Where Writers Write: Jennifer Spiegel

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

Where Writers Write is a series in which authors 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 Jennifer Spiegel. 

She is the author of three books, The Freak Chronicles (stories),  Love Slave (a novel), and And So We Die, Having First Slept (forthcoming in December from Five Oaks Press). She’s also half of the book-reviewing duo, Snotty Literati.For more information, go to www.jenniferspiegel.com. 

Where Jennifer Spiegel Writes

Part Deux

Am I the only writer who’s doing this twice? Yes, I wrote about my place before. Check it out here! It looks like I’m pretending to write in panty-hose. Really? Where’s the brie? Get me some shrimp!

Actually, it wasn’t as off as I anticipated. We moved since my last publishing bout. My “office” seems to be the hottest room in the new/now-old house (Why Do We Live In Arizona Again?), and so now I write on the couch, on my laptop, surrounded by miscellaneous pets. Different ones. My blog was (is) called “Bosco’s Going Down,” named—Pathetically? Sweetly?—after my cat, Bosco, who finally went down. Man, Bosco was a great cat. RIP Bosco.

So I write on the couch. (Kids at school, coffee in tow, music off.)

I did write almost the entire first draft of my new novel at a Starbucks in North Phoenix. Things got sad, though, and I left. First, I would’ve preferred a funky, local, downtown-ish coffeehouse, but I live in North Phoenix, home of Walmart/Sprouts/CVS/Starbucks. Second, I started to get sad when I realized I was waaaaayyyyy more attached to my local baristas than they were to me—like I loved them and, to them, I was just another loiterer, albeit white (Sorry! I couldn’t help myself!). Third, I got breast cancer and went through chemo, which resulted in me hiding out for months, bald—a routine I’ve yet to reverse in any real way, though I now have hair.

So, the couch.