What was so special about Wichita Falls that all of its 1,154 hotel beds were occupied?
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What was so special about Wichita Falls that all of its 1,154 hotel beds were occupied?
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
Duncan McLean was born in Aberdeenshire, lives in Okney and dreams of Texas. He is the author of two novels and a collection of stories. Lone Star Swing: On the Trail of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, from which ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ (Granta 56) is an extract.
More about the author →
‘The camera records what’s in front of it, but that reality can be pre-arranged.’
Thomas Ruff speaks to Alice Zoo about light, Bernd and Hilla Becher and the essence of photography.
‘The scarlet stained my palm – / whether the blood of the berry or of the bird, / I couldn’t tell.’
A poem by Isabelle Baafi.
‘The farm was in one of the fourteen green-purple wet deserts, in a dent six miles wide with its shoulders covered in scree and a rainy season that lasts twelve months a year.’
An extract from The Borrowed Hills by Scott Preston.
‘First, a boy was meant to stop following him mama, then him papa, then at around fourteen him become him own man – that’s how Ras Levi say life was suppose to work.’
An extract from Fast by the Horns by Moses McKenzie.
Sharlene Teo on getting in trouble – part of a new series, in partnership with The Arts House, Singapore.
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