Writers' Fare

A friend recently traveled to Oxford, England.  On his blog he mentioned that J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis used to meet in a pub there.  They actually met with a group of writers who encouraged one another in their craft.  Tolkien and Lewis were only the most successful.

Curious, I started looking Oxford up on the web.  Every March they host a Writers’ Festival.  No wonder, because in addition to the two mentioned above, Oxford has been able to claim some of the most famous English writers in the world.

Oscar Wilde was an Oxford student, and Lewis Carroll, of Alice in Wonderland fame, was also a resident.  Thomas Hardy lived in Oxford for a time, and Philip Pullman still does. Certainly there seems to be a connection between the educational atmosphere and the arts.

A writer, of course, requires no educational credentials.  Writers are writers.  Still university towns house that increasingly rare commodity—bookstores.  When you're in the mood for a book, sometimes even waiting the next day for Amazon is too long.

The book-buying demographic is not large.  Once I read an analysis that suggested that only five percent of the population regularly buys books.  Many of those who do live in areas where such cultures thrive.  University folk tend to be a bookish lot.

Although I’ve taught at universities now and again, it hasn’t been in the literature department.  I’ve never taken a formal writing course.  I write because I’m a writer.

Reading is my cure when the writing won’t come.  I can imagine being in Oxford, strolling the ground where great minds claimed their inspiration.  Where the atmosphere lends itself to imagination and values intense thought.  Where there are bookstores to sell your works locally.

Ironically, Oxford also lays claim to much of Harry Potter.  There are Hogwarts candidates among the gothic spires of the university, but J. K. Rowling was pretty clear that Hogwarts was in Scotland.  

Wandering the streets there, I suspect, would also inspire the most blocked writer, as there’s a bit of magic in what we do.