Write Place, Write Time

If you look at anything long enough, say just that wall in front of you -- it will come out of that wall.
- Anton Chekhov

Jon Clinch

I work in a closet. Most of the time, anyhow.

When my wife and I moved to Vermont from Pennsylvania a few years ago, we’d spent almost twenty years working together in a very nice and very roomy home office. In other words, we’d had enough of home offices. We were sick of home offices. But I needed a place to write, so I took the doors off the library closet and installed some cabinets and cut a stock tabletop to fit the space and that was it. It’s not a home office. It’s just a closet.

The library itself is full of things that mean something to me. The skiing poster, which keeps me company when my wife is out skiing. The mantle clock, which belonged to my grandfather. The Japanese fan, which was a gift from — well, from a Japanese fan. And pinned to the corkboard, a note from my friend Robert Goolrick that says “You really should be richer.”

Maybe so. But I’d probably still work in the closet.

Jon Clinch is the author of two novels, FINN and KINGS OF THE EARTH. He lives in the Green Mountain State with his wife, Wendy Clinch, founder of The Ski Diva.


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