The Writing Room

Ever wonder where writers write, how they write and why, if their physical writing space is private – or if it’s mobile, the neighbourhood internet café or university library?

Here's the return of THE WRITING ROOM, a regular Blog feature profiling a QWF member’s writing space and writing process.
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CLAIRE HOLDEN ROTHMAN

Where Claire Writes

I am not particularly sensitive to space and my work room is functional rather than beautiful, with a shelf of books on one side and a window overlooking the garden on the other. It’s just off the kitchen, so I can stir soups for my sons on breaks.

I don’t need much to write, just a flat surface for my laptop. When my children were small I learned to concentrate, and I can now work just about anywhere, with all kinds of noise and activity around me. I usually use paper in the planning stages of a book or short story. You can see my fiction notebooks and most recent journals piled on the bookshelf. Dictionaries and style books fill the lower shelves because of my day job as a translator.

Two reproductions hang on the walls: a forest of back-lit trees by Emily Carr (which you can’t see) and the sleeping body of a girl with an upturned face (which you can). The sleeping girl is Marie-Thérèse Walter, who fell in love with Pablo Picasso when she was seventeen and inspired him to fill his canvasses with love and light. It’s a voluptuous, dreamy painting that I stare at when the words won’t come.

CLAIRE HOLDEN ROTHMAN is a Montreal fiction writer and translator whose novel, The Heart Specialist, was published this past spring and has been on the bestseller list for 18 weeks as of this posting:

As a young girl living in the late nineteenth century, Agnes White is drawn to the “wrong” things. Growing up, she finds herself fascinated by microscopes, dissections, and anatomy – hobbies that deem her unladylike. Yet despite the criticism of those around her, and the obstacles set in place preventing women from assuming traditional male roles, Agnes chooses to pursue her calling to become a doctor, even if it means taking on the illustrious medical establishment at McGill University. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Inspired by the life of Dr. Maude Abbott, The Heart Specialist is a testament to the power of will and perseverance. Agnes White is proof that in a world on the brink of change anything is possible.

For an excerpt, visit www.claireholdenrothman.com

Cormorant Books
www.cormorantbooks.com