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.

  • Brooklyn, NY

    Brooklyn Poets offers small, intensive poetry workshops taught by award-winning poets, both online and in person at their space in Brooklyn Heights. Workshops are offered in three seasons (winter–spring, summer and fall) at three different levels...

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  • New York, NY

    The Bryant Park Corporation has repeated history by recreating the Bryant Park Reading Room. It is modeled after the original with the additions of custom-designed carts for an extensive and eclectic selection of books, periodicals and newspapers...

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  • Brooklyn, NY

    Burnt Books is a bookshop located inside a bodega called Green Discount in the neighborhood of Greenpoint in Brooklyn, New York. It specializes in second-hand sci-fi, mystery, art, design, politics, and books about New York. 

    To find it,...

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  • Brooklyn, NY

    Cafe con Libros is an intersectional feminist bookstore welcoming of all who stand with and on behalf of the full human rights of womxn and girls. Located in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, this bookstore and café hosts a regular...

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  • Brooklyn , NY

    The newly-formed Center for Brooklyn History (CBH) is an exciting collaboration between Brooklyn Historical Society and Brooklyn Public Library, combining materials collected over the past 157 years with BPL’s Brooklyn Collection and becoming the...

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  • Brooklyn, NY

    The Center for Fiction is the only nonprofit literary organization in the United States solely dedicated to celebrating fiction. It features affordable workspace, grants, classes to support emerging writers, reading groups on classic and...

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  • New York, NY

    Chartwell is a bookstore in the classic tradition. Since 1983 they have been selling rare and out-of-print Winston Churchill books, as well as books on the military, motor cars, baseball, photography, jazz, classic fiction, and nonfiction. The...

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  • New York, NY

    Codex is an independent bookstore located in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan. Opened in January 2018, Codex sells new and gently used books with a focus on literary fiction, art, cinema, and philosophy. The shop also hosts book...

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  • New York, NY

    The Columbia University School of the Arts Writing Program is highly regarded for its rigorous approach to literary instruction and for its faculty of acclaimed writers and editors who are devoted and dedicated teachers. The faculty, the students...

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  • Brooklyn, NY

    Community Bookstore is an independent bookstore that has served the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, since its establishment in 1971. They are known for their well-curated shelves, garden, and local bookstore cat. The store also...

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  • New York, NY

    In addition to Dia Beacon, Dia Bridgehampton, and Dia Chelsea, Dia maintains and operates a constellation of commissions, long-term installations, site-specific projects, and Land art, nationally and internationally. Building on more than 35...

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  • New York, NY

    An artistic incubator since 1986, Dixon Place is a Bessie and Obie Award-winning non-profit institution committed to supporting the creative process by presenting original works of theatre, dance, music, puppetry, circus arts, literature and...

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  • New York, NY

    Donald Herald Rare Books, Prints & Maps offers antiquarian books and prints in the areas of botany, ornithology, natural history, Americana and Canadiana, Native Americans, voyages and travels, maps and atlases, photography, and more. The...

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  • New York, NY

    East Village Books is a used bookstore that takes in close to five hundred used books a week including scholarly libraries, art and photography books, literature and science fiction, and buyback textbooks. Estate libraries are their specialty and...

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  • Staten Island, NY

    ETG Book Cafe is the largest (and only!) used bookstore in Staten Island. It has a well-organized and diverse book collection, spanning all three rooms of the store. It also sells some new books: recently-published books, some books about Staten...

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  • New York, NY

    The Fales Library, comprising nearly 200,000 volumes, close to 9,000 linear feet of archive and manuscript materials, and about 65,000 media elements, houses the Fales Collection of rare books and manuscripts in English and American literature,...

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  • Brooklyn, NY

    Franklin Park was carved out of a dilapidated mechanic shop in 2007 a few blocks off Eastern Parkway and down the street from the Brooklyn Museum in Crown Heights. Originally meant to be a small relaxing place to enjoy the outdoor patio, the bar...

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  • Brooklyn, NY

    Freebird Books was established in 2004 by Samantha Citrin and Rachel London, and is now owned by local resident, Peter Miller. The shop is located on the Brooklyn waterfront near the docks and container port. Though the hours are limited to the...

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  • Brooklyn, NY

    In 2009, Rebecca Fitting and Jessica Stockon Bagnulo opened Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with the support of the Fort Greene Association and a Community Lender Program. This independent bookstore carries a robust selection in a...

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  • Brooklyn, NY

    Novelist H. P. Lovecraft moved to the first-floor apartment at 169 Clinton Street in 1925 after separating from his wife Sonia Greene. He described the place as “something unwholesome—something furtive—something vast lying subterrenely [sic] in...

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  • Brooklyn, NY
    Henry Miller Brooklyn brownstone

    Henry Miller, author of Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, lived at 91 Remsen Street from 1924 to 1925 with his second wife, June. In Plexus, book two of the fictionalized account of his early life, he describes...

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  • Brooklyn, NY

    Owner Sylvia Levy says her shop is both “the best book store and the worst in the neighborhood” because it’s the only one left. Since 1975, the bookstore has stocked new and used books for Sheepshead Bay locals catering to the over half-dozen...

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  • New York, NY

    Hunter College presents the Distinguished Writers Series, one of the signal components of the Hunter Creative Writing Program. It has a rich history and continuing tradition of presenting intimate readings and class visits to their MFA seminars...

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  • New York, NY

    Founded in 1972, Irish Arts Center is a New York-based arts and cultural center dedicated to projecting a dynamic image of Ireland and Irish America for the 21st century, building community with artists and audiences of all backgrounds, forging...

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  • New York, NY

    James Cummins Bookseller was founded in 1978 and is located on Madison Avenue in New York City. The Madison Avenue store is a quiet and pleasantly furnished book room with a carefully chosen, expertly catalogued and broad-based selection of fine...

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