In Search of Writers' Haunts

My personal experience of knowing an author's environment is my time in the 80's at the University of Leeds where the comp sci department had a small out-building where the Ph.D students had some office space. This was one of the few remaining old terrace-type buildings that had survived the modern re-development of the Uni and according to local legend was the building where JRR Tolkien had an office when he was a reader in the English dept. at Leeds. We always felt that this was where Tolkien got the inspiration for the danker bits of the Mines of Moria. I also used to visit the park area in Meanwood where some claimed Tolkien was inspired by the large holly trees as an inspiration for Hollin. I later moved to Bournemouth where Tolkien lived in retirement. His house there was totally uninspiring suburban.

I'm also reminded of the old joke about a uni that had a building dedicated to authors, known locally as 'Writers Block'.

Have to admit that when I got my first decent job in the 80s it was in West Los Angeles. Read a ton of Raymond Chandler, who wrote about hard boiled detectives in the 1930s. Surprisingly, Venice and many of its people were recognizable from his descriptions.

Good lord, did that ever strike me as pretentious and cliche.