This post was written by Tess Malone, who is studying abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Possibility is lurking in every café in Edinburgh.
But, I must admit that inspiration has been hard to come by in November. The 3:30 p.m. darkness and essays that both descended this month make it hard to focus, and procrastination only gets worse when you’re abroad. So I sought out a place of productivity. If cafés worked for J.K. Rowling, they could work for me, right?
Eager to follow in her footsteps, I made sure to stop by every café with a “J.K. Rowling Wrote Here” sign in its window hoping to glean some creative genius just from sitting in there. The most famous of these cafés is the Elephant House. In the center of both Edinburgh’s Old Town and Harry Potter fame, it boasts delicious tiffin and a stunning view of the castle and the Greyfriar’s Cemetery. You can’t help but wonder if Rowling concocted the idea for Hogwarts and its dining hall food from sitting in the Elephant House.
The Elephant House may milk the Harry Potter fame the most, but it’s not the café where Rowling originally conjured up an orphan boy. She started writing in the now closed Nicolson café, but never fear: you can still get your Potterhead and caffeine fix at its replacement, Spoon Café. With large tables to spread out your work and the best hot cocoa I’ve ever had, you can picture Rowling drawing out the family trees of her protagonists there. On the same street is Black Medicine Café and yes, it also claims to have served coffee to Rowling. It’s a little cramped, but cozy. The irony is all of these cafés have signs up against loitering, yet Rowling was famous for subsisting on one cup of coffee all day long as she worked on the books. They probably would’ve thrown her out with their current customer service, yet now they use her as a tourist attraction.
As you can tell, it’s almost impossible to find a café Rowling didn’t write in. Although there is a cheeky one, Artisan Roast, that has a sign saying, “J.K. Rowling NEVER wrote here.” Maybe she will though; Rowling lives on the outskirts of the city and still frequents cafés. A few of my friends have seen her before, so even though I may not see the sun this winter, I could see my hero.