[Illustration by Eric Nishimoto]
CenterandMain.org is a website for writers, for Texas and for Texas writers, as well as anyone familiar with the kind of camaraderie that comes from a week spent sweating under the sun looking for the kind of stories that transcend the black and white page and cross into the hearts and minds of readers. Archer City is full of them – writers and stories – every July.
“Following the close of the Mayborn Conference each year, George Getschow, the Mayborn’s writer-in-residence, leads a group of Mayborn graduate students and a few nationally renowned writers from the conference to Archer City to practice literary nonfiction in McMurtry’s homeplace. In the tradition of Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, the writers, assembled at the Spur Hotel, quickly disperse in all directions from the corner of Center and Main to chat with the locals, closely observe their customs and way of life and craft stories from their interviews and observations.”