October 30, 2019

“The Hound” for Halloween

Posted by in Audio Arts, Audio Arts, Podcasts
“The Hound” for Halloween

Welcome . . . if one chooses to willingly enter into H.P. Lovecraft’s horrific universe . . . to an audio reimagining of “The Hound” by Micah Delhauer. Ruby Fink, FC’s Audio Arts Barista, said of it: “This is a brilliantly done audio performance which totally creeped me out even during the day! I’d recommend putting up a warning, “not for the faint of heart.” So consider yourselves warned. I recommend you turn the lights out, put on your headphones, and immerse yourself in some great audio storytelling. Featured Image credit: “The Hound” by Gou Tanabe, a talented and well known Japanese artist, and illustrator, from his manga book H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories. Please click on the arrow below to listen to “The Hound.” About the Audio Auteur: Micah Delhauer is a…

Continue reading →

October 27, 2019

Mind-Melding with Lew Holzman’s Art

Posted by in Fine Art, Member Writing & Art, Writing
Mind-Melding with Lew Holzman’s Art

We’re pleased to showcase Lew’s unique expression of the intersection of photography and painting once again. His work first appeared here, and was featured again in our just-published anthology, The Strong Stuff: The Best of Fictional Café, 2013-2017. Artist’s Statement There are many beautiful or interesting moments that one can capture but we’ve seen many of them too many times. I always attempt to avoid the clichéd. My work is transformational so that we might look again and see things somehow differently. I am trying to blur the distinction between photography and painting with influences mainly from late 19th and 20th-century art movements including Surrealism, Dadaism, and abstract expressionism. *** I have always created either word images in my poetry or visual images. Digital photography expanded my horizons and my transformations transformed me into a…

Continue reading →

October 24, 2019

“Variations on the Trolly Problem” and Other Poems by JP Mayer

Posted by in Member Writing & Art, Writing
“Variations on the Trolly Problem” and Other Poems by JP Mayer

de rerum natura and I realized I was the pieces  I was picking up, all scattered  across the floor,     all technicolor  fragments of static jettisons from  far away;  I am a farmer in Kansas. I am a  doctor in Nairobi. I am a prisoner  in Beijing and a pilot in Lahore and  a fisherman off the coast of Jeju  Island;  the saltwater pulls at them with its    ebb tide     but all the same the         lines on my hands   are not ones that can be washed away  ** love in lost time    I shot Proust dead in an alleyway on  my way home from work. It was something  he said it was   love is a reciprocal torture  his body hit the pavement with a thud. It started   raining on my walk home and I…

Continue reading →

October 21, 2019

“Stan the Sous-Chef,” by Wilson Koewing

Posted by in Member Writing & Art, Writing
“Stan the Sous-Chef,” by Wilson Koewing

Stan the sous-chef turned forty-seven on a Sunday. A fishing rod and an apron were painted in icing on his cake. After his modestly attended party, Stan cleaned streamers off furniture and vacuumed up confetti. When the guests were gone, and Stan knew his wife, Cathy, and his adult son, Jamie, were occupied, he wandered outside and released a happy birthday balloon into the sky. Stan stood in his driveway watching the balloon rise and float away for a very long time. Stan had been given his birthday off at work, the New Orleans Country Club, and since the club is dark on Mondays, Stan received two days off in a row. A phenomenon that had never occurred in the seven years he’d worked there. Taking advantage, Stan enjoyed a quiet day of fishing for…

Continue reading →

October 18, 2019

Halloween’s A-Coming, But We’re Starting Tonight!

Posted by in Audio Arts, Audio Arts, Podcasts
Halloween’s A-Coming, But We’re Starting Tonight!

We’ve received a number of very cool Halloween drama submissions in anticipation of Halloween, so we decided to give you Coffee Clubbers a twofer! The first is tonight, in our regular Saturday night podcast slot, but the second will be published on October 31, Halloween night. Tonight’s story is called “Opferung,” from Lightning Bolt Theater: In the town of Earl Grove, there is a legend. No one will talk about it, except for one night, the night of a total lunar eclipse. But is it merely mass hysteria affecting the town or does she exist, this Sorceress of Blood Moon Hill. “Opferung” was written, directed, produced and stars Krystal Donahue in the roles of Natalie and the Sorceress of Blood Moon Hill. Hey, this is fun! And don’t forget, there’ll be more podcast fun right here on Halloween night at…

