Photos of Writers at work

Nice. Thanks for posting.

I love this! Thanks for posting. I think my favorite was the last one: Edward Gorey with all the cats.

Love these, thanks for this.

Hah! My writing space is a corner of the couch, laptop balanced on my knees.

Thanks, Barbara. A lot of those look like my writing space (cluttered, small, filled with books).

I giggled a little at Hemingway on the bed with a newspaper.

AshleyEpidemic said:

I giggled a little at Hemingway on the bed with a news paper.

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Yeah! That amused me too, especially since the bed seemed too short for his comfort.

Thanks for posting that link, Barbara! Yeah, the Hemingway photo was awesome. I had forgotten how much I hate 60/70s decor. Anyone else try to check the books on their shelves? (I really couldn't make out any.)

Snowstorm said:

Anyone else try to check the books on their shelves? (I really couldn't make out any.)

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Alice Walker - the open book looks like either the Oxford or Cambridge dictionary (I don't have them near, so I can't check), but one or other has the funky bits cut so you can skip straight to the letter you need.

Henry Miller - hard to make out in the photo, but there is footage somewhere of the bookshelf which is clearer. There's mention of collections of short stories that I remember, but I wouldn't like to say for sure which ones he read.

Mark Twain - he wrote a bunch of book reviews, so if you look through those you'll probably discern which he kept and which he got rid of.

From reading about Agatha Christie, I'm willing to bet that a lot of the books on her shelves are reference books rather than novels. Too small an image to pick out any that stand out.

If that's Hemingway's "work," it looks like his process is a lot more relaxing than mine...

Thanks for sharing. That's an excellent collection. I can't help but post a link to a favorite of mine:

http://s2.postimage.org/5dxru5xvd/Buk_kissing_typewriter_1.jpg

Bukowski holding a glass of wine while kissing his typewriter

Craig

Barbara R. said:

I liked Paul Auster's space, although the writer himself seems to have aged unacceptably; I've always pictured him as a perpetual 30.

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I was just about to say the same thing.

And what about Borges! Jesus, the guy seems to be haunting his own room. If ever there was a 'I am aware of my mortality picture' that's got to be it.

Awesome. Love Hemingway and Gorey.

I have more! From the LIFE archives :

Tennessee Williams: http://images.google.com/hosted/life/5a67c084bbcb4387.html

William S. Burroughs: http://images.google.com/hosted/life/5aefaae487ef6c1b.html

Hemingway again (actually working this time): http://images.google.com/hosted/life/047e4188ae2d1e84.html

Thornton Wilder: http://images.google.com/hosted/life/7801a9a08238757d.html

George Bernard Shaw: http://images.google.com/hosted/life/bec2ceefc94608b1.html

Vladimir Nabokov: http://images.google.com/hosted/life/db61f3ee2f925705.html

Arthur Conan Doyle: http://images.google.com/hosted/life/2995b40829f98ef1.html

(I have an old photo blog and I've done related posts before )

I'd never seen that Burroughs shot. Love it. Thanks so much for sharing those. I love the typewriters in so many of these photos. I often have to remind myself not to fetishize the tools of writing. But look at how beautiful they are...

Craig

leversandpulleys said:

I'd never seen that Burroughs shot. Love it. Thanks so much for sharing those. I love the typewriters in so many of these photos. I often have to remind myself not to fetishize the tools of writing. But look at how beautiful they are...

Craig

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Count me in. I love typewriters. I like the tactile pleasure of pressuring on a hard keyboard and watching the arm thingy swing forward to stamp a letter on the paper. Just like I love the tactile joy of dialing on a rotary phone and hearing the clicking sound when the wheel spins back (can't think of the word for that sound--driving me nuts!).

Ah, the joys the kids of the digital generation do not know...

Barbara R. said:

Being approximately 250 years old, I remember when they first introduced electric typewriters. My first book was written on a typewriter: one clean copy and a couple of blue carbon copies, and getting that clean copy was torture. One mistake and you'd have to retype a whole page, maybe a chapter. Forget about changing a name or anything like that. As far as I'm concerned, the Smithsonian is welcome to them.

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I am thankful that I have never had to produce clean copy using a typewriter.

I do love my manuals though. I use them mostly for freewriting, although I did write one novella length book on my old royal (http://www.flickr.com/photos/leversandpulleys/5972298227/in/set-72157624698457671).

On my pc I switched to an old IBM Model M keyboard w/ a USB adapter so that I at least have the tactile feel of a keypress switch under my fingers.

Thanks for sharing!
Craig

Barbara R. said:

My first book was written on a typewriter: one clean copy and a couple of blue carbon copies, and getting that clean copy was torture. One mistake and you'd have to retype a whole page, maybe a chapter. Forget about changing a name or anything like that.

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And you forgot the other delight of typewriters - they utterly destroy your fingertips if you have thousands of words. Banging away on a typewriter (a Silver something - Silver Reed? All I remember is that it was green, and came in a nifty plastic case) really damages the nerves in the fingertips if the thing refuses to cooperate. A new ink cartridge, thorough cleaning, and replacement springs, and the damn thing never really quite got to the point where it was comfortable to use.

Even to this day, I put down the occasional numbness in my fingertips to the hours and hours and hours spent at the typewriter. HATE using them. Really, really detest them. I applaud anyone who can write a novel on a typewriter.