Author P. Djรจlรญ Clark once said that he can write anywhere, which makes me deeply envious. Sure, I can write on the road when necessary โ this essay comes to you from the Doubletree Hilton in Wellington, New Zealand. But given a choice, I always want to be back home in my office. Not only is it a blue-hued museum of me, filled with books and small foxes and memories โ itโs a stolen room.
All right, maybe not stolen as much as co-opted. My office is the master bedroom of the Brooklyn townhouse I share with my husband. But where else could I put a gigantic mechanical treadmill desk? It dwarfed the space of the second bedroom and I got claustrophobic. So the master became my office, and I have become the mistress of the space.
Blue has always been a favorite color โ the dark and light shades sing sky and sea to me, both places to get lost and drift mentally. In my blue room dominated by the ugly (but beloved!) treadmill desk Iโve done what I can to surround myself in the things that give me joy. Bookshelves line the upper parts of the wall, waterfalling down between my two windows facing out into the street. The lower shelves are my TBR pile (or some of it), and theyโre all festooned with various mementoes: a ghost under a bell jar, an Eeyore plush, a cardboard butterfly map given away at a convention.
From my perch at the desk, behind me I have a kind of trophy wall โ a gold record from Radiohead, who loved an article I wrote about them back in the 1990s; an article about Law & Order coming to a close (it came back, of course) for the New York Times; small giclรฉes from artist Luke Chueh, whose work has a cuddly yet morose tone I adore. Thereโs also my shelfie of recent works, added during the pandemic to give the wall behind me some marketing personality. On one side of the shelf sits my bronze fox musician minis โ every time Iโve had a novel published I treat myself to another from the collection, purchased at New York Cityโs Scully & Scully (not an ad).
When Iโm behind the desk I can gaze across the room at the high bookshelves (which were more full in recent days; weโre preparing for a possible move) and enjoy having my friends in the room with me: Iโm a sucker for photo booths, and I keep those strips clipped in a garland below the books. The other side of the room features multiple mirrors โ two embedded in the closet doors (the house is from 1946 and has some โฆ quirks) and one giant one that perches on my dresser. The mirrors are unique remnants of the houseโs original owners โ one was a glassmaker โ and theyโre unique, fragile touches that give our home personality.
The things themselves donโt make the stories, of course. Thatโs up to me. But by setting myself in this blue-hued museum of me, the Muse knows where my heart resides. Together, we weave stories. And thatโs why โ as a small wooden plank nailed to my door indicates โ this is My Happy Place.
Randee Dawn is the bestselling author of the “funny as hell” pop culture fantasy novel Tune in Tomorrow from 2022 and its Tune-iverse 2026 follow-up We Interrupt This Program. She’s also the author of the dark Celtic musical fantasies The Only Song Worth Singing and Leave No Trace, both of which published in 2025. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, including most recently Dark Spores: Stories We Tell After Midnight, Vol. 4. She is the co-author of The Law & Order: SVU Unofficial Companion, hosts a course called How to Be Interviewed through Creative Coaching Partners, and curates and hosts a monthly reading series in Brooklyn called Brooklyn Books & Booze . A veteran entertainment journalist for The LA Times, Variety and Today.com, Randee lives in Brooklyn.
