Touching Writers' Lives

As a writer I love visiting houses, statues and graves of writers. Listing all the places that were important to the writers I loved would require a book in itself, but here's some where I felt inspired in my own work when I saw where they exist in some for reality..

Louisa May Alcott

Visiting Alcott's home is like walking through the book Little Women. Between Louisa, her family and friends, the walls have seen a virtual Who's Who of New England writers and Transcendentalists. Emerson and Thoreau part of a long list. At any moment I expect Jo to burst or one of her sisters to burst into the room to tell us it's time to sit down to dinner.

Nathaniel Hathorne

If Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables was heavy going for a seventh grader, walking the streets of Salem MA over and over showing friends from other places the town, was not. Built in 1688 this house is said to be the oldest surviving house in New England. The museum tour is far better when an exam is not going to be given after the tour.

Longfellow

Henry Longfellow's Midnight Ride of Paul Revere has more meaning than the many times I walked by his home on a Cambridge Friday family night which included, a meal, street musicians and bookstore. With a wonderful friend on a visit to the Minute Man National Park in Lexington, MA where I researched my novel Lexington: Anatomy of a Novel, he and I stood and read alternate verses of the poem aloud.

COLETTE

Somewhere in my Argelès-sur-mer, France studio, is a small stone that rested for a few minutes on Colette's grave. I like to think as I was writing my Murder in (fill in the place) series, it inspired me. I've read only one of her books in French opting for English translations for the others. Her life was as intriguing as her writing.

DOSTOEVSKY

I had the incredible luck to become friends with a Russian women and having her invite my husband and me to St. Petersburg. Besides the pleasure of staying in her home and seeing daily Russian life, she took me to a bookstore where I bought  a copy of my first published novel Chickpea Lover: Not a Cookbook in Russian. She also planned a sight-seeing trip of the city that covered the highlights, middle lights and lowlights of the city. From standing where Rasputin was stabbed and the place he jumped in the river and breathing the same atmosphere in Dostoevsky's home where he penned some of the world's greatest novels were experiences I never expected to have and am still grateful for. 

OSCAR WILDE

Before seeing this statue I pictured Oscar Wilde as Stephen Fry in the1997 film Wilde. Wandering Dublin, we came across the colored statue of Wilde. I knew the Greeks and Romans painted their statues in bright colors. Considering Wilde's character I think he would approve, although he might have liked more flamboyant colors. As I looked at the statue, I felt if I asked the statue a question it would answer, maybe in Fry's voice.

There are other writers whom I've come in physical contact with long after they've gone. Bits and pieces of their lives enriched mine.

When visiting Maine with my beloved stepmom after my Dad's death we visited the home of Pulitzer Prize winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. I loved the story when the pipes burst, flooding the home, it was so cold that the water froze. The family decided to use the ice for skating. It has been an example to me that when I have to face any setback of hardship. There is now a center that offer writers residencies.

In a way, being in the home, grave or touching a statue is a reminder of the person whose work I've enjoyed. Sometimes I can pretend we sit down and share a pot of tea, a glass of wine or conversation together. After I can go home, open my laptop, which they never had, and hammer out my own work.