What I call my office is just a corner of my bedroom. I wrote my debut novel on my iPhone, and the following two anywhere I managed to sit down for more than two minutes. It felt luxurious, almost greedy, to stake out even a small space for my own. It’s modest, but more than adequate: a place to sit, and windows to let in fresh air and sunlight.
I decorated this corner with the small collection of trinkets, collected over the years. Found objects have always been my best writing prompts. There is a rosary I found in the grass in the graveyard at Glendalough. A tiny wooden bull figurine with a broken leg, from an antique shop in Glasgow. After purchasing a used car, I was once thrilled to discover a hand-labeled mix CD labeled “Nana’s Memorial Service songs.” (The car had a few prior owners, and I wasn’t able to find the original owner of Nana’s funeral mixtape, though I did try.) I also enjoy finding thrifted books with sentimental inscriptions. My two best finds include a paperback of The Wide Sargasso Sea with “un romance” handwritten on the title page. And a copy of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, with a 1950s inscription from someone named Ed to his wife Olga, on the occasion of their second anniversary. I adore it, but it’s hardly the first book I’d nominate as an anniversary gift. Maybe Ed and Olga were cursed—there’s no doubt that they were at least very interesting.
The frame behind the armchair holds a reproduction of a 1920s movie poster. (I’m including an image of the poster, since it was near impossible to get a photo of it without glare.) The film is Tess of the Storm Country, an adaptation of my great-great-grandmother’s most popular novel. I always aspired to write like her—Grace Miller White was her name. Her books are fun and romantic and melodramatic, full of high emotional stakes, difficult women, and sweeping, larger-than-life landscapes. Tess of the Storm Country was actually adapted as a film four times, but this one, starring Mary Pickford, was the most popular. I’ve heard that Pickford referred to Tess as her favorite film role, but I can’t find a first-hand source for that, so I just choose to believe it. That’s why I named my favorite character in my new book Tess.
I keep a ukulele at hand for when I need to take a break from writing. Music is often a big part of my brainstorming process, especially when I am getting into a character’s mindset. The weekend I started writing The Woman in the Water in earnest was the weekend Taylor Swift released Folklore, which, when I reread the book now, explains a lot. The story is deeply involved with found objects, nostalgia, and the ways memory sometimes muddles the truth.
My new book, The Woman in the Water, featuring a Tess, a thrifted book, and found objects, is out now.
Kelly Heard is a novelist from Afton, Virginia. She published poetry in literary magazines before signing her debut novel, Before You Go, with Bookouture.
Kelly prefers writing to most other pastimes, but you’ll occasionally find her in the garden, hiking, or exploring antique shops.
