Fed by Birds

I'm always interested in the Guardian's series on Writers' Rooms - although what it mainly reveals is what depressing places most writers work in. Far too many books, piles of dusty papers and ugly office furniture. The best ones belong to people like AL Kennedy and Mark Haddon, who've noticed that they don't work in an office and are pretty pleased about it: "My best days do seem like a distillation of all that was best about school. Write a story! Paint a picture! Write a poem! Make a print!" And those like JG Ballard who realise that if you're writing what you want is not a lot of other people's stupid books to look at, but pictures. Unless you're Rudyard Kipling, whose room is dominated by a portrait of his slave-driving wife looking disapproving, which made this grand study "a bit of a prison".

Room 26 has a great series of photos of writers actually working in their rooms - above, Edith Wharton, who is much more elegant about the whole thing and what's more is wearing a fantastic print.

Fed by Birds' workspace is of course quite different, as you see below: