For most of my decade-plus career as a published mystery novelist, I’ve worked in what I call my “accidental office,” a converted breakfast nook that sits off the kitchen in our 1930 house in Columbus, Ohio. Early on, when I also held down a full-time journalism job, I awoke most days around 4:45 a.m. and wrote for an hour or two before heading out the door to my downtown office. Back then, I worked with the window curtain closed to keep distractions to a minimum. More on that in a moment.
When COVID hit in March 2020, my part-time office became my full-time workspace. Although I ventured to a few in-person assignments over the next eighteen months, the bulk of my personal and professional writing happened in this approximately 63-square-foot space. Leaving the AP in 2022 to work as a mostly full-time mystery writer (with a freelance writing side hustle) was a big decision, but choosing an office space was easy: right where I’ve been for years.
After a few fits and starts adjusting to a new schedule, I settled into a routine that works for me. I typically read and drink coffee on my small office couch from 5:30 to 6:30 each morning, hit the computer around 7, take an hour break for some exercise between 10:30 and 11, and knock off by 3 or 4 in the afternoon.
My office is filled with the types of writerly items you might expect, beginning with two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves I built years ago, a built-in bookcase that came with the nook, and a smaller add-on shelf I installed a while back. Other than dozens of mysteries and books on the craft of writing, notable bookshelf occupants are almost every Dr. Dolittle book by Hugh Lofting, multiple Happy Hollister volumes (a Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys-style series published in the 1960s and a childhood favorite), some original Perry Mason paperbacks (in honor of my overly ambitious eight-year-old self as I tried reading my mom’s copies), and of course, Encyclopedia Brown and His Best Cases Ever.
My office walls and desk shelves are filled with meaningful (at least to me) ephemera, including photos of my wife, our three adult children, and our granddaughters. I have a drinking glass from Hook’s Drugstore in Terre Haute, Indiana, a reminder of my parents’ decision to have coffee there after church one day in the 1950s, with one thing leading to another. My retired AP Press pass watches over me, as does one of my late father’s small, abstract art wooden sculptures. Tucked at the back of a shelf, a commemorative brick and attached plaque marks the 1967 completion in my hometown of Lima, New York, of the new public library, a building that sparked my lifelong love of libraries and reading.
The most unusual figurine of several that I display? That would be a “caganer,” purchased in Cardedeu, Spain, over Christmas 2024. The statute is a man from the Catalonian region (in and around Barcelona) in traditional dress, squatting with his pants down as he poops. Yes, you read that right. This is a common figure in Catalonian culture and every nativity scene features one. (You also read that right.) Our son-in-law is Catalonian and our granddaughters are growing up there, so the statuette is a fun reminder of the region’s quirky side.
Somewhat randomly, my office desk also holds two empty beer cans. One, Carling Black Label, is a nod to that beverage as the favorite beer of my fictional private eye, former Ohio State and Cleveland Browns quarterback Andy Hayes. (“It’s swill,” as he likes to say, “but it’s my swill”). The second can held a beverage produced by ThunderWing Brewing in Columbus in September 2024 to commemorate both the eighth Andy Hayes book, Sick to Death, and the 10th anniversary of the series. The name of the beer? “Private Eye PA,” of course.
To the right of my monitor sits my trusty Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th Edition), my go-to spelling and definition source, followed by the Merriam-Webster app on my phone, and then the Internet. The dictionary sits atop one of my favorite writing tools: a 2008 Columbus, Ohio, white pages (remember those?), from which I choose most names for my characters. Over the years I’ve also taped up the typical New Yorker cartoons about writers, my favorite of which depicts an author sitting at a table with a sign behind her that says: “Tell The Author Your Idea For A Book.”
Besides myself, the only other regular visitor to the office is our cat Stretch, who spends most of her days on the couch napping. She succeeded another cat, Frankie, a full-time office resident—litter box, food dish, and all—who hung out in her cushioned house as I nursed her through multiple neurological and urinary issues too plentiful and too, well, unpleasant, to discuss here. She died two years ago, just a week or so shy of eighteen, having been by my side through the writing of all thirteen of my books and dozens of short stories.
Back to the window whose curtain I opened once I started spending whole days in the office. In Ohio at least, the winter of COVID Year One (December 2020-March 2021) was very snowy. I enjoyed gazing out at our yard on such days, especially when treated to regular visits by a skunk, a raccoon, a possum, and a woodchuck, each acclimated to life in an old city neighborhood.
All good things must come to an end, I suppose. In the coming months, a long-planned kitchen renovation will convert my hallowed space to a first-floor half-bath, something our nearly 100-year-old house sorely needs. Not to fear though. I’m moving—along with Stretch the Cat (although she doesn’t know yet, so please don’t say anything)—to a bigger office upstairs in a converted bedroom sporting fresh paint and new carpet. There, I’ll continue work on my new thriller series featuring Mercury Carter, a freelance courier who’s not a person whose deliveries you want to interrupt. The first book, The Mailman, is out now from Mysterious Press.
Once in my new office, I’ll set my routine as I always have, by paraphrasing an old line from novelist Peter DeVries: “I only write when I’m inspired, and I make sure I’m inspired at seven o’clock every morning.”
Andrew Welsh-Huggins is the Shamus, Derringer, and ITW-award-nominated author of the Andy Hayes Private Eye series and editor of Columbus Noir. Library Journal called his crime novel The End of The Road one of the best thrillers of 2023. His short fiction has appeared in multiple magazines and anthologies.
