Sunset Rising: A Conversation with Laura Rees
By Jessica A. Kent
Tucked away in the back of the Boston Public Library, beyond the arched ceilings of Bates Hall and the paintings of Galahad adorning the Abbey Room, is an office, trimmed in dark wood and warm lighting, with a window that overlooks Huntington Ave., young adult novels stacked on the sill, and a National Geographic poster of the Amazon rainforest tacked to the wall. And though the large wooden desk is free from any type of clutter or notes, it doesn’t mean that work isn’t being done.
The office belongs, for the time being, to Laura Rees, the 2017–2018 Associates of the Boston Public Library Writer-in-Residence. The fellowship is a nine-month residency at the central branch of the BPL in Copley Square, for an author working on a project of “fiction, non-fiction, a script, graphic novels, or poetry, intended for children or young adults” (Assoc. of BPL). The fellowship requires 19 hours a week at the Library, and gives a $20,000 stipend, the intention of which is to “Provide an emerging children’s writer with the financial support and office space needed to complete one literary work.” That’s exactly what appealed to Rees.
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