A Writer's Guide to Worcester, Massachusetts

The Main Library has two study rooms for up to four people. Five study pods on the third floor hold one or two each, and you book those the same day. You can reserve the Saxe Room or the Banx Room two weeks to three months ahead for free, non-commercial events open to the public. For local history, the Research page opens the Telegram & Gazette archives, which cover Worcester from the 1770s on.

The Antiquarian Society is a national research library of the American past. Anyone may use its collections in person. Register first by creating an account in My Web AAS.

Visitors sign in at the second-floor Service Desk and can then use the print books and journals and the on-site databases during open hours. Guest Wi-Fi is available, and the public computers need a photo ID. Study and seminar rooms are reserved for Clark students and staff. For the archives, write to archives@clarku.edu.

On the third floor of Dinand Library, the Holy Cross archives keep rare books and special collections alongside the College Archives, among them the Deaf Catholic Archives and the Project Q+ LGBTQIA+ repository. Public researchers need an appointment. Request one online or by email at least 24 hours ahead.

The Museum of Worcester's research library covers the city's history and lends nothing. Anyone with museum admission can use it, Wednesday through Saturday by appointment. It holds about 7,000 published titles and more than 400,000 photographic prints. Unpublished documents fill roughly 4,000 linear feet.

Jo and Huck Truesdell own TidePool, a bookstore in an old mill building, and publish books under its imprint, TidePool Press. Look for the Worcester Notables section. Readings come up often, and Poetorium Too, a reading and open mic, meets one Wednesday a month. The store is closed Mondays.

Booklovers' Gourmet opened in Webster in 1995. It sells new and gently used books and hangs a new art exhibit every month. Author talks and open-mic poetry are on its calendar, and the Worcester County Poetry Association lists features here too.

The Worcester Writers' Collective meets Tuesdays at 6 pm at the Jean McDonough Arts Center, across from City Hall, to share work in progress. Writers of all genres and levels of experience are welcome. The Worcester County Poetry Association sponsors the group; reach it at worcesterwriterscollective@gmail.com.

Acoustic Java is a small-batch roaster with two locations in Worcester. The roastery's tasting room has an espresso and pour-over bar and an outdoor patio, plus 1,500 square feet of event space. Friday-morning coffee tastings are free.

Bean Counter, a family-owned bakery since 1998, serves coffee and desserts on Highland Street every day. A second Bean Counter is at 270 Grove Street.

The Broadway is a family-owned diner that has made its own ice cream since 1933, and it serves breakfast all day. On the first Tuesday of the month it hosts the poetry association's Richard Fox Poetry Series, a free open mic with a featured reader. It is open daily.

Ralph's is a live-music venue with a diner menu of burgers and chili. The Dirty Gerund poetry night runs here on Monday nights. It opens daily in the late afternoon, and events are 21+ unless noted otherwise.

The museum's café is in the Lancaster Room on Level 2, with counter service for coffee and sandwiches during gallery hours. You can eat there without paying museum admission. The museum is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. The Antiquarian Society is on the same street.

The poetry association was founded in 1971. It runs reading series such as Bards at the Barrel and Beyond the Page, along with workshops and Bloomsday, and it publishes The Worcester Review and Three Decker. It also awards the Frank O'Hara Prize and the Dan Lewis Fellowship.

The Holy Cross Creative Writing Program brings poets and prose writers to campus for this series and adds faculty readings. Readings take place in campus rooms such as the Booth Media Lab and the Rehm Library in Smith Hall.

The society awards more than forty fellowships a year for research in its library. Postdoctoral academics, advanced graduate students, and independent scholars are eligible. Long-term residencies run four to twelve months and include the Hench Post-Dissertation Fellowship; shorter ones run one or two months. There is also a three-month virtual fellowship.

The McFarland Center sponsors the Journal of Global Catholicism, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal that takes submissions from scholars worldwide. It also hosts International Visiting Jesuit Fellows, Jesuit faculty from institutions around the world. Its Kraft-Hiatt support for study and travel is open to Holy Cross faculty and students.

Mass Humanities, the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, funds nonprofits and organizations for public humanities projects. Its programs include Mass Moments and the Clemente Course in the Humanities, a college-level seminar for low-income adults that the Worcester County Poetry Association also sponsors.

ISLE is the peer-reviewed journal of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, and Oxford University Press publishes it four times a year. It takes scholarly articles and creative writing in the environmental humanities. Its editor, Christina Gerhardt, is at Clark University. Preparing an article for ISLE

Mass Cultural Council gives this unrestricted grant to Massachusetts artists and creative practitioners. Literature is an eligible discipline, and creative writers of every genre and format qualify. Applicants must be 18 or older and full-year Massachusetts residents.

The Massachusetts Center for the Book honors books written, illustrated, or translated by current Massachusetts residents. Categories run from fiction and poetry to translated literature and books for young readers.

The Antiquarian Society's Hearst Foundations and Robert and Charlotte Baron Fellowships are four-week residencies for people making imaginative work for general audiences about American history, literature, and culture before the twentieth century. Historical novels and poetry both qualify. So do plays and screenplays, and filmmakers and journalists can apply.

The poetry association's annual contest is open to its members, to Worcester County residents and students, and to people who work for Worcester County businesses. Winning poems appear in The Worcester Review and are honored with a reading.

Endowed in memory of the poet Dan R. Lewis, this annual fellowship helps an aspiring poet who is a legal resident of Worcester County meet a development need, such as education, related travel, or literary research and production.

Editors For Students keeps a guide to fellowships and research grants for Clark students.

Worcester State students have a guide of their own.

Minuteman Press prints booklets and journals, using quick digital printing or offset. The shop also handles typesetting and binding.

The UPS Store on Park Avenue makes black-and-white or color copies, double-sided if you need them, on paper up to 11 x 17. It also collates and coil-binds, and it is open seven days.