The Writers Room of Bucks County

The Writers Room of Bucks County Pennsylvania. I snapped that photo two years ago and I'm still wondering what it is.

Is it a padded room with restraints where writers on the verge of a nervous breakdown flee when the deadline is looming and the words aren't there?

Is it a salon where witty writers and their companions loll about on chaise longues and entertain each other over cocktails with witty stories and razor-sharp repartee?

Or maybe it's wall-to-wall computers with high speed access and laser color printers warmed up and ready to go.

I don't know why it took me so long to Google it and find out.

This is a quote from citypaper.net on March 11-17, 2004:

The Writers Room itself was the product of a risky business decision made by Doylestown native Winans, who in 1998 invested a lump sum in a communal space where writers could come to work, outside their homes. It took after The Writers Room in New York, and Winans was sure of his target audience. "I started it because I was lonely, and wanted to meet other writers," he remembers. "I had been working on a number of novels at the time, and after a couple of years I found my social life had shrunk to the checkout counter at Kmart."

I'm a loner, always have been and always will be. I thrive on solitude. But I have to admit I felt a deep and unexpected longing (mixed with envy) for what they've created in Doylestown. I can't imagine what it would feel like on one of those the-words-won't-come kind of days to know there was a place where (oh hell, let me say it) everyone knows your name. (Even after 40+ books, not all that many people know mine.) Where there's a place for you. Where people understand that talking to yourself in public isn't necesarily a bad thing.

I love Doylestown. I did a book signing there years ago. Maybe we should move to Doylestown.

Barbara