Barista Rachael Allen Moves on to The Atlantic

Our congratulations to Rachael Allen on her graduation from Bowdoin College and her new job as an Editorial Fellow at The Atlantic, one of the best, most respected American magazines. The Atlantic Monthly was co-founded by Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson in Boston in 1857. Rachael will be hanging up her barista hat to take this great stepping-stone into her burgeoning writing career, moving to Washington, D.C., to work on The Atlantic print magazine, fact checking, copy editing, pitching stories, and more.

We are going to miss her smiling countenance, superb writing, and knowing we would get every assignment from her on deadline.

Rachael has been a Fictional Café contributor since her sophomore year in college, writing engaging pieces on the challenging world of English majors in college, the difficulty finding creative time in this busy age, and the beauty and complexities of studying abroad. Rachael, studying in Italy, and poetry barista Simran Gupta, studying in France, brought their experiences and observations to our readership in one of FC’s most popular and interesting series of contemporary social media pen pal exchanges.

Rachel went “undercover” to report on what it’s really like to work in an Amazon brick-and-mortar book store. She mused on hot button topics like the viral short story “Cat Person” and interviewed up-and-coming authors. As the Fictional Café’s Creative Nonfiction Barista, Rachael added a new dimension to the work we publish on our site, helping us show that we are not just an online literary magazine, but also a community for creatives to share both their professional work and their experiences as creative people while investigating contemporary topics in the arts.

Rachael, thank you for your years of service at the Fictional Café. We baristas wish you all the best on your literary journey ahead!

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Rachael Allen is departing as Fictional Café’s Creative Nonfiction Barista. She graduated from Bowdoin College with a degree in English and Italian. She worked as the managing editor of The Bowdoin Orient and a columnist for The Canton Citizen. After graduation, she will be working for The Atlantic in Washington D.C. You can read more of her writing here: https://rachaelallenblog.wordpress.com.