Words by Jamie Conway
The question isn’t how to write a famous page-turner that will be remembered for decades – it’s where to write it! We spent some time digging in the good old literature archives to find some of our favourite classical authors’ secret writing spots. Was it the city skyline from the hotel balcony that whisked them across their chapters; or the weeping willows in a desolate park that motivated some of these tales? What was it about these chosen cities that got these writer’s writing? We went hunting, and this is what we found:
The top eight cities where writers produced their famous books
1. Valescure, France – Sacré bleu, welcome back to the Roaring Twenties! Despite it being commonly known as one of the greatest American novels of all time, capturing the American dream perfectly, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was mainly written in his getaway pad, Villa Marie, for a change of scenery to inspire his writing. The novel reflects the highly anticipated summer lifestyle Fitzgerald experienced on the glamourous French Riviera, rubbing shoulders with elite socialites. If only we could take the summer off to vacation in France!
2. London, England – The famous writer hotspot! The location where Dickens wrote Great Expectations (though some of it was inspired by his hometown, Kent) and home to dozens of well-loved classic authors like Virginia Woolf (it’s also where she wrote Orlando, Mrs Dalloway and The Waves!)
3. Cape Town, South Africa – Some brilliant novels were written and tabled in the Cape! J.M. Coetzee got the fantastic idea to write a retelling of Robinson Crusoe, writhe with history, truth and desire. Foe may be the novel, but South Africa was surely his friend!
4. Oxford, England – Full of life and literature, Oxford is where J. R. R.
Tolkien produced the Lord of the Rings books that we are all still
obsessed with. He started these masterpieces for his children whilst at the
university and continued writing when he was in the army. Twelve years later,
we were introduced to Middle Earth. That’s dedication!
5. Jura, Scotland – Well, this one is technically an island, but it’s the location where George Orwell wrote what would become his last hurrah – Nineteen Eighty-Four, set in bustling Oceania. The futuristic society described in the novel marks a stark contrast to the location of its production. Jura is the furthest you could get from society, totally remote and unreachable. A quiet place to write with no interruptions; sounds like a dream!
6. Manchester, England – Known for their admirable footy skills, it seems the city produced some handy skills, too! Charlotte Brontë tried her hand at something new with Jane Eyre in Manchester, after having just received a dreadful rejection for her novel The Professor. She was resistant, just like her father, who was in Manchester for surgery. Funny enough, just a few roads away, Elizabeth Gaskell was writing Mary Barton at the same time!
7. New York, USA – The city where authors never sleep and the place where Toni Morrison, the first person of colour to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote the harrowing real-life story of Beloved. She travelled a lot to gather the forgotten history, but her apartment in the Big Apple is where she brought it back to life.
8. Yorkshire, England – Whatever Emily Brontë’s writing soul is made of, hers and ours are the same. In the legendary village of Haworth, Brontë produced Wuthering Heights, basing it upon the city she knew so well. Sometimes, we write what we know, and we know we’d kill to be writing in those murky marshes.
From UK to SA, every writer chooses their writing location with intention. Your writing environment informs what you write about and how you write it. When deciding on your next location for that novel you’ve been thinking about, chat to Room 206 – we’ll hit you up with the “write” ideas!