Paris, 2 Novembre, 2013. While on a writing retreat in rural France, I read an article about the famed author Alexandre Dumas’ magnificent Chateau de Monte-Cristo in France Today magazine. Located in the small village not far from Paris, the three-story home of the novelist who penned The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, and hundreds of other works, gave me great cause to want to see his palatial estate. Most particularly, I wanted to visit his writing studio, the Chateau d’If, situated within the beautiful gardens. Dumas was born in 1802. He lived through – even participated in – the Second French Revolution of 1830. He was a prolific author who helped found Romanticism and is said to have written over a hundred thousand words [with a quill pen, mind you] for dramatic…
Children’s Lit Issue – “Makena, The Firefly” by M. J. Sterling
Editor’s Note: This is our first installment of our Children’s Literature Issue – a short story about a baby boy in the wild and the animals who find him. Illustrations by Fuzz. E. Grant. * * * It was the hottest part of a hot summer day in the Maru grasslands when Mother Nia, the matriarch of the elephant pack, woke from her afternoon nap, yawned, and stretched her trunk to the sky. Father Idir lay on his side and his young son, Oluchi lay facing him, his trunk tucked into Father’s giant chest. “Wake!” said Mother Nia, “It is time to go to the watering-hole!” She prodded and poked him and his twin sister while her eldest girl waited impatiently. Meanwhile, the baby of the family lay dozing. Nia pretended not to see him…
Danielle Benedetto’s Digital Art
Springing * * * Danielle Benedetto is a high school senior who loves to manipulate images using over a dozen apps on her iPhone. In addition to photography, she also enjoys reading, walking around the lake in her town and philosophy. She will be attending Emmanuel College in Boston in the fall where she will study neuroscience.
Announcing the Fictional Café’s Children’s Literature Issue!
Kids at the Café?! Yep! Next week, we are bringing you a full issue of children’s literature featuring short stories, poetry, art and narrative for and about kids. We are very excited for this issue, which was put together by some of our very own Fictional Café members. They worked hard for months on this issue, so we are happy to be putting it out just in time for summer vacation. So pull up a carpet square and grab a juice box; it’s story time! On a historical note: with this issue, we are marking a new milestone at the Fictional Café. Our purpose in running this site is to bring people together from all walks of life – whether they are on a different continent, in a different age bracket or of a different…
Two Poems from Hannah Carmack
PFD, IC, SUI Face up, Palms open, Eyes closed. Legs spread. This is where we’ve put ourselves. Somewhere between traipsing through the cecum and dragging our nails along the soft livelihood of our stomach, we fell and ripped the sweatshop seams of our intestines open. Trapped in Abraham’s bosom, stuck between death and mediocre existence. “We’ll be going internal now.” It is a fire, lit in the esophagus that keeps us here, our bodies’ negative reaction to our natural existence. We are internal now, pushing through the perineum with coconut oil and a scrap of shrapnel. There are hands wrapped around the sigmoid, squeezing to test its tolerance. We don’t scream, but our bodies tense to build us a wall, because they don’t understand nothing is wrong. “You’re preforming well.” Yes, we are. With deep…
William Torphy’s “The Invention of Numbers”
[Image courtesy of Katheryn Holt (c)2016. For more of her work, visit her site.] * * * Patrick had never needed to use a public phone. He noticed them occasionally, forlorn and disregarded objects in the urban landscape, but he didn’t really know if any of them worked. Still, he asked for change from the pretty dark-haired barista with the bumblebee tattoo on her neck. He handed her a dollar and she fumbled through the tip jar, smiling as she dropped the coins into his palm one at a time. He felt an electric charge when her fingertips brushed his. Maybe it was from all the appliances she handled. He left the café to hunt for a phone, unsure where one might be found. People passed by talking into their cells, staring at their…
William Torphy’s “The Call”
[Image courtesy of Katheryn Holt (c)2016. For more of her work, visit her site.] * * * 202-339-6732. The phone number I found scribbled on the title page of the book I was reading, a Milo Weaver spy novel. Normally I wouldn’t give it a second thought. Used books often contain jottings from previous readers. The phone number could belong to anyone—a friend, dry cleaner, business contact, call girl—but it had nothing to do with me. My curiosity was easy prey to fantasy, though, immersed as I was in a story of international intrigue. I was strangely tempted to call. Ridiculous and potentially embarrassing. What would I say to the person at the other end of the line? What reason could I give for calling? Of course, I could just hang up. If he…
Are You Listening? – June Submissions
Last week, I posted a teaser of our featured work for June. We continue with the idea of vulnerability this month, as our submissions focus on communication. Whether it is the basic act of trying to interact with another human being or looking to the depths of our souls and expressing who we are, communication is a fundamental component of humanity and one which we perhaps take for granted. Our fiction this month comes from William Torphy, who has written two pieces of flash fiction about telephones – our lifelines to connection and communication. What can the telephone teach us about the mystery of who is really on the other end of the call and what happens when our cell phone batteries die? Stay tuned to find out. Hannah Carmack uses her poetry to convey…
Podcast: “How to Succeed in Evil”, Chapters 9-12, and a Bonus! by Patrick E. McLean
If you’re still hanging in there with our podcast, you’re probably thinking you’re getting close to the end. The happy news is, you are not. There are seventy – yes, 70 – chapters, plus the Prologue and Epilogue, so you have many hours of happy fun ahead of you. Would that we could drop a few clues about what’s going to happen, but we’re not spoilers, and even better, no spoiler alerts. We’re certain that’s the way Patrick would have it. Please click on the arrow below to listen to Chapters 9-12 of “How to Succeed in Evil.” Chapter 9: What Do You Want, Mr. Windsor? Chapter 10: Cassette Girl Chapter 11: Calling Home Chapter 12: Cindi with an “i” The further adventures of the Evil consultant and Excelsior, the Most Powerful Man in the…
The Vulnerability of Creating
Those of us who are creators know how vulnerable it feels to put our work out there. Whether we are writers, artists, architects, bartenders, musicians, inventors, etc., the act of making something and displaying it for the world to see can be scary. It takes so much courage to be as honest as we are when we are creating – to stick our necks out there like we do. This month’s featured poet, Bonnie Amesquita, shared what it’s like for her when she’s creating: “Have you ever wanted to write something really good, a poem or some great something-or-other. Still, when you try to spill those words on a page you discover that they’re just noise. Oh Jeez. Finally, you settle down and you ask yourself what you want to say and about whom or…