An atlas of places
Where Ros has lived, walked and written, in her own words from Notes on a Writing Life.
“I spent weeks alone in Dorset, walking, thinking, writing a bit, swimming, at home in a way that I am really not anywhere else; it’s the place of my childhood.”
“As I’ve been walking across the hills of Dorset, in the south-west of England, I’ve thought about writers walking through the centuries.”
“I’ve done this before in life, emptied my own house in Edinburgh, helped to empty my mother’s house after her death, and here I am doing it again.”
“The island where I live, Key West, is known for among other things its community of writers and artists.”
“Key West light informs these paintings, I think, the way the light of the South of France informed those of Cézanne and Van Gogh.”
“I first came here to our family’s Paris apartment in the 5th arrondissement in 2008, and stayed for most of the summer, writing a novel.”
“The view of the Paris sky over the rooftops at dawn, the water running down gutters, the clang of the downstairs door.”
“To gather for a retreat in Arles is to step on to ancient pilgrim ground - a threshold where a sacred journey of return begins.”
The Camino de Santiago
“Walking to Santiago de Compostela, blisters and all, a few years ago, I felt my own body altered by it.”
“To get to know one place on this pilgrimage route is enough.”
