Robert Bowerman’s Writing Space
Because I and my partner live in a one-bedroom apartment, space is at a premium. I do not for example have room for a proper library so most of my books are in e-format. We have devised a system to cordon off the living room with makeshift drapes made from pieces of fabric that can be drawn to give more privacy. When I’m writing, my wife leaves me be until they are open.
Previously most of my writing was done at the living room table. I wrote my only still unpublished novel this way. Lately however I have shifted over to a recliner close to the balcony which is more comfortable. If I leave the balcony door open, I can hear birdsong and the gurgle of a nearby creek which puts me in the right mood.
I also write in a local Starbucks when my partner is engaging in a little retail therapy at a local thrift shop.
Finally, because we are retired and travel frequently, I often find myself writing in various hotel rooms or sometimes on airplanes and trains. Usually, this amounts to hastily scribbled notes and impressions of our surroundings which I hope to expand into something useful later.
Robert Bowerman is a retired teacher living on Vancouver Island. Among others, his work has been published in the White Wall Review, Sea and Cedar Magazine, Portal Magazine, Counterflow Magazine and The Van Island Poetry Collective. In 2022, he won the Island Review Short Fiction Contest and in 2023 the Van Isle Poetry Collective Poetry Contest.