Jonathan Player for The New York Times  Shops and restaurants line one of the cityâs winding lanes.  ON a rainy night in September, all the shop fronts in the city center of Norwich, England, were dark and shuttered except for one. With each swing of the door, an expectant hum escaped from the Book Hive, an independent bookstore that opened in October 2009, as patrons eagerly awaited the arrival of the British-born Australian author Alex Miller.  Once inside, Mr. Miller ambled to his seat and began to reminisce about living in Paris in the 1970s, an experience that provided fodder for his latest novel, “Lovesong,” which earned him a sixth nomination for Australia’s Miles Franklin Award, a top literary prize. Earnest students and middle-aged writers sat on the floor in front of him like schoolchildren at story time, their glasses of red wine perched on stacks of poetry translations.  The questions from the audience, colored by Irish, Scottish and English accents, all marveled at the same thing: that Mr. Miller, acclaimed but hardly a household name, was not better known in Britain. But in this eastern English city of 137,000, he was certainly a draw, filling the store until long past the reading’s end. Later, conversations continued — the sort of tipsy, bookish debates more often associated with Bloomsbury than this mostly rural county.  Norwich, a two-hour train ride northeast from London, has increasingly become a refuge for writers fleeing the hectic pace of the capital’s publishing scene. At first glance it appears to be just another charming medieval town, with a fantastically preserved castle and a 900-year-old cathedral. But look a little deeper and you’ll notice the wellspring of author readings and literary festivals, featuring recent talks by Booker Prize winners like John Banville and Penelope Lively.  The comfy cafes within the town’s narrow old lanes are full of aspiring writers pecking away at laptops, dreaming of becoming the next Ian McEwan or Kazuo Ishiguro, both of whom got their start here at the University of East Anglia’s esteemed creative writing master’s program.  Mr. Ishiguro was so struck by Norwich and its surrounding county that he used it as inspiration for his 2005 novel “Never Let Me Go” (though the book was actually set in East Sussex, the 2010 movie adaptation was largely filmed in Norfolk County, home to Norwich). “I love the emptiness and the atmosphere,” he said. “The scenery is quite unique. There is that feeling of being in a lost corner.”  He also admires its passionate and well-read population. “It’s always just going to be a literary scene in the best sense of the word,” he added, “where people get together and talk about writing.”  After London, Norwich was England’s most important city in the Middle Ages. A remarkable 31 medieval churches have survived. As the number of devout believers has dwindled, many of those imposing but well-preserved churches have helped nurture a literary tradition by hosting readings, salons, writing classes and theatrical productions.  Religion figured prominently in the life and work of an early literary figure in Norwich. The mystic known as Julian of Norwich, starting in 1373, wrote her “Revelations of Divine Love,” often cited as the first English-language book by a woman to have been published. Julian lived as an anchoress, a type of religious hermit, and was likely bricked up inside a small stone cell during her 40-odd years of monastic life. Believing she was on her deathbed (this was not long after the Black Death had struck England for a second time), Julian wrote of the 16 visions of Christ she experienced.  “She is fairly unusual for that time, in that she put pen to paper herself,” said Tom Licence, the author of a book on medieval hermits and recluses. Julian’s manuscript survived for almost three centuries in the care of nuns before it was finally published in 1670. Compared with what Julian of Norwich experienced, the long waits of modern writers trying to find a publisher can seem almost reasonable.  Today, visitors to the Church of St. Julian in Norwich can walk around in a reconstruction of Julian’s cell, which is dimly lighted and hung with religious iconography. Just around the corner, Dragon Hall, a trading hall built in 1430, offers a more authentic glimpse of the city that Julian inhabited. The preserved timber-framed great hall was once a showroom for fine wines, clothing and spices.  Julian, though, would not have recognized the new glass addition to the Norwich Cathedral, a light-filled visitor and education center that was added to the 12th-century church in 2009. On a recent night it hosted a performance of Tennessee Williams’s “Night of the Iguana.” The actors sipped (fake) rum and shouted at one another in British-inflected Texas accents, as the church spires were reflected in the glass walls.  Those interested in the cathedral’s older offerings can visit the Dean and Chapter’s Library, a secluded spot where visitors can peruse first editions of Anglo-Saxon literature and old theology texts with bindings the color of autumn leaves.  At St. Swithin’s Church, built in the 15th century and refashioned as the Norwich Arts Center in 1980, it is contemporary wordsmiths who are treated with reverence. The organization Writers’ Center Norwich hosts an event on Tuesday nights at which local writers read 10-minute excerpts of their work.
Two hours from London, medieval Norwich is a readerâs town, with a university that hosts literary festivals and plentiful bookstores and cafes whose author readings draw crowds.