As promised, here’s my home desk.
For starters, I love my desk so much. It’s big and bulky and dark wood. Incidentally, I have found two people who share the same desk – one of which being my best friend. It was originally my grandfathers, and he gave it to me before he passed away. There are secret compartments behind the drawers where I like to think he hid presents for my grandmother.
Top: IKEA clock (which I never wound, but I thought was cute), tiny toys (good luck cat and mini typewriter from my friend Colure; shell turtles from my friend Katie; Chun Li, Harley Quinn, and Joker action figures from my friend Hunter), The Ataris CD (I listen to high school pop punk when I need writing inspiration-seriously) moving calendar (because that’s important), mask from my trip to Venice, Little Prince figure from my trip to Paris, cube of Jewish phrases that used to belong to my grandparents, old camera, pile of old books*.
Drawers: A ton of random things, including four filled moleskin notebooks, circus greeting cards from Michaels, my letter from my agent(!!!), stamps (because I still mail letters), post-its, and a golf ball that almost hit me in the head when I was 16. I keep weird things.
Desk: Penguin mug from London (S got me The Big Sleep because we met while reading that book in class-awwww), notebook, hard drive, camera, post-it with my to-do list, laptop, pile of edits.
And because I love it, my cork board beside my desk has a mess of things, including: buttons, a Helga Hufflepuff card, a picture of my puppy Jetta, photostrips of my mom and I and my friend Meg and I from the day I bought my wedding gown, bookmarks, drawings from my friend Shannon, a picture of S and I, and a bookmark from a haunted ship (yep).
And here’s the wall above my desk:
I like to frame random things, so here you go. Clockwise from top: painting from Florence, a print that says Hope, a photograph of my great aunt and uncle**, a postcard from Papa Please Get the Moon for Me***, a painting from Venice, a print my friend Shannon got S and I of two owls reading.
* – Books: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Dick Tracy, The House at Pooh Corner, Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Peter Pan, Through the Looking Glass.
** – Photo: My Great Aunt Faye and Great Uncle Julius were flamenco dancers in Spain. It was a Huge Deal because she was just a little Jewish girl from Brooklyn who followed her heart to another country for a guy. First interracial marriage of my family! The story ended well, though, because they were married until he passed away (when I was in 5th grade). She passed away when I was a senior in high school, and it broke my heart. She was such an amazing woman. In the end, she left me her rings, which are now my engagement and wedding bands.
*** – Postcard: There’s an ongoing joke in my family that my dad will do anything for me. So when he (willingly!) went with me to an Eric Carle exhibit, he bought me the postcard because, yeah, if I asked for the moon as a child, he would have done his best to get it.
Lauren Gibaldi 
Love your desk!
Thank you!
Wow! That story about your great aunt and great uncle is fascinating! I love hearing stories like this. 🙂 Also, that desk is just gorgeous.
Thank you! It’s one of those family stories I like to share. 🙂 I find family stories fascinating, too, because you never know what kind of history you can dig up.
It is the same desk, that’s so funny! Except yours is quite shiny and polished. My dad got mine from an outdoor Grange Fair exhibit, so it’s a little…less polished. When we got it, I had to clean out a lot of dust and cobwebs before my mom would let it in the house. I suppose I need to varnish it or something, because sometimes the stain comes off on my hands if my hands are wet. So I am very careful to never keep mugs on my desk! I wonder if I polished the handles, if they would turn out brassy and shiny like yours (currently they’re a mystery metal that is a dark shade of black). Interesting theory.
Also, what do you keep in your little letter slots? It seems you’re having a much better time fitting objects and letters in those slots than I am. I’m always trying to cram in standard envelops which are obviously too big and it just looks like a mess!
I LOVE that we have the same desk! My mom polished it before we moved it in; I’m not sure what she used, but obviously it worked, because it wasn’t as shiny at first either. (It was orange scented if that helps. No. Probably doesn’t. Ha.)
The slots are So tiny! Letters are too big unless they’re at an angle. Notecards fit, small notebooks, post-its, stamps, that’s it really.
ALSO: Congrats on the YA Highway feature!!!!! :]
i so miss having a desk. but my goodness do i adore yours, it’s so cute! love all the fun prints too.
Always good to get an insight into a writer’s work area. The desk is exquisite and music never fails to trigger writing inspiration. Great post!
Agreed! I write YA, so I love listening to pop punk CDs from my high school years to get me back into that mindset.