In the Writer’s Studio: Naomi Alderman

Each week until the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction winner’s announcement on June 7th, we’ll be giving you an insight into the workspaces of our brilliant 2017 shortlisted authors. This week, Naomi Alderman, shortlisted for The Power, takes us on a tour of her writing room, including wire skeleton figures, greenery and a Victorian banker’s desk.

Where do you write?
I write in all sorts of places! The critical thing for me is to keep the book flowing by working on it (at least a little bit) *every day*. So if I’m travelling, I work in the hotel room. I love working in libraries, actually. The Warburg Institute is a favourite right now. This desk is in my writing room at home which doubles as my office/meeting room when I have meetings here and has a daybed for curling up in.

What do you have on your desk?
My desk is covered in *things*. Little bottles of perfume, earrings, a little tin that reminds me of my grandmother, iPad, pens, Nintendo Switch, books I’m reading and loving right now, flowers, a wire figure of an insouciant skeleton I found in Mexico. I suppose it makes me feel companioned. There are people who are inspired by clean white spaces. I am inspired and comforted by an eclectic jumble.

Which is the most inspiring object in your workspace?
I love the desk itself – a Victorian banker’s desk that I bought with money I made from *writing*. I decided that I should have a desk which felt like I was taking myself seriously – at least as seriously as a Victorian banker! It is enormous – enough to encompass all those objects and still feel spacious.

What can you see from your window?

I can see my little patio garden. A luxury to have an outside space at all in London and I’m very glad to have it. I love to see green things out of my windows.

Click here to find out more about this year’s Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist. Or, for a chance to win Naomi’s shortlisted novel The Power, follow us on Instagram.