Writing home.(Brief Article)

Every writer has a place they call home. For James Baldwin, it was Harlem. For Zora Neale Hurston, it was Eatonville, Florida. Whether consciously or intuitively, that sense of place invariably creeps into an author's writing. Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins' novels are set in Los Angeles--the city where he grew up--replete with familiar landmarks and references that native Angelenos easily recognize. For Colson Whitehead, author of John Henry Days and his first novel, The Intuitionist, home is New York City.

Born in Manhattan, the 32-year-old Whitehead has lived all over the city. "We were a family of renters," he says of his childhood. "Every three years, depending on fortune and how many kids were in the house, we'd move up and down Manhattan. I was born on 139th [Street] and …