My Studio: Kim Fahner

A grey office chair is positioned in front of an antique desk with a laptop and a cup on it. The desk is also adorned with a picture and a lamp. Through a sliding patio door the room opens into a large green yard. Some potted plants can be seen on the edge of the deck by the railing.

Visit Kim Fahner's Studio. Kim is the author of The Pollination Field

The place where I write most of my work is either at my antique desk, in the tiny room where I also do yoga, and the patio door leads out to the deck that overlooks my big backyard. In spring, summer, or fall, I will often write outside, at a table on the deck, so that I can hear the birds and feel the breeze. There’s nothing better than staring up at the sky to watch a tree move while you’re stuck on a piece of writing. One of my writing mentors once said, “When you get stuck on something, just look outside and start jotting down what you see or let yourself daydream a bit. All of it feeds into writing.” I can do that at my desk, looking out the patio door, through all the seasons.

I have a few things on my desk that remind me of some far-off friends. One is a photo of Lawrence Hill’s historical fiction group workshop at the Banff Centre back in Spring 2016. When I look at the photo now, as I write this, I think of how lucky I am to count those people as friends almost ten years later. We still stay in touch, and I’m grateful for that connection.

I have three little black iron crows that I bought in St. John’s when I launched These Wings (Pedlar Press, 2019) there in spring of that year. They remind me of the poetry reading I shared with my friends Monica Kidd and Agnes Walsh, at Broken Books, a bookstore that’s since closed. That was the trip I first saw icebergs and took hundreds of photos of them when Monica and I went on one of O’Brien’s boat tours at Bay Bulls.

I have a thing for corvids—crows and magpies specifically. I also love ravens, but don’t see them often. The other birds that I love are puffins. That love goes back to my first visit to Newfoundland, back twenty years ago now, when I traveled with a friend during summer holidays. I love the way puffins can fly up into the air—high, high, high—and then dive steeply back into the ocean. I find them fascinating because they’re tenacious, curious, and

There are three Pendelfin sleeping bunnies that I bought in Niagara on the Lake, in December 2024, at an antique shop that was open late on Christmas Eve afternoon. I sifted through shelves looking for them for a good hour or so. They are the same kind of bunnies that my great-aunts—Norah, Maureen, and Clare Kelly—had in their big house on the hill at Kingsmount Blvd here in Sudbury. So, they remind me of my childhood, and of dreams, and of my great-aunts, who encouraged my love of reading, writing, and storytelling.

There’s a tiny original painting by Leland Bell, a local Indigenous artist whose work I have admired for decades. It’s called “Receiving” and I bought it for myself after my father died in December 2011. It reminds me that I need reciprocity in my relationships—with people and with my writing. I have tended to be a “giver” for too much of my life, and so this piece reminds me that receiving is a part of the balance I now expect in my life. One friend of mine, who lives down in Arizona, told me a few years ago, after a deep betrayal of trust by a close friend, “You are not the cosmic Nutella jar. Put a lid on it.” He’s much wiser than me, and so I’m following his lead. (Besides, who wants to be a Nutella jar?!)

As well, there is a little painted antique dish from my maternal grandmother’s house that I have filled with stones that I’ve gathered in various places I’ve traveled and walked—from Ireland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and British Columbia. When I need to remind myself of what matters, I hold a stone pebble in my hand and get grounded.

There’s a pink vase that reminds me of Wedgwood, but it’s really just a knock-off that I found in another antique store I sifted through in my travels. I love vintage clothing and antiques, so finding little vases and things that end up serving as pen and pencil holders is my kind of fun when I’m on solo road trips on the way to poetry readings.

And, well, my wall is full of art. My whole house is full of art, and I feel like the inside of my house is the inside of my soul and heart. Above my desk, I’ve jotted down quotes from writer friends that inspire me, poetry, art cards that I’ve bought at galleries when traveling, and a giant photo of the Dark Hedges in Northern Ireland. I bought that one from my friend Gerry Kingsley, who is a brilliant Sudbury-based photographer. I have a thing for trees, so it speaks to me.

When I get stuck on a piece of writing, these things bring me into the atmosphere of what is a sacred creative space. It’s the one place in my house where I can sink into a place that anchors me in the writing I love to do. No one said writing was easy, or simple, but there’s that magic that happens between a writer and their paper, or laptop screen, and this is where I find it most often. If I sit down, put aside the time, light a candle, and enter this sacred space, I find my way …