Jonathan Shih lives in Taipei, Taiwan, although he lived for many years in the U.S., mostly in New York, where he earned his MBA and worked in finance. You cannot say he has retired, for his interests and activities keep him busy every day. A prime activity is his art. He carries a sketchbook wherever he goes. We met up in a beef noodle restaurant on TaoYuan Street in Taipei. [BTW, the beef noodle soup was exceptional!] Jonathan arrived with three sketchbooks under his arm, and I had to know what they were all about. He told me these three were just for the past few weeks – he regularly fills four to five sketchbooks a month. Clearly, art is his passion. I began browsing through the sketchbooks and quickly decided we should feature his work here at…
Hands Up, Don’t Shoot, I Can’t Breathe, Die-In Demonstrations
The country is experiencing demonstrations across the country to protest police killing unarmed black people with alacrity. We, as a culture, seem to have reached a tipping point. “To Protect and Serve” as been besmirched by Michael Brown’s “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” and Eric Garner’s “I Can’t Breathe.” Twelve-year-old Tamir Rice never even got a chance to surrender. We know what’s going on and we know it needs to change. People are speaking out, staging “die-ins” to express their concern [and of course being arrested for it by the police]. I raise my voice and concern and support by sharing this song, “Why Can’t We Live Together” by Diana King with Kyle Eastwood. For me, it says it all, and I know the artists feel the same. I hope you will, too. Jack From the…
365 Docobites Gets Kickstarted!
We’re pleased to tell you that Epiphany Morgan and Carl Mason, the videographers we featured a few days ago https://www.fictionalcafe.com/sharing-their-stories-with-the-world/#.VIodBYrF_Do], have met their Kickstarter goal, raising almost $5,000 in just a few days. We would like to think you played a part in this happening. Here’s their message to all of us: Thank you! We are thrilled to announce we have reached our initial target of 17K! We want to thank every single person who pledged or shared the campaign with their friends and family as we simply would not have been able to continue sharing these human stories without each and every one of you. So with 7 days to go, what’s next? Our Stretch Goal! We have been keeping in touch with the amazing photographer from Humans Of Amsterdam, Debra, ever…
Make Words, Not War
I recently attended a workshop at Lesley University, run by Sarina Furer who teaches children in Israel how to write poetry to process their trauma. Her students are in a constant state of alertness, living in a war zone with regular shellings. Even in the classroom, there is no safety; when a signal comes on, they have 90 seconds to get to a safe shelter before a ballistic strikes. War breeds isolation and loneliness, so she tells her students to shift their attention to “small, quiet moments of beauty” to create a calming of the psyche. Writing and sharing their poems is a powerful experience for her students, letting them exclaim “war has not completely overtaken my life.” As I listened to her speak, I thought of a song by the Decemberists, “After the Bombs,”…
Sharing Their Stories With The World
We baristas believe in stories, and especially in storytellers. That’s why we do what we do here at Fictional Cafe, and why we’re excited to share the story of two video documentary storytellers with you. Two intrepid Australian storytellers, Epiphany Morgan and Carl Mason, have been traveling the world to create 365 mini-documentaries in 365 days. Their project is called 36docobites and you ought to take a look. These people not only have an ingenious and deeply human project underway, but are creating the most amazing video stories with people from all around the world. We want to help them, and we thought you might want to as well. They have a campaign on Kickstarter and not many days to reach their goal. If you can kick in [yep!] some help, please do. There are a…
“War and Peace” Reading Group is Now Reading!
On October 27, we posted a message about starting a Goodreads group to read a book few, if any, would undertake without some external motivation: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy [The Louise and Aylmer Maude translation]. My friend David Bond suggested creating a Goodreads group to read it together, and I heartily joined in sponsorship and the read. [I think my copy has been sitting on my bookshelves for about 40 years.] We’re proud to announce our group of eight people officially began reading December 1. One of us was so excited he finished in 24 days, in November. You can be sure we’re going to have questions for him! Few would dispute this is a masterpiece, and many believe it to be the greatest novel ever written. Others suggest it represented a major shift in…
10 Reasons Writing For a Living Kicks Ass
As we close our first year of operation and look forward to 2015, we have to say it’s been a bumpy road. A lot of things went wrong. More things went right. In most ways, it’s been just like our careers as writers: tough, but worth it. Coming to the end of your writing year, you might be tempted to look at the “Con” column and think about giving it up. Here are ten reasons not to. There Has Never Been a Better Time to Be a Writer Forget what some doomsayers like Scott Turow might tell you – the Internet has democratized distribution, simplified publicity and created massive demand. These changes might make Stephen Kings and J.K. Rowlings a bit less common, but it’s easier than ever to make your living…
Early Twain by Mike Rochester
Buried beneath alternate praise and censure of his “Great American Novel,” Huckleberry Finn, lies a wealth of widely unheralded work by Mark Twain: his short stories. Twain’s penchant for writing in the vernacular translates magnificently to his tall tales, overheard while mining for silver in Nevada. His characters run the gamut from rugged and folksy to clever and charismatic, creating a circus troupe of dusty allure. In his 1880 short story “Jim Baker’s Blue-jay Yarn,” Twain retells a tale about “a middle-aged, simple-hearted miner who lived in a lonely corner of California,” who claims he can understand the language of animals. What follows is a short but tall tale of what he overhears a blue jay saying one day in the woods. As is the case with many of Twain’s yarns, the joy is…
“Jenny’s Revenge,” a Novel by James D. Best
Here is an excerpt from James D. Best’s fifth Steve Dancy novel, Jenny’s Revenge, which was published February 2, 2015. Best’s westerns are written in the spirit of Zane Gray and, to quote Larry Winget, writing in True West Magazine, March, 2012,”The James Best books…are about the best new Western series to come along since Larry McMurtry.” All five Steve Dancy novels are available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions. — Editors Introduction After securing a license to use Thomas Edison’s inventions for mining, Steve and his friends return to Denver to pick up belongings they left behind on their way to New York. Steve and Virginia plan to marry, and Captain McAllen retires from the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to start a horse ranch. Eager to begin new lives, everyone…
The Sensuous Poetry of Michael Larrain
One of the beautiful things about artists is the unexpected ways in which we encounter them. I went to college in Sonoma County, California, and make an annual pilgrimage back there. I usually stay with my long-time friends, Larry and Laurie. Last year I came upon a man selling blissed-out flowers from the back of his Jeep about two blocks east of downtown Cotati. Well, this year he was there, in the same spot again, and we got to talking about life, the universe, and how everything and everybody is sometimes discernibly connected and as it went we suddenly discovered we’re both writers. Michael told me about his novel, Movies on the Sails, and I told him about mine, featuring a character named Flowers. I asked him to submit some of his poetry for Fictional Cafe, and here it…