November 28, 2016

Book Review: “Barkskins” by Annie Proulx

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Book Reviews

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…

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November 25, 2016

Podcast: Madrone is now an Audible Book!

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Audio Arts, News, Podcasts

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.

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November 22, 2016

Notes on Surrealistic Poetry by Michael Larrain

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Guest Posts, News

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…

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November 18, 2016

Podcast: Wild Blue Yonder is now an Audible Book

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Audio Arts, News, Podcasts

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.

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November 15, 2016

Rattlesnakes, Fictional and Real

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in News

(Photo Credit: Audubon Society) A number of years ago, while visiting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, I was struck by the fact that many science fiction authors had envisioned the future in their novels, then watched as their vision become reality. Well, guess what? It’s happened at the Fictional Café, too! We recently published a short story by Kathryn Holzman entitled “Rattlesnakes.” It concerned a group of people demonstrating against creating a sanctuary on an island in a Massachusetts reservoir for…yep, rattlesnakes. Oooo, I thought, that’s a creepy idea! But I liked the story a lot, especially the dream-like ending. So it was with some surprise that I read this article by Jan Gardner in the Boston Globe a few months later: “Tale of the timber rattler” “After a public outcry, the state of Massachusetts earlier this…

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November 11, 2016

Podcast: “Improbable Fortunes” by Jeffrey Price

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Audio Arts, Podcasts

In an interview posted on his LinkedIn page, Jeffrey Price, perhaps unknown to most but renowned for co-authoring the script of the animated movie “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” says of his latest work: “Improbable Fortunes is my Funny Valentine to the land I love and the craziness that is not so different from America at large. I should also say that women readers have told me that they found the book romantic.” Improbable Fortunes is a novel in print, Kindle and Audible formats on Amazon. Set in a small fictional town in Colorado, it’s the story of the adventures of one Butch McCaffrey. It’s a terrific satire on the New West with a main character who embodies literature’s greatest picaresque “heroes,” from Don Quixote to Ignatius J. Reilly. The Prolouge, a half-hour long excerpt, will give you…

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November 8, 2016

Reflections on Reading Literature in a Foreign Language

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in News

By Simran P. Gupta The author Jhumpa Lahiri is an inspiration to me, particularly with her latest memoir, In Other Words. In this work, she chronicles her journey with learning to write exclusively (as well as read and speak) in Italian. As a South Asian learning a language that is not from that subcontinent, her thoughts resonated strongly with me, and led to some reflection of my own. I am not by any means embarking on a mission to write exclusively in French yet, but thanks to my French major I have been reading more and more French and Francophone literature. I have quickly realized that this literature is not the same beast as the film or literature I study for my English major. French literature takes me almost twice as long to read, is…

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November 6, 2016

Featured Fiction: “Paper Cranes” by Emily Rodriguez

Posted by Mike Rochester in Member Writing & Art

Editor’s Note: In “Paper Cranes,” our second featured short story of November, Emily Rodriguez brings us a story about love in modern times with a little twist of the ancient art of paper folding. Curl up with a mug of a mellow brew and enjoy this story. * * * Paper Cranes by Emily Rodriguez In a weird way it’s like I actually have a use for algebra. It’s always been a game of figures and numbers. Nine steps total, thirty-seven exact creases, ten presses, approximately six pinches and a single tug. But first I need to form x. I fold the square sheet of paper corner-to corner until there’s a perfect x-shaped crease at the very center of the square. But I never solve for x. I fold the factor in on itself. Diagonal….

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November 4, 2016

Sophie Vincent’s Winsome Ceramics

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Fine Art

In the French village of Dourdan, the sculptor Sophie Vincent carries on a tradition of making ceramics which dates back to the first century BCE, a period when France was known as Gaul and part of the Roman Empire. It was a time when clay kitchen and tableware changed from being purely utilitarian to becoming more expressive and decorative shapes and figurines – in a word, art. And thus Sophie, working in her studio in Dourdan, just south of Paris, brings this ancient Dourdan tradition into the twenty-first century. Here is a sampling of her work, with titles in their original French. Please click on the images for a gallery view. * Sophie says, “After four years of training and nice meetings with other artists, I opened my own ceramics studio in Dourdan. Since then, I spend most of my…

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November 2, 2016

Featured Short Story: “Disaster of the Will” by Richard Craven

Posted by Mike Rochester in Member Writing & Art

Editor’s Note: Our first Featured Short Story for November features a narrator whose cockney British accent and spellings may sound a bit off (think Brad Pitt in Snatch), but rest assured, it’s all part of Mr. Craven’s master plan. * * * Disaster of the Will by Richard Craven A filmy substance welds shut my eyes. I free an arm from the embrace of the twisted mildewed blankets that I have grown to know and hate, prise apart my eyelids, accustom vile jellies to gloaming. The evidence of my desuetude: mounds of unlaundry, overflowing ashtrays. Crushed cans of Horst Wessell Marching lager littering the pitifully cramped floorspace. Once again I have slept in my clothes. I peel a corner of the orange curtain and peer outside. The mountainside, muddy, denuded of grass by ramblers’ boots….

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