Your Baristas
Ruby Fink
Ruby Fink was born in California, the eldest of three. She has been the Audio Arts Barista for Fictional Cafe for a number of years now and loves interacting with the audio community. Her favorite activity as a barista is finding new audio productions to share with listeners. She is author of the award-winning book series, Mickie McKinney:Boy Detective, and is currently finishing up the newest installment of the Mickie McKinney series as well as Chipsa, her first YA Romance. Ruby has also ghostwritten over a dozen books over the last two years, and is not planning to stop writing any time soon – unless she runs out of caffeine.
Derrick R. Lafayette
Derrick R. Lafayette has written four novels and over a dozen short stories, published in print and online. He was The Fictional Café’s 2021-2022 Writer-in-Residence. When he’s not working as an IT engineer or studying chess gambits on the astral plane, he’s reading or writing profusely. You can find more of his work on Amazon.
Melanie Marston
Melanie Marston is our Website Manager Barista, and has been almost since FC’s inception. But she is also a graphic artist and designer as well, and has applied that talent to designing this site and others with great success. She’s always willing to help us solve problems and keeps this big ol’ site running smoothly all the time. You’ll find more about Mel and her skills and talents at Marston Creative.
Vera West
era West is our Poetry Barista. She’s been our Poetry Writer-in-Residence for the past two years and fell in love with Fictional Café, especially while working on the National Poetry Month 2023 submissions, and asked to remain involved. So, since Yong was leaving the Poetry Barista post to assume her new position as Co-Managing Editor, the Poetry Barista position was open and as of January 1, 2024, it becomes Vera’s!
Malik White
Malik White is Co-Managing Editor, with Yong Takahashi. He began as our Submissions Barista and we’re very happy to promote him. It’s likely the most important position on our staff, and Malik took to it like a duck to water. In addition, he’s lent keen insights to our editorial evaluation process, and in several instances has shared his writing acumen with individual authors to help them get their work up to FC standards. Malik recently graduated from Full Sail University with a BFA in Creative Writing. Congratulations and a great big welcome, Malik!
Malik takes over for Victoria Orifice, so she can devote herself to her senior year’s studies at Emerson College. We hope to see her and her writing next year.
Yucen Yao
Yucen was raised in Nanchang, China. She took her bachelor’s degree in visual communication at Guangzhou University. Her parents encouraged her to follow her dreams in the arts, and she came to the United States to earn her master’s degree in graphic design at the prestigious California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita. Her career has rapidly taken off: she’s been interviewed in several LA ‘zines, one saying she is a “rising star.” We think so too!
Jack B. Rochester
Jack is the Founding Barista and Editor-in-Chief at the Fictional Café. His career in publishing began as a book acquisitions editor; he published over 65 authors. His writing career was launched with the publication of the bestselling The Naked Computer, which he co-authored with John Gantz. A dozen books and twenty years later, he and John co-authored another hit book, Pirates of the Digital Millennium.
With 15 nonfiction books to his credit, Jack began his fiction-writing career in 2011 with Wild Blue Yonder, the first Nathaniel Hawthorne Flowers novel, followed by Madrone and Anarchy. His most recent novel is Bridge Across the Ocean (https://bridgeacrosstheocean.com/). The fourth Nate Flowers novel, Thick of It, is underway.
Jack took his Master’s degree from Sonoma State College (now California State University at Sonoma). Of all the jobs he’s held in publishing over the years, he says working at the Fictional Café is the most gratifying. Contact him at Jack@fictionalcafe.com or on LinkedIn.