Literary Places

This database of writerly destinations—places writers can visit for inspiration, to promote their writing, for research, and to discover community—includes historical sites, reading venues, literary collections, writing centers, and writers spaces. Save your selections to My P&W and populate a personal Google Map that can be used to plan reading tours and visits to literary meccas, or just to keep track of your favorite literary locales.

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Literary Place	City	State
Hotel del Coronado	Coronado	California
Founded in 1888, the Hotel del Coronado has been a setting in literature, film, and legend. The most famous work of literature involving the hotel... Historical Site
Houghton Library	Cambridge	Massachusetts
The primary repository for rare books and manuscripts at Harvard University, the Houghton Library houses collections that focus on the study of... Literary Archive
Idle Time Books	Washington	District Of Columbia
Open since 1981, Idle Time Books houses 50,000 used, recent, and out-of-print books, as well as greeting cards, newspapers, records, and CDs.... Indie Bookstore
Iliad Bookshop	North Hollywood	California
Located in North Hollywood, California, Illiad Bookshop is one of the largest used bookstores in the Los Angeles area. The store specializes in... Indie Bookstore
James Merrill House	Stonington	Connecticut
James Merrill came to Stonington in 1954 and took up residence at 107 Water Street with his companion, David Jackson. Merrill spent summers in... Historical Site
John Hay Library	Providence	Rhode Island
The special collections library of Brown University, the John Hay Library contains more than 3,000,000 items. Holdings range from Babylonian clay... Literary Archive
John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections	Chestnut Hill	Massachusetts
Boston College's Burns Library is home to more than 250,000 volumes, some 16,000,000 manuscripts and important collections of architectural... Literary Archive
John’s Grill	San Francisco	California
Located in the Union Square neighborhood of San Francisco, John's Grill was a setting in Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. In... Historical Site
Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center	Kyle	Texas
Located in Kyle, Texas, the Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center is a three-room house that served as the author's residence from her birth in... Historical Site
Kerouac House	Orlando	Florida
Jack Kerouac lived in this house in Orlando, Florida at the time On the Road made him a national sensation. Kerouac also wrote his follow... Historical Site