“I’ll write ten more then go to the falcon. The falcon is my code name for Millennium Park in Chicago. I work across the street from it, and hide in it regularly. I write product copy for a large retailer. I write about power tools and mattresses, sometimes luggage. The volume is vast and comforting: an ocean of words, bold headlines lapping placidly at the sand.
It’s different from the fiction I write, but not a competing force. They leak into each other at times, and that’s okay. My visits to the falcon are a reward for pounding out volume, but also a way to get out of my head—to stop using words to define and start letting them radiate. An endless stream of people and languages filter through the grounds. Clips of conversations and pregnant glances surround me. Toddlers charge through Crown Fountain’s thin sluice, police officers on Segways whir around sculptures, couples hold hands or look bored. All of this penetrates through me and allows me to pull up more from within.”
—Ryan Kenealy, author of Animals in Peril (Curbside Splendor, 2014)
Photo credit: Bertie Kenealy