Welcome to the Republic of Letters!

In a nutshell, we are a nexus for all things writing in the Illinois Fox Valley area. 

We offer the chance to join or peruse our online Local Author Directory. Organized by name and genre, this database is designed to easily help readers find good local books.

This directory’s whole raison d’être is to help get your books into the hands of local readers. 

We do not give a fig whether or not you are traditionally published, self-published, or yet to be published.  

If you write, you are a writer. 

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Let us advertise for you!

After meeting with many local authors, over and over we heard the hardest part about the gig is marketing. Writing is the fun part! But advertising yourself is tricky, and often, demoralizing. You can shout your book to your friends on social media again and again, but you’ve already sold to them and that gets embarrassing. You’ve tapped your personal market, so to speak, and you worry they’re sick of it. 

Maybe you have an author page and you mean to post everyday, but the algorithms are forever changing and not in your favor. And still, you feel the pressure to get out there, in the social media weeds, to make fresh connections that funnel to your – ideally – evergreen website. But in order to do that you need constant content, to edu-tain, and become masterminds of what’s trending on social media to get the hits you need to sell books so you can keep writing. 

Each registrant will get their own member profile to adorn with your words, pictures, and links to whatever you like. Use it to promote a class, or an upcoming event or book launch, use it as your author page! The profiles are customizable and can be tailored to suit your needs. 

Members will also get access to the Republic of Letters’s exclusive Facebook group page as another space to share and promote your work, but also to foster immediate connection with other local writers.

We aspire to be an exclusively LOCAL AUTHOR bookstore.

The only of its kind. 

Independent bookstores are great, but oftentimes the local author section seems as though it were an afterthought, shoved in a corner, barely glossed over. People feel they get lost amidst the glittering stacks of celebrity books.

When readers come to the Republic of Letters they are only here for you.

They are here for their community.

They want to support local, they want to read local.

If you are an author who is looking for help with exposure, we offer our social media platforms to you.

We offer the opportunity to sponsor a book launch, as well as many spotlight reading opportunities, including lit festivals and special events.

We are a traveling local author bookstore. Catch our pop-up booths around town, but especially at our Water Street Writers events. 

Consider stepping out of your comfort zone and becoming one of our featured readers at Water Street Writers!* We encourage all writers of any level to submit for a chance to read at any of our events. Again, published or no. We believe in good writing, and that can come from anywhere. It’s the nuance and difference in voice that make up the great literary fabric, this fine republic of letters.

*One does not have to be a member of the Republic of Letters to submit to Water Street Writers.

Lovely Readers, the Republic of Letters is a small organization dedicated to the literary arts. We provide creative writing classes, as well as reading, publishing, and marketing opportunities to all local authors of the Fox Valley. Please consider a donation, or becoming a member. Support your local authors by shopping their collected works and merchandise at our store, or just by spreading the word. Sharing is caring. Supporting is magic.

When you purchase a book, or any merch from the Republic of Letters, you are directly supporting local authors.

Curious about writing? Reach out! The Republic of Letters can help you find your next hobby, a new niche, or meet some new writer friends.