Where Writers Write: Christopher Locke

 

 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 Christopher Locke. 

Christopher Locke was born in New Hampshire and received his MFA from Goddard College. His essays and short fiction have appeared in The North American Review, The Sun, The Rumpus, Slice, JMWW, SmokeLong Quarterly, Barrelhouse, and Atticus Review, among others. He won the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Award, as well as grants in poetry from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. 25 Trumbulls Road, his first collection of fiction, won the Black River Chapbook Award. His latest collection of poetry Music For Ghosts (NYQ Books) was released in 2022. His memoir-in-essays, Without Saints, is due out from Black Lawrence Press in October 2022. Chris lives in the Adirondacks and teaches English at SUNY Plattsburgh and North Country Community College.

Where Christopher Locke Writes

I like to write in bed. I’m not sure how this all came to be, because in my 20’s and 30’s, I’m pretty sure most of my writing was executed upright at a pine desk. Back then, I had this big-ass Brother hybrid (part typewriter, part tugboat engine component) so it didn’t necessarily lend itself to being plopped down on my stomach, squeezing the life out of me as I banged out a litany of woeful poems, (I was filled with a lot of woe in those days).

 

I think I love to write in bed because I also write best in the morning, when my head is clear and untroubled by anxiety, and bed provides a natural extension to the process. I really enjoy that whole stretching out business, the elongation of it all. Propped up on several pillows while I am telling a story is not only comfortable, but frankly, humane; I’m not one of those writerly types who says they compose best at 2:00 am whilst a windstorm rages outside and I reach for another jigger of whiskey.  

 

Savages.

 

And damnit, if it was good enough for Wordsworth, Proust, and Edith Wharton, it’s good enough for me!