The Desk Near the E. M. Forster Section

Dimond Library, Durham, New Hampshire

I started sitting at the desk out of convenience: I was writing my master’s thesis on Forster’s Howards End, so camping out next to the shelf of books pertaining to the author’s work at my university’s library was practical. By all appearances, it is just a nondescript, light wood desk no different from the dozens of others that line the library. To me, though, it is a creative beacon, a place where my mind is clearest and my thoughts tumble out perfectly formed. In my mind, the desk is the place where I have done my best writing and had my most profound intellectual breakthroughs—I sincerely believe that writing at that oasis of a desk had an irrevocably positive impact on finishing my thesis and other academic scribblings. Whenever I write something, though it’s almost a year since I last sat there, I often find myself thinking of the desk and yearn to write on its transformative tabletop once again.