and NODA on the second serve food and drink.

Het Gegeven Paard, the grand café of the TivoliVredenburg music centre, invites laptop workers and has power outlets and Wi-Fi. On busy days laptop work stops in the late afternoon. The Nacht van de Poëzie, now part of ILFU, was first held at TivoliVredenburg in 1980.

Camping Ganspoort is a café-restaurant by the Vaartsche Rijn, and you can pitch your tent there only figuratively. Laptop work is welcome; reserve a table, and when it is quiet there is no end time. Meeting rooms with a view of the water can be rented, the Kantine for up to 50. It opens daily for breakfast.

Koffie & Ik is a coffee bar with a concept store and a terrace that gets the sun. It sets aside desks for flexworkers and charges by the hour per laptop. Walk in; there are no reservations. It takes cards only.

The Centraal Museum's café serves coffee and lunch indoors and on a terrace in the museum garden, and you need no museum ticket to sit down. The museum is closed Mondays.

Zindering is the city theatre's restaurant. On performance days it opens before the show, serving à la carte or two- and three-course theatre menus, and it keeps your table through the interval and after the curtain. Diners without tickets are welcome. Reserve ahead.

The ACU is a political-cultural centre with a bar and a vegan restaurant. Its calendar mixes DIY and punk concerts with political talks and benefits.

ILFU holds its festival each September and October, with TivoliVredenburg as its hub. International writers headline an English-language programme, and the Nacht van de Poëzie and the NK Poetry Slam run alongside it. ILFU Academy teaches writing courses, from poetry for beginners to writing for children. Members can join a book club and watch past events on ILFU+.

The Amsterdam-based Schrijversvakschool also teaches in Utrecht, with courses in the short story and narrative non-fiction. Most also run online.

Bibliotheek Utrecht shelves unpublished books at the Neude so readers can borrow them, no membership needed. Any writer, wherever they live, can drop off or post an unpublished manuscript, from poetry and life stories to thrillers. Some titles are also archived at the KB, the national library.

The Int'l Open Stage is a recurring Tuesday-night open mic at the ACU, where anyone gets seven minutes in any language. Poets and spoken-word performers share the night with musicians and comedians. Entry is free.

The Descartes Centre, for the history and philosophy of the sciences and humanities, offers junior and senior visiting fellowships of up to three months. Applicants live outside the Netherlands and have, or could build, a collaboration with a Centre member. Senior fellows also lecture or teach. Housing and travel costs can be reimbursed.

ICON studies the role of art, culture, literature and media in contemporary society. Its research groups include Early Modern Literature and Modern and Contemporary Literature. Researchers who want to collaborate can start from the group pages or write to the institute.

Curators at Special Collections advise researchers who work with old manuscripts and other special material. They also take scan requests and offer tools for digitisation and georeferencing. Guests can visit.

KokBoekencentrum, part of VBK Uitgevers, publishes non-fiction and novels for readers of every age, in original Dutch and in translation. It also publishes audiobooks and magazines on church and liturgy.

Eburon is an academic publisher of scholarly and informative books for education and research. Its subjects range from religion and philosophy to technology and medicine.

Matrijs publishes cultural-historical books about the Netherlands. It specialises in archaeology and monuments, and it publishes the journal Archeologie in Nederland.

The Netherlands International Law Review has published peer-reviewed articles, case notes and book reviews on public and private international law since 1953. T.M.C. Asser Press publishes it with the T.M.C. Asser Instituut. Its editor-in-chief is at Utrecht University. Preparing an article for the Netherlands International Law Review

The city of Utrecht and ILFU award these stipends to support a writer's next publication, in any genre from poetry to columns. Applicants live in Utrecht or a neighbouring municipality. They need either a contract for a first book or one to three books published with a regular publisher.

The Croneprijs is the city's oeuvre prize, given with ILFU every three years to an author who lives in Utrecht. Nobody can apply. It is named after the Utrecht prose writer C.C.S. Crone.

The Dutch Foundation for Literature offers grants and residencies for writers and translators.

This Editors For Students page gathers grants and writing resources for Utrecht University students.

Proefschriftmaken, a dissertation printer, has its office in De Bilt, which borders Utrecht on the east. Design, layout, technical support and printing advice come under one roof. It also runs a reader service for course readers.