The Writer at Home and Work

Faulkner once said that “the only environment the artist needs is whatever peace, whatever solitude, and whatever pleasure he can get at not too high a cost.” Wallace Stevens scanned his poetry while walking to his office; Thomas Wolfe wrote on top of a refrigerator.

After interviewing eight of Dallas’ writers, we find that their work spaces, too, say something about their craft. The fiction authors require only the basic tools of the trade: Playwright Preston Jones writes at his dining room table; novelists Frank Schaefer and Kerry Newcomb sometimes rely on a nearby cafe. The non-fiction writers, however, tend to accumulate libraries: Frances Mossiker’s study contains the major works of French history; Lon Tinkle’s a collection on the history of Texas; and Ales-sandra Comini’s, artifacts and histories of European art.

The working writer tends to be a private person, but these eight opened their doors, allowing us not only to take their portraits, but to record them at work.