Jessica Francis Kane
“I recommend writing in libraries, and I highly recommend changing the table, reading room, and even library you’re working in often. Change of venue is a powerful and perhaps under-appreciated creative force.
I don’t know why it should be this way, but if I’m stuck on a project I find that if I pick myself up and work somewhere new, the words begin to flow again. I’ll work in one place for a long time—for two years I worked on the 8th floor of Bobst Library overlooking Washington Square Park; I finished and edited my first novel there. I loved that space and knew everything about its moods and shifts of light during those years. But now that room is entirely associated with my novel and I’m much happier these days on the first floor near the reference desk, or in a different place all together. I read once that John Updike had a room for writing fiction and a different room for writing nonfiction. I suppose what I do is a version of that, but I don’t have enough space in my apartment. I make due with public spaces and whether it is the different walk to get there or the different people I see and overhear along the way, I find the change of venue always refreshes and inspires me.”
—Jessica Francis Kane, author of This Close (Graywolf Press, 2013)