From shop windows to prisons, writers-in-residence find new homes

Some seek a new version of the traditional sanctum where they can devote themselves wholly to their work – without paying rent. “I was honoured and thrilled to have a space with a door that closed,” says Manitoba children’s and young adult writer Anita Daher, author of Spider Song and the first-ever writer-in-residence at Winnipeg’s Aqua Books. “It was a room of my own when I didn’t have one, and there’s nothing nicer for a writer than being surrounded by books.”