Why does place matter?

I found that Annie Dillard's reading portrayed a negative view of the writing life. She explained how much work that she had to put in to writing her stories. She even went so far as to say that if she found herself writing something good, it called for a "full-scale celebration" (about the tenth page). She often liked to go to a cabin alone in order to write, as did her husband (page 1). So, for her, place matters. She needed to be in a certain place while she wrote. Dillard, however, often asked herself why she writes and puts herself through this agony (page 14), whereas Sanders appreciates the opportunity to write about his hometown.
I really liked her analogies to writing, including the writer compared to an artist, and chopping wood compared to writing a novel. Another point Dillard made is that writers are not appreciated at all (page 13), whereas Sanders stated how they are celebrated because they go into exile to write (page 150).
Sanders's reading related more to the home, and how that is the place that is important for him to write about, but I think Dillard's reading was even more specific than that. She went on to explain how it mattered what a person was doing as they were writing, in addition to where they were.