Are Some Spaces More Creative Than Others?
The privileged dilemmas of creative spaces and writer residencies
Do you remember getting new sneakers as a kid and imagine they’d make you go faster? Today I’m wondering if different environments make me write way gooder.
I’ve been applying to a number of writing residencies lately — in places like Portland, Savannah, Banff, and New York — for an opportunity to network with new writers, hunker down, showcase my work, and change up my creative scenery.
Last week, I was accepted to a real humdinger of a summer studio experience, right in the historic square of Assisi. It’s a place close to my spiritual curiosity (Team St. Francis!) and the very city where I discovered my true tastebuds in my twenties, graduating from college Chef Boyardee to specialties like fresh pasta with truffles, wild boar sausage, torta al testo, and olive oil gelato.
As much as I’m honoured that my project proposal and artist statement were chosen over a large number of applications, this residency isn’t a free ride (most aren’t). It will cost a bella euro for the privilege of writing in a 14th century room, espresso in hand, gatto on lap, and Chet Baker on the vintage turntable.
A little affected? Why, yes. Privileged and pretentious? Si! Molto pretenzioso!
Still, if I can scrape together my share of the two week program and Stephanie can join me, then why the fudge not? The question is not if this will be a beautiful setting with a community of artists keeping me accountable. The question really is — beyond the novelty of it all — will my writing benefit from this place?
I’ve written some of my best stuff in lesser places than Assisi. Places like the bathroom, dive motels, detox centres, and my local A&W (free coffee refills, that one). I can’t hitch my work to the preciousness of any place or the creative tchotchkes that clutter my desk. Still, it brings up the question — if curating the ideal writing space leads to better work.
A quick search will show you Roald Dahl’s weird writing “hut” and Ernest Hemingway’s manly desk in Key West. Maya Angelou rented hotel rooms near her home, and Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Thomas Wolfe, and Patti Smith did the Chelsea thing. Truman Capote worked lying down and Virginia Wolfe worked standing up. John Steinbeck needed 12 perfectly sharp pencils at all times, and John Cheever would get dressed in a suit, ride the elevator down to the building basement, carefully hang his suit up, write all day in his underwear, then dress again for the elevator ride home. Granted, that’s not as eccentric these days considering how many Zoom meetings we’ve all conducted in our ginch.
In the therapeutic community where I live with 20 other guys, I’m extremely grateful to have my own room. When not attending classes, doing recovery work, or teaching little kids, my room serves as a tiny writing residency of my own making.
It’s here I work on essays and scripts, outline projects, enter literary contests, commune with my marvellous writing group, and apply to residencies. It’s ideal, really. And it helps keep me sober and creative, two things I now accept as inextricably linked.
I was told by a couple fellas here to up my “desk game” and consider trading in my folding table and chair for a giant office desk and cushy rolling chair. But I work best in my minimalist milieu and don’t require a 500-pound piece of furniture for a desk. I’m a laptop writer after all, not a steakhouse manager.
My creative spaces are hardly instagrammable (if that’s even a thing now). They could never compete with the cozy Live Laugh Love set or dark library dens of serious scholars.
However, these are the 7 things I ask for:
A simple desk that doesn’t shake
Black gel 0.7 pens. Never blue ink (what am I, a peasant?)
Pictures of people and things I love
Noise cancelling headphones
Coffee
Natural light
Cat (when in season)
So…if this is all I really require, there are two ways to frame my Assisi decision. I’m either a very portable writer or I don’t need to travel at all in order to write. There’s a good chance I’d be more productive working on the airplane tray during the flight to Italy, than in Italy itself.
We have a week to decide. In the meantime, Superstore pasta and fried bologna will go down just fine before tackling the next chapter.
Assignment: Show me or describe your ideal work space in the comment section…
I love looking at other people's writing spaces - they ran a series for a few years on the Guardian, you'll find it there. For me it's just <insert cafe anywhere away from my house and family>. Give me a shout if you want a guest post just about women's attitudes to creative spaces... And go to Assissi! Yes you might not get much done but it'll be more material. And you can read Mary Gaitskill's Lost Cat.