Natasha Rawls, author of Abandoned North and South Memphis: What’s Left Behind, bought her first antique typewriter in 2013 from eBay, but when she realized her typewriter didn’t work despite the seller’s claim, she left it at a shop to get fixed, where the worker there told her he couldn’t. She left it there permanently, $85 down the drain. At the time, she was a single parent, worked two jobs, and had written two self-published novels.
But this February, after the death of a few loved ones due to Covid, Rawls bought her next typewriter and then another and another, until she accumulated the 45 she has now. “I had to learn how to fix them by going to YouTube University,” she says. “It was therapeutic for me.” During this time, she also found a typewriter community online that helped her figure out the ins and outs of the machines. She even participates in a weekly typewriter club.
Now, all but two of Rawls’ typewriters are working as smoothly as they did back in the day. Her oldest is an Oliver Typewriter from 1915, and her most recent is a 1980s cursive electronic model. “Each typewriter has its own personality. They inspire you in different ways,” she says. “My favorite for the past few weeks has been the 1926 Remington 12. … And I have to wonder — and I know this is morbid — what’s going to happen to my typewriters when I’m gone.”
To share her love of typewriters, Rawls has organized a Type Out at Cordova Library for the public to try out all her typewriters. “You can type on them, and there’ll be a typing contest and different little activities,” she says. “And you can bring your own typewriters, too.”
Type out, Cordova Library, 8457 Trinity, Saturday, November 20th, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., free.