The Writers Room is New York City’s first shared work space for emerging and established writers of all genres. Founded in 1978 by writers for writers, in this professional workspace creativity flourishes in an atmosphere of mutual support.
I can’t imagine living in New York City without The Writers Room. I need this separation from the tiny compartment I call home—this quiet, uncluttered, productive place where I can focus all my attention on writing. The Writers Room is always there for me, at every hour of every day. There is always an empty desk and a comfortable chair. It’s there when I’m under deadline, when I’m desperate, when I simply want a creative place to go, surrounded by the sound of other writers typing. I’ve written hundreds and hundreds of pages in the Writers Room over the past fourteen years, and I hope to write many more.
Nova Ren
17 & Gone
Fade Out
Dani Noir
www.novaren.com
Moxie
by Mark Belair
My father kept a juice glass
on the kitchen sink ledge.
When he’d go out-or just to bed-
he’d first enjoy a little sip
Of root beer, Coke, or his all-time favorite,
Moxie, which he always drank on
Saturday nights, the night
he cooked the family supper.
“Supper on the hoof”, he called it
since it was strictly short order:
sandwiches, burgers, grilled cheese-
nothing that took more than ten minutes.
For this came after a swim at the Y
That left us all-my mother and sister,too-
Dog tired, somewhat dazed,
skin all puckered and blue.
I took swimming lessons those Saturday afternoons
but remained so afraid of the devouring water
that my mustachioed instructor, one week,
In frustration, held my head under
until the bubbling stopped.
Then he let me up.
I didn’t tell on him.
I didn’t know I could.
I just clung to the pool edge
the next Saturday, then begged,
crying, week after week,
to be allowed to quit.
Finally, one Saturday, my father, fed up,
said, “Go ahead and quit.”
He didn’t add, “You quitter,”
but I knew that’s what he thought.
My father’s grilled cheese, that night,
didn’t’ taste right.
And when he took his drink of Moxie
before going to bed, the juice glass,
as he set it on the porcelain ledge,
shattered, a splinter-
blindly shooting out-
stinging my cheek.
"What is it like to spend days, weeks, months, years on a novel and make it to the last pages? I have been blessed enough to have written three novels at The Writers Room, where those fraught, final hours are eased by the sight of other writers rapt in their own worlds. And what better place is there to tell someone, “I just finished my novel,” and to know that they know what it means."
Anne Landsman, novelist
The Devil's Chimney
The Rowing Lesson
www.annelandsman.com
You can work in cafes, or some people can, and try not to write about being in a cafe, measuring time in bathroom breaks. You can work at home, in your underwear, where the dishes and your novel both cry priority, and be busy all day, and find yourself at days end with nothing but an empty sink and an empty page, and no way to leave work. Or, sometimes, you can work in The Writers Room.
Normal people have a beginning and end to their day, they go to work and they leave it. Apparently, at some point, they go home. But the writer, or some of us, are constantly at home, and and so constantly at work, and in the bargain, loses both. What people with day jobs imagine as heaven can quickly devolve into a time shifted endless hell, where there is always something easier, and more pressing to attend to- anything rather than choosing words on a page.
And so, The Writers Room; a place where you can come and go, like normal people, to feel yourself a part of the world you are writing about and whee you will be surrounded by the silent and mysterious efforts of others who are also, one assumes, at work. Or at the very least not at home, and an purpose. We call this work. Also, there is a door, and a key, and the fundaments of structure. It's a fine thing to lean on a clean desk with a working light when you're trying to create a world out of spit and imagination.
It helps, but it doesn't do the whole job. You may show up and do nothing. Surely, many do. I've done this myself, in The Room. But then there you are, clearly at work, not working, until you finally ask yourself; what the hell are you doing here? Either make something or don't.
It's a trick, yes- a comfortable, subsidized trick in the center of the big New York, capital N and Y, downtown, an elevator ride off it's busiest causeway, at desks by windows where the Empire State rises and sets like a clock with one hand, noble and timeless....f you choose to look there- but a trick none the less. Doesn't it sound grand? But the truth is, writing is a stinky, painful, and solitary profession (or job, calling, hobby, duty), glorious usually only in the telling. At least in The Writers Room it is afforded the basic courtesies of a clean open room, flat surfaces and ready coffee. The rest is up to you; it's open all night, and there's always someone there, punching keys, chosing to be nowhere else,and forcing you to the hard choices which make story.
Charles Graeber, award-winning journalist and author
The Good Nurse:A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder (TwelveBooks, April 2013)
www.charlesgraeber.com
You say, “I’m writing,” your friends and family hear, “I’m totally available to talk to you.” Here, at The Writers Room, you can work undisturbed. Before I joined I wrote in cafes, at the mercy of any friend, cook, or waiter who wanted to sit down with me. Now I can work for hours,uninterrupted, and unlike at the café, I can take off my shoes or even cry if I want to. Without The Writers Room, my last book would not have been possible, and with all the free coffee I drink, it pays for itself.
Jennifer Belle, novelist
Going Down
High Maintenance
Little Stalker
The Seven Year Bitch
jenniferbelle.com
"If you write in the city, you know every coffee shop in your hood. You're probably also familiar with the strategizing required to get your laptop near a coveted AC outlet. It probably wears you down. Mercifully, The Writers Room ended that for me. Plus I find it comforting to see other writers occasionally sitting with their foreheads on their desk."
Michael Berg, screenwriter
Ice Age
Ice Age, Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Ice Age, Continental Drift
"The Writers Room is an artists' oasis amidst the hustle and bustle of New York City. Part artist's studio, part writers' colony, it's a place to write, to ruminate, to be. In a city that grows increasingly less hospitable to the very creative beings who define it, The Writers Room is a quiet, genteel place of creative ferment. If we had a bar offering up gin and tonics and dry martinis, I have no doubt that Truman Capote and Dorothy Parker would call this place home."
Gary Terracino, screenwriter, director, producer
Elliot Loves
