Editor’s Note: Alyce shares a little bit about her art. “Art is not just an object… a painting or a sculpture. It is a culmination of human energy, human emotions… joy, grief, hope or hunger… all things that connect us as humans. When these emotions and energy come together as a piece of art or music the ordinary is made special. That is why art becomes an experience between the “creator” and the “experiencer”. A connection is made. We are joined through our humanness. Always striving to infuse my images and music with a quiet power, I invite the experiencer to contemplate, to feel… to make a connection. The act of making something that never existed before is mystifying.” Crow Dance   Restless Waters   Water Lillies   Water Reeds   Fox Phantom   *…

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                                    * * * Jessica Edouard is a historical romance novelist from the Pacific Northwest. She created her website, Send Sunshine to “touch as many people as possible with a vision of positivity and squelch our acceptance of negative influence.” You can find more of her writing on her website or at her Etsy shop.

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Editor’s Note: Just as Paris is alluring, fascinating, filled with wonder to a visiting American, so is New York to the foreign visitor – in this case Francoise Menebrode. Some people spend their time filling their eyes and ears with the sights and sounds of travel, but for a visual artist, the richest experiences are found looking through a camera lens. Francoise captured her visual impressions of New York from behind her Nikon, then devoted herself to hours in front of her computer and Photoshop, rendering her images into unique works of art. Herewith are her evocations of one of the world’s greatest cities. Please click on each image to see a larger view. * * *                       * * * Francoise Menebrode is a photographer,…

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Editor’s Note: Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord creates handmade books out of morsels of matter from the world around her. She says: “The Spirit Books bring together my love of the book and my response to the natural world that we see and to the invisible one that lies behind it. I find evidence of that deeper world not in wide vistas and scenes but in small objects that I gather. While I enjoy the expanse of the horizon as I walk along the beach, I am drawn to the scattered piles of shells and driftwood I see on the sand. As I walk down the street on a glorious fall day, I find myself looking down at the fallen stems of the chestnut rather than up at the blazing orange maples. It is in the subtle shifts…

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Editor’s Note: Earlier this month, Jack traveled to the French countryside for a little workation (that’s work-vacation). He discovered an art gallery and immediately knew he wanted to feature some of the art on the Fictional Café. Galerie Zon Zon curator Danièle Maguet generously agreed to let us feature some of the work that the gallery has up this month in Brest, which sits on the coast in Brittany in Northern France. Without further ado, we present the paintings of Sylvie Vanlerberghe. * * *             * * *   Sylvie Vanlerberghe was born in Marseilles in 1963. She moved to the the Yvelines department of Île-de-France, Paris, in 1986, where she still lives today. Sylvie works in various studios in the Paris region, and currently teaches painting in Gambais…

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