My Favorite Places to Write
November 16, 2022
On my 10th birthday, I received a gift that couldn’t be purchased off the shelf or covered in gift wrap. It was a true labor of love: a treehouse, nestled among the towering oaks that shaded the backyard, that my father and grandfather built with their bare hands. And the moment Dad unfurled the rope ladder and invited me into the sky for the first time, I was hooked. I climbed into my private kingdom clutching a stack of spiral notebooks and a fresh pack of pens and, it seemed, a story for every leaf on every branch of every tree.
It was heaven.
I’m a March baby, but as the first whispers of spring stretched into sticky summer nights, then crisp fall afternoons, and finally frigid winter days beneath branches stripped bare, I cultivated my love for telling stories. I filled every one of those college-ruled notebooks and asked my parents for more. I packed picnic lunches — PBJs and apple slices and Oreo cookies. When the weather turned cool, Mom ladled chicken noodle soup and Hamburger Helper into Tupperware containers. With fresh air in my lungs and comfort food in my belly, I daydreamed and scribbled words and left the confines of that treehouse for wherever my characters wanted to take me.
Mom and Dad sold my childhood home not long after I started high school, and it’s been years since I climbed the rope ladder to heaven. Luckily, however, I’ve found other inspirational spots in the years since the treehouse and I said our tearful goodbyes.
The following have been some of my favorite places to write.
1. Polk Place, UNC Chapel Hill
On a nice day, students fill this picturesque quadrangle framed by classroom buildings and several libraries at the nation’s oldest public university. As an English major and creative writing minor, I spent a lot of time in Greenlaw Hall, which sits a stone’s throw from Polk Place. The building is one of the ugliest on an otherwise beautiful college campus, but the backyard more than makes up for it. I loved to lean against one of the historic trees while writing English papers, short stories and my (unfinished) young adult novel.
2. Sidewalk to South Road, UNC Chapel Hill
You won’t see it labeled on any map, but the sidewalk between the Undergraduate and Wilson Libraries is, from my perspective, the most breathtaking spot on the UNC campus. Three seasons out of the year, a small tree shades the sidewalk. And in the fall, the tree’s leaves turn a brilliant shade of gold, and in the late afternoon, the sunlight shines down and hits those leaves, and the glow lights up the entire world.
3. My Grandmother’s Sofa
I have fond memories of the seven semesters I spent in Chapel Hill. But many people don’t know that I spent the spring semester of my freshman year at NC State University after struggling with major depression the previous fall. I considered moving home to Charlotte, but Mom insisted I tough it out. So as a form of compromise, I moved to my grandparents’ Wake Forest, North Carolina home and commuted to NC State. Grandma Kathryn, a gifted writer who nurtured my love for books and storytelling, used to fill the house with the rich aromas of biscuits and Brunswick stew and moist pound cakes while I did my homework on the living room sofa, often squinting through tears. I’ve never felt safer or more nurtured. My grandmother wrapped me in unconditional love and helped me come back from the brink.
I took four classes that semester, the best of which was a creative writing class taught by Susan Ketchin. While I earned an A for the semester, UNC wouldn’t award transfer equivalency when I returned to Chapel Hill in the fall. Seventeen years later, Susan provided a book endorsement quote to support the publication of my memoir, Run to the Light.
4. The Sunroom, Wray Ward
I wrote much of Run to the Light over lunch in The Sunroom, a homey, bright space in the former office of the creative marketing communications agency where I’m the content marketing director. Since I write and edit for a living, I didn’t always find it easy to write over lunch, but the setting helped soften the blow of skipping that mental break. You can see it in this video Wray Ward produced about my late sister and the work her bravery inspired.
5. Airport Bars
I started writing my memoir on a plane from Charlotte to Oregon, where I’d start my quest to run a race in all 50 states, in August 2014. I completed the manuscript 10 months and 14 races later, and I spent a lot of that time in the air. I sought out the best airport bars for a vodka tonic and a chance to inch closer to my eventual 81,000-word total.
6. My Porch Swing
When my husband and I decided to build a house in 2016, we considered what seemed like 100 house plans before I saw the second-floor wraparound porch on a Charleston-style model and fell in love at first sight. John designed and built the daybed swing that’s easily my favorite spot on the property. It’s comfortable, offers a killer sunrise view and gets a WiFi signal.
Do you do your best work at a desk, or do you have an unconventional favorite haunt? Which of these settings is most appealing to you? Send me a note, and I may feature you on social media.
