December 22, 2023

A Fictional Cafe’s Christmas Episode! “God Rest Ye Merry Physicists”

A Fictional Cafe Christmas Adventure Like Nothing You’ve Ever Heard! On Christmas eve, a team of brilliant scientists hit a major breakthrough in their portal to another universe. They can’t imagine how dearly their curiosity will cost them when they decide to go through to the other side. You’re just seconds away from full immersion in your new favorite high-concept, original, and, it must be said: bonkers, audio drama. Strap in. Sci-fi and Christmas collide in our latest audio drama podcast! Follow a team of scientists on their quest to save the holiday season from a monstrous inter-dimensional threat. ‘God Rest Ye Merry Physicists’ was written and directed by Derek Toombs Ableman – Dino DeRosa Bachus – Derek Toombs Caffrey – Shelby Reynolds Danhke – Ray Alvarez Grace/Cashier – Isabel Barbato Crystal – Alexis Jackson Ableman’s Son – Shawn Murray Mrs. Ableman…

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December 20, 2023

“Plucked,” A Novel in Verse Excerpt by FC’s Vera West

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Seventeen-year-old Iza auditioned on a whim and got accepted (on a scholarship) to a creative arts prep school. Even with just a year left until she graduates, attending this school will give her the edge she needs to be a successful classical violinist and give her more options than what she currently has in the impoverished town where she grew up; but without the support of her mother getting there will be a challenge. After convincing her best friend to drive her to school, working extra shifts to save up money and having her granny forge her father’s signature on the application, Iza is finally ready to make the great escape to Everleigh. 1 She has pluck, they say, with optimism in spades, surely all her dreams will come true.     “Iza Jones, are…

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December 17, 2023

Fictional Cafe Collaborates with Pushcart Press

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in News

A Few Words About the Pushcart Prize FOR THE THIRD YEAR, Fictional Café’s baristas have chosen and submitted what we agreed were the best six works—three of fiction and three of poetry—we’ve published in the past year for consideration in the Pushcart Prize competition. As usual, a work from each of our Writer-in-Residence and Poet-in-Residence has been selected for the Prize. Congratulations to our six nominees! Here are their links on FC. Please check them out. Vera West, FC’s Poet-in-Residence: https://www.fictionalcafe.com/poet-in-residence-vera-west-shares-her-work-for-national-poetry-month/ Rachel Gonzalez, FC’s Writer-in-Residence: https://www.fictionalcafe.com/the-secret-society-by-rachel-gonzalez/ PS Conway, Poetry: https://www.fictionalcafe.com/coddled-by-mountains-poetry-by-ps-conway/ Levi Dodd, Fiction: https://www.fictionalcafe.com/cherry-black-a-story-by-levi-dodd/ Cori Sims, Poetry: https://www.fictionalcafe.com/poem-and-personal-essay-for-19-june-2023/ Bill Suter, Fiction: https://www.fictionalcafe.com/you-just-never-know-what-will-happen-at-the-cafe-chimera/ Just as you submit your own work for consideration on FC, Bill Henderson’s Pushcart Press asked literary publications, both print and online, for submissions to its Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses…

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December 9, 2023

“Witchever Path” by You and The Fans!

Posted by Ruby Fink in Audio Arts

Who hasn’t felt an emotional urge to tell a protagonist what to do at key moments in the story? “Don’t open that door!”“Take the overgrown path.”“Call for Help.” We hear you. Witchever Path is an anthology series where your decisions effect the story. Our stories are based in America’s NorthEast, featuring characters finding themselves in the thick of the unknown while tackling issues like queer identity, gender, race, and spirituality. Stories often focus on the communities not typically seen in stories taking place in New England, and giving voice to the perspectives of those communities while uniting under some universal themes. And the supernatural happens. A lot. To get a feel for what we do, start here: Witchever Path isn’t like a lot of audio dramas. We’re a fiction anthology series that allows you to help determine…

