Maaza Mengiste – Favourite Things
Each week Reaction Weekend brings you Favourite Things – interviews with interesting people about the skills, hobbies, pleasures and past times that make them who they are.
Maaza Mengiste is a novelist and essayist. Her works of fiction and non-fiction look at the human stories behind migration, war and exile. Her second novel, The Shadow King has been longlisted for the Booker prize this year.
These are a few of Maaza Mengiste’s favourite things.
Japanese Paper
I use notebooks for everything; I mainly write by hand and have a planner. I don’t really do things on the computer. Paper from Japan is amazing. Any notebook made with Tomoe paper is just fantastic. Sometimes they sell out immediately. My favourite notebook is the Japanese Mnemosyne notebook which have their own paper, I swear by them. I used them through my entire writing process for my second book (The Shadow King). When we were children and were learning how to write we used that brown paper which was like writing on sand. Imagine the complete opposite, it’s smooth but it will grip your pen in a nice way. For the paper makers, this is an art, and they’ve developed ways to ensure the ink doesn’t bleed. It’s made for fountain pens. And it makes sure that the speed of your hand, which is really the speed of your thinking, doesn’t get slowed down by the paper.
Pens
I also use special pens and ink. My favourite ink is made by Diamine; Diamine blue velvet. It is in limited supply so I bought a lot. It is just blue but there is something about writing and seeing your thoughts in colour that is so pleasing. I think it aids in the creative process when your pen follows your thinking in the sense that there’s no scratching or stopping. We have all had pens or pencils that break all of a sudden. It jars a thought. When I’m inspired and it all flows together, I can just move without thinking about it and that is wonderful. When I have difficult scenes, I will switch ink. My favourite ink for when I have writers-bloc is called razzmatazz. Razzmatazz ink is exactly what it sounds like. It is a greenish fluorescent with shining glitter inside. I brainstorm with that ink and seeing the way it glows on the page makes writing a lot of fun. The first draft of this novel I wrote by computer and it was horribly bad. Not just something, but everything, had to change in the way that I approached this story. Working by hand was one of the things that changed; I became really invested in in writing this way and it has really transformed my way of thinking.
Ethiopian restaurants
My favourite restaurant in New York, if I had to choose, is one called Ghenet. It is an Ethiopian restaurant in Brooklyn. I have loved this place since it was in Manhattan, before it moved to Brooklyn. It is a place where I go in and people say hello, they’re friendly and the food is so good. If I can’t get my mother’s cooking, this is where I go.
New York Society Library
This is the place where I have written the majority of my second book. It is the oldest members library in New York, and it has the most beautiful interior. The librarians there are completely invested in the readers and in books, but I work in the library because silence is sacred there. It is one of the quietest places I have ever found in New York City. I go there sometimes just to read, they have rooms with no computers, no electronic devices-which is a fresh of breath air. But then they also have these rooms with large windows and lots of sunlight where people can come and work. I know many books that have been written there. It is a place I’ve tried to keep secret because I don’t want it to get too crowded.
Dia Beacon Museum
I periodically visit the Dia Beacon, an art museum just outside of New York. It is a space that constantly astonishes me with the art that it exhibits. I have walked through Richard Serra’s huge structures there and just been in complete awe, and there’s a garden outside that has sculptures and sometimes sound design. It is an astonishing place for me creatively, it is constantly surprising and I love going there.