Wendy's Subway is a non-profit reading room, writing space, and independent publisher located in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Since its founding in 2013, WS has provided an open and versatile platform for expanding modes of reading, writing, and publishing. Wendy’s Subway is dedicated to encouraging creative, critical, and discursive engagement with arts and literature, with the belief that equitable access to reading and collaborative forms of knowledge-production are catalysts for social transformation.

The interdisciplinary program includes free readings, talks, performances, and reading groups; writing workshops and master classes; the annual, yearlong series The Quick and the Dead, which highlights the life, work, and legacy of a deceased writer by bridging their work to that of contemporary practitioners; and a unique residency program designed to support other organizations, small publishers, and collective artist’s projects. In 2016, Wendy’s Subway launched a multi-faceted publishing initiative including artist’s books, hybrid-genre, and poetry titles by emerging writers, artists, and performers. The non-circulating library holds a collection of over 3,000 titles, with a specific focus on independent and small press publishing in art and literature. The library is freely accessible to the public during our open hours, five days per week.

Programming