THE WRITER'S ROOM

Where inspiration happens.

Fascinated by the places where writers create, writer and lecturer Lewin melds memoir and literary history in her search for writers’ rooms, reporting on visits—in person and online—to spaces that she hopes will reveal “the emergence of the writer’s ideas.” House museums often disappoint, appearing “conspicuously clean” in contrast to the messiness of the writing process. At the Freud Museum in London, Freud’s desk “feels much more like a shrine to the writer” than a workspace. The Keats House, too, fails to convey the poet’s spirit, partly because Keats lived there only two years, and the space was embellished with items he never used. Virginia Woolf’s writing lodge at Monk’s House seems far too curated to evoke Woolf’s presence. Drawing on writers depicted in movies and novels, and reflecting on her own quest to find a spot conducive to writing, Lewin discovers that besides designated rooms, writing often takes place in cafes—where one can feel private in public—and in libraries. For a while, the British Library became a treasured writing place for Lewin; after she had a child, she grew to recognize the ways that writing spaces were affected by the needs of others—in her case, a growing toddler—which meant that a place for creativity was shared with family members. Sometimes, this shared space proves an inspiration: a bustling kitchen table can be a “locus of invention.” Among the many writers Lewin considers are Honoré de Balzac, Emily Dickinson, Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, the Brontës, Mark Twain, Lucille Clifton, Jane Austen, Victor Hugo, Derek Walcott, Roald Dahl, James Baldwin, and Joan Didion. Illustrations depict Woolf’s writing lodge and Didion, photographed while being filmed and interviewed in her New York apartment.

A modest probing into the sources of creativity.