‘And so began what I was to become. To all these things – the admonitions and the testimonies, the rites and the annunciations – I had easily acquiesced.’
My mother was a native of this place, though my father, a trader in pots, was not. Each year, usually in the spring, he came from his home country to buy the wares of our region. He would remain with us, if the weather and the sea’s temper held, into the last days of summer. He spoke our language …
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‘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.
‘Some stories begin with an incident, or a set of enigmatic circumstances, or a scene indelibly witnessed, or the relationship of unlike temperaments, or even something as gossamer as a mood. And then there is the kind of story that is rooted in an idea.’
‘Ask anyone in Ayodhya, and they will say the city’s Hindu–Muslim harmony can withstand any test.’
Snigdha Poonam on the construction of a Hindu temple on the ruins of a mosque in Utter Pradesh.
‘I should warn you, she said, ketchup on her chin, on the back of her hand. I like to have sex a lot.’
Fiction by Kathy Stevens.
‘Desire charges the landscape with physical upheaval. We become water, weather. And why not? Why describe a character by the hat she is wearing instead of her experience of orgasm?’
Robert Glück and K Patrick on writing desire.
‘How far can one deviate from the accepted pieties before one is kicked out?’
Brandon Taylor on naturalism and the future of fiction.
‘Yes, the gun was from Pakistan, but the stones are our own. That is our only weapon against the occupation.’
