Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Writers rooms....115 of them

Oh, ouch! I thought my idea--expressed here a few days ago--of posting pictures and a few paragraphs on nice places to write was a good and original one. I started with Zane Grey's office.

But now I learn--from an $8.95 desktop "website of the day" calendar--that The Guardian has a whole series of writers' rooms online...115 at last count. Another series covers artists' rooms, and musicians' rooms, and so on. Here's Jane Austen's. She died in 1817, but someone's obviously taking care of her things. Yes, Pride and Prejudice was actually written on this teeny table.

Roald Dahl, George Bernard Shaw, Charlotte Bronte--well, those are the oldies. How about Colm Toibin? I like his office; it's lined with books, floor to ceiling. Will Self has the most orderly and obedient post-it notes on the planet (right). Simon Callow is writing another book in dressing room 7 of the Haymarket Theatre, where he performs nightly in Waiting for Godot.

Clive James, Nicholas Mosley, Richard Sennett, Ciaran Carson...lots of writers, many of which I don't know at all. But don't let my ignorance slow you down. Go explore the site. I'm going to pour another glass of two-buck Chuck and visualize my office as the most-visited entry in the Guardian series.

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