Continue reading →

October 14, 2019

Please Welcome Mbizo Chirasha, Our First Poet in Residence

Posted by in Member Writing & Art, News, Writing
Please Welcome Mbizo Chirasha, Our First Poet in Residence

It’s a great honor to introduce Mr. Mbizo Chirasha to our Coffee Club members. We met Mr. Chirasha through Poets & Writers magazine when he sent us an email recognizing our efforts. After reviewing his credentials and reading, “I am a capable literary and cultural arts worker. My role and purpose is to shift perceptions, inform and educate society through my writings and literary arts activism projects,” it was evident we could ignore neither Mbizo’s internationally acclaimed poetry nor his extraordinary activism. After discussion among us baristas, we decided Mbizo should be offered a new position, created especially for him: the first Fictional Café Poet in Residence. When it was offered, he wrote: “I am greatly impressed by your offering this position. I accept with my all poetic humility. I thank you greatly.” Mbizo is a…

Continue reading →

October 12, 2019

“Confession of an Accidental Theocrat,” by Montgomery Tufts

Posted by in Member Writing & Art, Writing
“Confession of an Accidental Theocrat,” by Montgomery Tufts

The door to Carol’s bedroom swung shut behind her with a bang. The late-afternoon light streaming in through her window highlighted every wrinkle and mote of dust that had accumulated on her pantsuit over the course of her walk home from work, but she wouldn’t be dealing with that now. She had come to a decision. It was one that she had been slowly working her way towards not just since she’d woken up that morning, or since the week had begun, but for one full calendar month — and it wasn’t a February either. It was one of the respectable months.  “Okay, listen,” she said to the figure sitting on top of the table beside her bed. “I didn’t know all this would happen between us. But it did, and I love you, and…

Continue reading →

October 6, 2019

“Evidence of V” a Novel by Sheila O’Connor

Posted by in Book Reviews, Member Writing & Art, Writing
“Evidence of V” a Novel by Sheila O’Connor

Reviewed by Honorah Creagh In her novel Evidence of V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, and Fictions, Sheila O’Connor pieces together the true story of her maternal grandmother, V, a woman whose existence was a family secret. O’Connor’s mother, June, was adopted by V’s sister, and O’Connor did not know about V until she was sixteen years old. Working from incomplete information, O’Connor colors in the spaces between the facts, transforming V from a name on court documents into an effervescent, audacious girl. In the process, O’Connor tells an affecting story not just about the injustices V and other young women like her suffered, but about what it means for someone to be family, and how a person’s influence reaches through generations. In 1935, fifteen-year-old V lives in Minneapolis and spends her nights singing at…

Continue reading →

September 30, 2019

How To Succeed In Your Writing Career

Posted by in Interviews, Member Writing & Art, Writing
How To Succeed In Your Writing Career

An Interview with Fictional Cafe Barista Jason Brick In this wide-ranging, 30-minute conversation about today’s writing and publishing environment, Jason shares his knowledge and experience as a writer, an author, and a publisher with curious Fictional Cafe writers who wish to create a sustainable business and income from their writing, rather than its being a hobby in which one indulges in his or her spare time. Jason Brick is a professional writer, martial artist, travel addict, and dad whose work has been published across multiple genres and formats. He has contributed over 3,000 articles and short stories to print magazines and online sites on topics ranging from home improvement, to health and wellness, to cocktail recipes, to small business management. Some of Jason’s top-level corporate clients include BlackBelt and Thrillist magazines, American Express, Intuit, and Mint.com. Jason has ghostwritten more…

Continue reading →

September 23, 2019

Dark Poetic Visions of Nigeria by Batunde Babafemi

Posted by in Member Writing & Art, Writing
Dark Poetic Visions of Nigeria by Batunde Babafemi

Reminisce   You remember when   we were too beautiful to smile?  savoring the tears for another day?  How we search our breath   In our nose?  You see the prophesy was true;  we will all die  But my lover’s death  took away my spine.  I crawl all night and wonder   about the shadow of a man  buried inside a plank—The day I heard his demise,   I thought it was a prank  Until I see tears from my eyes.  My love,  How long have you been cold?  Alone,   I buried my pain inside my gaze  looking through our memories  I heard your voice inside my speech,  & when the clergy summoned me   My words become flaccid  Like this I know how   much death took from me.   Abigail  Her silence has words burning inside her   Same as a…

Continue reading →