Where Writers Write: Ed Falco

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a series that features authors as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is Ed Falco. 

Ed is the author of the New York Times best-selling novel The Family Corleone along with several other novels and story collections, including St. John of the Five Boroughs, Wolf Point, and Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha. He has received innumerable prizes and awards. Falco lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, where he teaches in Virginia Tech's MFA program. His website is http://www.edfalco.us/.

Where Ed Falco Writes

My desk is a hollow core wood door, found in an attic more than thirty years ago, in Syracuse, New York, where I was a grad student in the English Department.  It rests on two sets of desk drawers that probably date back to the 1930s.  They were part of a desk that belonged to my father. Standard desks are too small for my purposes, so I knocked the top off my father’s desk and dropped my door down on top of the drawers.  Just about everything I’ve published has been written on that door.  My computer is an iMac 27”, with enough room on the screen for three pages side by side.  Whatever I’m writing is in the middle of the screen.  On either side of the work-in-progress are pages of notes or images or web pages.  My keyboard is ergonomic, as is the joystick mouse.  Friends sometimes see the joystick and think I play games on the computer.  I don’t.  All my carpal tunnel problems have disappeared since I started using the joystick.  It takes a little getting used to, but it’s worth it.  Alongside the keyboard is my iPad.  I use it mostly for FaceTime calls and Words With Friends breaks from writing.  There is almost always an open book somewhere on my desk.  The magnifying lamp is for reading small print: my vision isn’t what it used to be.  A lifetime writing and reading will do that.  On the wall are pictures of recent book covers to remind me that I really can write, that I’ve done it before and I can do it again.  Amazing how often I need that reminder.  On the wall to the left of my desk chair is a picture of my daughter.  Directly above the computer screen there’s a router and an external hard drive which automatically backs up all my work.  A lot of my life is spent here, at this desk, in a tiny office, though from this base I have traveled far and wide through space and time.