I write in coffee shops. It’s easier for me to stay focused, to keep to the writing plan, when I see other people tapping away on their laptops around me. The imagine the experience is not so different from that of medieval monks in a scriptorium, their pens all scratching away as they copy illuminated manuscripts. I’ll invite you to imagine the many, many other ways I would have made a terrible monk. In this one way, however–my need for the silent company of other writers–I would have thrived.

So it was a drag to learn a few days ago that my current writing haunt, Lolo Pass in Portland, is closing any day now, to be converted into a residential drug treatment center. I don’t want to be all NIMBY about it: Portland needs residential drug treatment centers right now way more than it needs another trendy bar/coffee shop/hostel. But Lolo Pass was my trendy bar/coffee shop/hostel–I wrote so many words in that place that it was the obvious choice for me to hold a launch party for Exit Black.

There will be other places to write, just as I’m sure I will figure out a place for the Exit Black launch party. But for now, I’m just sad to lose a place where I spent so many writerly hours. I hope a whole lot of Portlanders get clean in this space.