This series explores where writers write. What or where is the space? What is its significance to the writer? And what writing habits do they follow?

This issue, Miles Franklin winner Sofie Laguna ruminates about her lodging.

‘I have a vexed relationship to this workspace — a small extra bedroom really. In which I have placed a large second-hand desk, my books and papers. My printer. So that now it is my office. But any space that suggests sensible work is not the space for me. I tend to work on the fly, never sitting too long in one place, unless it’s in public. The activity of a public space, its inherent sound and movement, focuses me more effectively than the mouldy quiet walls of this room. And now I feel disloyal! I do need a room to call my own. A place to store my papers. This is it. Now the kids use it as their ‘stationary supplies shop’. No matter how much I moan about needing a room that no one else enters, they take no notice and exit with fresh wads of paper, tubes of liquid paper and strips of Blue Tack. The truth is I would be lost without this compromised space. It’s not very nice. But it’s invaluable.’