A Writer's Guide to Victoria, British Columbia

Central holds Greater Victoria Public Library's largest collection of physical books. Its Heritage Room keeps resources on the history and geography of Vancouver Island. New titles from the Emerging Local Authors Collection are on the main floor.

The James Bay branch sits behind the BC Legislature. Its two study rooms are booked in person at the front desk, for up to two hours at a time. The Mifflin Wistar Gibbs Study Room seats up to eight and has a wall-mounted screen.

UVic's main library is open to the public, and no sign-up is needed. At the Ask Us Desk, community members can get a free borrowing card and a guest Netlink ID for the library workstations.

Special Collections & University Archives supports research by the general public as well as UVic students and faculty. It collects rare printed materials and other primary sources, and its holdings include the Transgender Archives and the Anarchist Archives. The textbook collection covers BC public schools back to 1871. Email speccoll@uvic.ca and read the Plan your visit page first.

Jim and Alice Munro founded Munro's Books. The store occupies Thomas Hooper's neoclassical Royal Bank building on Government Street, where Carole Sabiston's tapestries decorate a room with a 24-foot coffered ceiling. It is an independent bookstore.

Russell Books is a third-generation family business that shelves new and used books side by side. It calls itself the largest used, antiquarian and new bookstore in town. On Friday evenings Planet Earth Poetry holds its reading and open mic in the store.

At Hillside Centre, about 20,000 square feet hold more than 30,000 titles, with room on the shelves for emerging and self-published writers. Past guests of its author events include Michael Ondaatje and John Vaillant.

Ivy's is Oak Bay's neighbourhood bookstore, and Margaret Atwood and Robertson Davies came through in its early years. It hosts author events.

Books & Shenanigans sells new and used books in Cook Street Village. Moka House is next door.

Volunteers run Camas Books & Infoshop as a collective. Its new and used books and zines focus on anarchism and anti-colonialism, and on Indigenous, queer and feminist writing. The storefront also hosts readings and film nights. It is open daily.

Bastion Books sells used books in the former Renaissance Books space, with its entrance off Commercial Alley. Its owner chooses the stock, which runs from philosophy and architecture to fiction and local history. There is seating, and a nook for children. It is closed Sundays and Mondays.

Central has four study rooms and five study pods. Book one in person at the front desk, for up to two hours.

Moka House is a community café, and it stays open into the evening every day. Books & Shenanigans is next door.

Victoria Buzz describes Discovery's Oak Bay café as spacious, with plenty of natural light, a place to park yourself for a couple of hours. It is open daily. Discovery roasts its coffee in house and has three other cafés.

The Caffe Fantastico roastery café stays open into the evening from Thursday to Saturday and holds events on those nights.

Visitors are welcome to use the seating in UVic's main library. Community members can use an empty study room but can't book one. The BiblioCafé is in the building.

Hermann's serves starters and entrées with live music. The club calls itself the longest continuously running jazz club in Canada, and a nonprofit, the Arts on View Society, was formed to preserve it. It is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

Bard & Banker is a pub in the 1885 Bank of British Columbia building, where Robert Service, the Bard of the Yukon, worked as a bank employee. The kitchen cooks from scratch. There is live music daily.

Hide + Seek, a family-run local café company, runs the museum's coffee bar, and it is open every day. Food trucks serve in the front courtyard, with seating indoors and out around the museum.

Planet Earth Poetry is a charitable society whose weekly series brings established and emerging Canadian poets to read from September to June. The society says its open mic is the longest-running weekly all-poetry open mic in Victoria. The Friday readings stream on Zoom. Each season it aims to offer one or two masterclasses, with Indigenous bursaries and sliding-scale seats.

Volunteers run the Victoria Writers' Society for writers across Vancouver Island and the surrounding islands. Its monthly general meetings at Russell Books are free and bring in presenters on writing and publishing. The society also runs critique groups and a writing contest, and it publishes Island Writer magazine.

The Malahat Review is a quarterly published at the University of Victoria. It publishes contemporary Canadian and international poetry and fiction, with reviews of recent Canadian books. Its prizes include the Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize and the Novella Prize.

Each year GVPL selects books for all ages by authors and illustrators who live on southern Vancouver Island, or lived there while writing the book. The print books stay on Central's main floor for a year and can be borrowed at any branch. The ebooks are on Libby with unlimited borrowing. Each collection opens with a launch at Central.

CSRS is UVic's research centre for the study of religion, spirituality and secularity. Its community brings UVic faculty and students together with visiting researchers and community sabbaticants. The centre hosts lectures and conferences and runs book projects.

UVic Libraries hosts journals edited by members of the UVic community on Open Journal Systems, through its ePublishing Services. The directory lists more than two dozen titles, including undergraduate and graduate journals, in fields from law and history to linguistics and Indigenous education.

The ETCL is a humanities lab in UVic Libraries' Digital Scholarship Commons and a hub for digital humanities work on campus. It offers a Digital Scholarship Fellowship and Open Scholarship Awards, along with visiting scholar and postdoctoral opportunities. Its Open Knowledge Program includes a practicum and a residency.

The BC Archives are the provincial records repository for the Government of British Columbia, and they collect private records too. You can search three collection databases online. One of them is a genealogy search.

NAIS, the journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, comes out twice a year from the University of Minnesota Press with peer-reviewed interdisciplinary scholarship, creative writing and reviews. Its co-editors, Gina Starblanket and Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark, are faculty in Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria. Preparing an article for Native American and Indigenous Studies

Language Teaching Research publishes research on second and foreign language teaching, in any language, that uses sound methods and has clear pedagogical implications. Co-editor Hossein Nassaji is at the University of Victoria. Preparing an article for Language Teaching Research

Dialogues in Human Geography publishes agenda-setting articles on the foundations of geographic thought alongside invited responses. Its editor-in-chief, Reuben Rose-Redwood, is a professor of geography at the University of Victoria. Preparing an article for Dialogues in Human Geography

The BC Arts Council's Creative Writers grants fund B.C.-based writers and literary artists, alone or in collaboration, to create new work for book-length publication or public performance. Eligible forms run from poetry and fiction to graphic novels and storytelling.

Artistic Creation, a component of Explore and Create, supports Canadian artists, groups and arts organizations. It funds work at any stage, from the first idea to public presentation.

The West Coast Book Prize Society runs these prizes for writers, illustrators and publishers in British Columbia and Yukon. The Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize are among them.

With support from the City of Victoria, the Victoria Book Prize Society gives an annual City of Victoria Book Prize for fiction and nonfiction, along with a children's book prize and the DC Reid Poetry Prize. Authors must have lived in the Capital Regional District for at least two years. Books must be professionally published.

This page lists research awards, graduate funding and writing support at the University of Victoria.

First Choice Books has printed books for more than six decades. It prints short runs of softcover books and helps self-publishers with design. Theses and dissertations can be bound in cloth with gold or silver foil stamping, starting from one or two copies.

Monk Office's Fort Street copy centre prints and binds books in full colour and makes saddle-stitched booklets. Coil and Cerlox binding are available too. Most orders are ready the next business day. The centre is closed weekends.

The Book Arts Space supports letterpress printing, bookbinding and papermaking for research into historical and contemporary book arts. It is open by appointment. Ask UVic Libraries about access.