I’ve woken to a dull, rainy day and I’m shivering. Mostly, I hibernate in winter to write. Reading a good book under a rug on the couch is even more tempting when I’m mulling about my writing –  or just plain stuck.

Is it a coincidence that most of the worlds Cities of Literature have cold climates? Does cold weather make it easier to foster an environment to write?  Apart from Melbourne, Australia, there’s Edinburgh, in Scotland; Iowa City, Iowa, USA; Reykjavík, Iceland; Ulyanovsk, Russia, to name a few of the twenty cities who have the honour of being called a City of Literature by UNESCO. Surely the weather is not the only criteria – after all Melbourne’s winter hardly falls to the depths of cold compared to many on the list.

Did you know that Melbourne and Iowa City were the second and third cities approved by UNESCO in 2008…