From the Writing Desk of Kristen Arnett

1 - This is my dog, Lola. If she's not in the chair when I am writing, she's underneath it. Or beside it. Or sleeping on the floor behind it. Or trying to get access to my lap by climbing on a nearby stool. 99% of my writing gets done with my dog crawling all over me.

2 - The Golden Owl is a piece I acquired from an artist friend after he decided he was moving from Orlando to New York and needed to liquidate his studio. The owl stares down at me and judges me harshly when I go on Twitter instead of actually writing.

3 - The Florida Collection sign came from the library where I work after they renovated and didn't need it anymore. So much of my work is Florida based and I like to have it hanging over my head so I can remember, always.

4 - My best friend and I used to run a reading series in Orlando called LITEROCALYPSE. Someone made us a Valentine once and it has me and Cathleen on the front as lumpy baby cherubs.

5 - My good friend Willie Fitzgerald was on the phone one time waiting to hear back about something and it was taking forever. He gchatted me and asked what he should draw so I said "Lola enjoying cheezits with a very large toad" and that is actually what he drew. I love the hell out of this picture. It's maybe one of my favorite things.

6 - I am drinking on the regular so I have something by my desk when I am working. Sometimes it's BOGO wine, but Steel Reserve from 7-Eleven is pretty up there as a favorite. Write drunk, edit drunk. I'm just kidding - write drunk, edit sober, cry sober because you're editing work you wrote drunk.

7 - Windows. Of anything at my desk (aside from my dog), this is the most important to me. I get to look up and see my wide, wild, tangled, creeping Florida backyard whenever I write so I can remember that even when my writing is a goddamn mess, so is everything else around me. And that's okay.

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Kristen Arnett is the author of Felt in the Jaw, available now from Split Lip Press.