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December 5, 2023

“Happy Birthday to Us,” Poetry by Bruce McRae

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Happy Birthday To Us I arrived mid-century. A flaw in the seamed dimensions. A stone dropped down a cistern. Already ancient, wonderstruck, fire in my gills and hair, life-naked. I was born all of a sudden. A shift in the given paradigm. A handheld globe of teeth and fur standing athwart of all of history. A faint itch, a rudimentary element, I appeared as if quite by accident. A figure blurred by the side of the road, an eleventh planet, a tiger’s teardrop, a snowman in the parson’s orchard. Heavy with dreams, I was awoken early for my rough appointment. A manic isotope in a fat-lit cavern. One of those molecular contrivances you hear so much about. A mighty atom. A coy abstraction. ** Reality The rules of the game remain couched in esoteric phrases…

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November 27, 2023

“As the Storm Arrives,” Poetry by David Dephy

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

As the Storm Arrives Silence with its excellent syntax is so real, rhythm compensates breathe when the stream of our thoughts shapes our lives, we are the same and always seek each other when silence between us dies. Are we all identical in nature, different in degree? Children can smell the wind more than pets, as you know they prowl the streets, and the smell of the wind will color them lilac, though for now only the moon rises, and each tree, remains as the heart of a wind, each wind a string on time’s lyre, divine love reflected upon its own reflection, wickedness kindling that flame of darkness, but when the hero strikes her anvil of freedom, the vision returns, here the mist is a single thought floating within islands of silence, and the…

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November 21, 2023

“Gone,” A Short Story by Kathryn Harper

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

I want to be gone. I want to be utterly gone. I was once gone, but now I am here, but now I am tired of being here and want to be gone. I have been here for so long and have been not gone for so long and I want to be gone like no one has been gone ever before. I used to be a sky-watcher when I was gone. I used to be a sky-watcher and know all the shapes in the sky. I used to know everything about the night sky, and the night sky knew everything about me when I was gone. Now I am here and there is no night sky. There is no darkness here. Here has no darkness but dark times. I had no dark times when I was gone, just the…

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November 17, 2023

“The Nest” by Other Stories Podcast

Posted by Ruby Fink in Audio Arts

We might be on the other side of Halloween, but that’s no reason why we can’t post a few more spooky stories! Presenting “The Nest” by Other Stories Podcast. No school. No parents. No way out. The disappearance of four single parents leads to an investigation by the children they leave behind. The youngsters are convinced that a sinister supernatural force is responsible. Jamie has been left a strange offering.Valerie has heard a screeching sound in the night sky.Raheem claims to have seen a creature with wings.Isabel believes that she knows the location of a ‘nest’. ACT 1 – JAMIE There’s something not quite right in Creekwood Pines. Jamie, a kid with far too much responsibility for a boy his age, returns home after a successful day playing truant to find his mother missing and his younger brother over…

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November 13, 2023

“Wednesday in a Factory Town,” Poetry by John Grey

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

WEDNESDAY IN A FACTORY TOWN Sunlight succumbs to weather and chimney, fat gray clouds, much billowing of smoke. In a town of factories, faces stare, solemn and blackened like stove flues, through windows, as red eyes make tunnels in the gloom. Rivers wait like standing water for more dust and grime to fuel their current. Shoppers cough their way from store to store. Kids grub up without even trying. No sky as once was promised. Not even the church, chiming three o’clock, can get back God’s attention. ** EMMA, A MONTH BEYOND THE DEATH OF HER FATHER She can’t swerve to avoid the dead possum on the road without crashing through huddled sobbing mourners and braking just in time so she doesn’t topple down into the freshly dug hole, and smash headlong into her father’s…

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November 6, 2023

The Hurricane Book: A Lyric History

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Book Reviews, Writing

New Creative Nonfiction by Claudia Acevedo-Quiñones How do we mark the passage of time? How do we reconcile what we remember of our life and those we love – and have loved – against the mutability of memory? Like author Marcel Proust (À la recherche du temps perdu), Ms. Acevedo-Quiñones grapples with her life growing up in Puerto Rico and her identity as a writer in Brooklyn, marking the journey with the island’s six great hurricanes of the 20th century. With our deep gratitude to Rose Metal Press for publishing this book, we herewith present excerpts from Claudia Acevedo-Quiñones’ remarkable work. These excerpts do not do full justice to her innovative narrative, so please read the book. Meet the author live tomorrow (Wednesday, November 8, 2023) evening, in conversation with poet Paolo Javier at the…

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