> I look at bookshop shelves and wonder where half the stories are. Where’s the book by the girl that works in the laundrette, the man who serves you in McDonal

> I look at bookshop shelves and wonder where half the stories are. Where’s the book by the girl that works in the laundrette, the man who serves you in McDonalds, the Romanian woman who cleans your hotel room, by the lads that work on the railways or the building site? We don’t care about these people enough because they don’t get heard, and they don’t get heard because we build a success machine that they don’t want to be part of, or can’t access, or use, or afford. This is a strange sentiment. How many girls working in laundrettes, or men working at McDonalds, or lads working on the railways, or especially Romanian women who clean hotel rooms, can and do write quality fiction or non-fiction in their spare time and submit it to publishers? Sure, some authors have come from working-class background and had all sorts of menial jobs in their youth, which has made their books all the more interesting; but they also had something else. They had a rare sort of imagination, a love of the written word, an incredible drive to write, and a skill they had developed through continuous writing. At least the posh class is required to read and is instructed in writing as part of their education; so it's easier for the talented among them to discover their talents.