Guest Post: Rich Wallace’s Writing Space

I read and reviewed Rich Wallace’s War & Watermelon yesterday on the blog. I really enjoyed the historical aspects of the novel and the home front view of how the Vietnam War impacted families in the United States, especially among those with sons nearing draft age.

Today, I’ve got an additional treat for those of you who love a glimpse of writers’ work spaces.  Also, this presents a second chance for you to enter the giveaway if you live in the United States or Canada.  Without further ado, please welcome Rich Wallace:

I’m pretty low-tech. In fact, I just wrote my first blog post earlier this month and I just got speakers for my computer in May. That means I can listen to stuff on YouTube in my office.

My office. That’s what this is supposed to be about.

It turns out I don’t have any photos of my office. Here is one of my wife Sandra in her office, which more or less mirrors mine in the upstairs of our house. That’s Lucy with her. Lucy is the subject of that first blog post I mentioned. You could read that here.

We live in a cool college town in New Hampshire. I get a lot of ideas just walking around. I do most of my writing in my office, which is small, has some baby pictures of my boys—Jonathan and Jeremy–on the walls (they’re both in their twenties now), a painting of a giant shark Jonathan did in third grade, a trophy of Jeremy’s from sixth-grade basketball, an old Rheingold beer can in honor of my father, my grandparents’ wedding photo, a couple of bookcases (with lots of books by John Updike, E.B. White, Annie Proulx and many others), random copies of the New Yorker, a Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel alarm clock, huge clutters of papers of all sorts, a couple of hammers, a flashlight, a small pile of clothes that haven’t been worn quite enough for the laundry, last month’s edition of Rolling Stone that was devoted to Bob Dylan (they listed what they considered to be his 70 greatest songs in honor of his seventieth birthday; I made my own list of 50), my track spikes (I still compete), the massive Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, lined yellow notepads, and a whole lot of other things. You get the picture? (It would be so much easier if I actually had a picture.) My office overlooks the back yard, which has a giant river maple in the center. The yard backs into a wetlands area with a stream. The downtown is only a few minutes away by foot.

Here’s a picture of me outside our house.

My wife is also a novelist, so we spend much of every day just a few yards apart but in our own separate worlds as we write. Lucy comes up frequently to remind us that it’s time for a walk or a snack. I go out to run when I need a break. Or we walk into town and stroll the wide main street, getting a tea at one of the cool coffee shops or checking the marquee at the old theater to see what independent films are coming up. Sandra and I make our living as freelancers, which is wonderful. We work hard but have control over our schedules. The boys are launched. I have no complaints, and lots to be grateful for.

Thanks, Rich, for sharing your writing space with us.

If you would like to win a copy of War & Watermelon and live in the United States or Canada, please leave a comment on this post. For additional entries, visit my review. Deadline to enter is June 22, 2011, 11:59 PM EST.