From Martha Leduc: I like symmetry, I like things to feel connected. Maybe being an only child, I longed for connection. My paintings explore order and chaos, tension between shapes and colors in order to then unify them. Expressive lines and ambiguous images appeal to me. In some cases, the work looks chaotic but there is always an underlying line or shape striving to unify the elements. * * * Martha Leduc is an artist living in New York. You can see more of her work on her website. She’s also a friend of Fictional Café member and former Featured Writer/Artist/Musician Phil Demise Smith. She does small illustrations of New York in pen and animal paintings on paper. She really enjoys doing both realistic little…
Walk On, Walking Crow
Walking Crow, one of my finest, closest friends, no longer walks among us. He now walks the paths of Summerland, far away in space and time from the cold, bleak New Hampshire winter lands. At 2PM on December 9, 2016, Walking Crow, nee Stephen Croft, took his last breaths. Stevie, as I often called him, had been my friend – indeed, more like a brother than those bound to me by blood – for the past decade. He was dying of cancer, and I was on my way from Massachusetts to see him. His other best friend, Stormi, was at his bedside and held his hand as he took the Last Great Walk. I didn’t make it in time. Stevie and I lived on the same dirt road in Holderness, New Hampshire, overlooking Big Squam…
“San Francisco Fever” by William Masters
Two men, well past the shady side of sixty-five, sat alone and comfortably ensconced in plush outdoor garden chairs on the terrace of a private residence in San Francisco. The glass enclosed terrace overlooked the Castro neighborhood and offered an unimpeded view down the length of Market Street to the Embarcadero and the Ferry Building, with its attached Clock Tower framed by the rippling water of the Bay. Both men, dressed in black on black ensembles, had come to celebrate the life of a mutual friend who had passed away two weeks earlier. The men shared a twenty-five year acquaintanceship linked by their professional connections to the decedent, a famous San Francisco investment broker, whose advice had transformed many hardworking, low profile persons, into millionaires. In an act of incomprehensible proportions, the decedent, without…
“I Don’t Remember” by Clive Aaron Gill
Christ! thought James, Barbara is hard to live with. I’ve been bad, sure, but I can’t keep going like this. And I worry about her having a gun. He drove his silver Toyota Camry into the garage of his San Diego home. Walking into the kitchen, he called in a deep voice, “Barbara, I’ve got the Chinese food you ordered.” James hung his blue cotton blazer over the back of a chair. Placing the takeout containers in the microwave, he heated the food. The room filled with the aroma of shrimp, chicken and marinated seaweed. He placed knives and forks on the rectangular, glass-topped table and filled plastic cups with water. “Lunch is ready.” Barbara entered the kitchen wearing a denim shirt and jeans, her gloomy, hazel eyes lost in discontent, her hair uncombed. “Barb,…
Another Year, Another Chance to Say Thank You: December Submissions
As we close out another year here at the Fictional Café, We’d like to take a few moments to say thank you to those who make our site possible. To our writers and artists, we thank you for sharing your amazing work with us and our community. It is not easy putting one’s self out there, but we hope that the payoff of our appreciation is worth the tireless hours of working and the often thankless process of submitting to magazines and websites. Here’s to your wonderful work and to your continued success! I’d also like to thank our loyal readers. What started out as a small, fun project has grown into a wonderful literary magazine and community – beyond what any of us had expected. Thank you for subscribing to the Fictional Café and…
“Writing Abroad: The Things We Carry” by Rachael Allen
A few weeks from now, I’ll board a plane from JFK to Bologna, where I’ll study abroad for five months. I’ll bring my parents with me as far as the boarding gate. Then, I’ll bring my two suitcases, filled with scarves, boots and jackets, all easy to layer and, most importantly, cheap (after all, my parents’ luggage was stolen on the first day of their honeymoon). Toiletries will be stuffed into my shoes; a housewarming gift for my Italian roommate nestled between socks; money, preemptively in euros, already stashed in my cross-body purse. I haven’t decided what books to bring yet—perhaps one I’ve been waiting to read (Jonathan Safran Foer’s Here I Am), one to model the short story (Alice Munro), and one, of course, that reminds me of home (any of the Harry Potters)….
Book Review: “Barkskins” by Annie Proulx
From The Shipping News to Accordion Crimes to “Brokeback Mountain,” Annie Proulx hasn’t written a novel or short story I didn’t enjoy. Proulx is a storyteller with a great depth of understanding for not just people, but environments both physical and emotional. One of my particular favorites is “On the Antler” from Heart Songs and Other Stories. It’s the story of a feud between two emotionally primitive men who live in the woods and have few means of expression, but seek revenge upon each other for crimes both real and imagined. A novel which lingers in my thoughts for its engaging thematic thread is Accordion Crimes. The musical instrument travels from hand to hand, place to place over a century, sometimes in danger and sometimes cherished, but never revealing its secret. Although Proulx’s works linger…
Podcast: Madrone is now an Audible Book!
You not only listened to Jack’s first novel, Wild Blue Yonder, here first, but now you can listen to Madrone, its sequel, here in the Audible version as well! Amazon’s done something pretty cool with books in Kindle and Audible formats: You can switch back and forth between reading the Kindle book and listening to the Audible narration with Whispersync for Voice. Add narration for a reduced price of $1.99 when you buy the Kindle book. But I wouldn’t ask you to buy without giving you a sample, so here’s Chapter 1. The recording begins with the brilliant poem, “Mr. Robinson Jeffers Contemplates the Pacific,” by J. E. Shepard, and as before, it is read by my friend and colleague Len Mailloux.
Notes on Surrealistic Poetry by Michael Larrain
Our frequent contributor and friend Michael Larrain is, first and foremost, a poet. And, in some of his verse, he is a surrealist poet. Thus it’s quite natural for him to comment on surrealistic poetry. We found this short article very interesting and hope you will, too. Notes on Surrealistic Poetry by Michael Larrain To do any kind of serious writing work, you need—simultaneously—to sink both into yourself, your own torments and obsessions, and the world’s multifarious irresistible corruptions, to learn the savor and cost of every vice and the weight of every disappointment, and at the same time to rise up in great joy, to rise and rise always like bubbles in a glass of beer. The tension between the sinking and the rising holds you in place, listening to your own mind, overhearing…
Podcast: Wild Blue Yonder is now an Audible Book
You listened to it here first, Jack’s first novel, Wild Blue Yonder: A Novel of the 1960s. Or maybe you didn’t, because it was hard to keep up with 24 consecutive weekly podcast episodes. Well, now you can hear the entire novel, which is Part 1 of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Flowers trilogy, in one fell swoop by getting the Audible version from Amazon. Amazon’s done something pretty cool with books that are in Kindle and Audible formats: You can Switch back and forth between reading the Kindle book and listening to the Audible narration with Whispersync for Voice. Add narration for a reduced price of $1.99 when you buy the Kindle book. But I wouldn’t ask you to buy without giving you a sample, so here’s Chapter 1.