August 1, 2017

Light in August: This Month’s New Work

Please pardon us for snitching the title of William Faulkner’s momentous novel about race relations in the 1930s South, but it’s on our minds a lot as we continue to see ugly racism rampant in our country. Which, of course, begs the question posed in the gorgeous song, “Why Can’t We Live Together“, performed by Diana King and Kyle Eastwood. We hope you’ll find interesting and provocative aspects of what’s good about a diverse culture in our offerings this month. That’s about it, save for the more obvious metaphor of our contributors shedding some light into your own personal August with our bountiful creative offerings. Fiction. Sandor Blum has given us a short story about an American Jew who encounters latent – and perhaps blatant – discrimination in “My Last Night in Paris.” We also…

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July 28, 2017

The “Tiny Dreams” Podcasts, Part the Fourth

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Audio Arts, Podcasts

Here you are, listeners, the fourth installment and final episodes of “Tiny Dreams.” We hope you’ve enjoyed listening to these audio tidbits and will take a bit more of your time to sample the longer audio dramas from ZBS Media. As I mentioned at the outset, the stories of Jack Flanders and Ruby, The Galactic Gumshoe, were important landmarks in my appreciation for the audio storytelling media. A great deal of new content has been developed at ZBS since my early days of discovery in the 1970s. While you can buy and download individual shows at zbs.org, the serious listener [such as yours truly] will want to go to zbsmedia.com for streaming media. Here you have access to everything we’ve ever done, for $5 a month, or $55 a year. Once again, Fictional Cafe hats off to…

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July 25, 2017

Understanding Reading Biases and My Mission to Fix Them

Posted by Mike Rochester in Book Reviews, News

I still have all my summer reading lists from high school. The eternal optimist in me thought that someday I’d run down that list and read each one. Years later, I still haven’t read more than a few of those books, but that collection spawned a very important way of thinking for me. As a student, I treated these reading lists like they were the word of God – that to be a writer or English major in college, these were the texts I should be reading. Still, there was a quietly blasphemous part of me that questioned that belief and as I grew older, I realized that even these holy lists were imperfect. Fast forward to last year, when I was studying my Goodreads “to read” and “previously read” lists. I noticed biases reflected…

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July 23, 2017

Three New Poems by John Grey

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Member Writing & Art

Editor’s Note: John Grey graced our ‘zine with his poetry last year. Here are three new poems from his pen, and in August we shall publish three more, so you can savor each one. THE WEDDING RING The rotten end to a wrecked season, footsteps bring no redemption no resurrection as wet grass on the feet merely adds to the machinery of bitterness until I come across the river whose undermining poverty is quieted by discovery of something illicit in the shore-weeds – a dead wedding ring glistening like bone – it’s been lost or tossed – why not? everything on earth finds itself in the same situation. * BRAIN MATTERS The question arises – do I really need all this? I can live in…

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July 21, 2017

The “Tiny Dreams” Podcasts, Part 3

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Audio Arts, Podcasts

Dear FC audio aficionados: Return with us now to those thrilling episodes of “Tiny Dreams” we’ve posted here the past two weeks and partake of nine [count ’em, 9!] more. In case you missed Part 1 and Part 2, click. “Tiny Dreams” were commissioned from ZBS Media as a series of short pieces for a group of radio stations, what they call “Triple A,” — commercial rock & roll radio! The challenge for the ZBS people was figuring out how to tell a story, take someone on a little adventure (or trip into dreamland), and bring them back again, and do it all in 90 seconds! The stories were inspired by the strange movies that are projected inside our brains while we’re asleep. They’re truly original in concept, and also good for a few smiles…

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July 20, 2017

Caitlin Jans: The Working Writer Interview

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Interviews

Caitlin Jans is the editor-owner of Authors Publish, a website and newsletter devoted to providing writers with sources – and resources – for publishing their work. Once a writer signs up, they receive periodic email messages with new leads for their literary aspirations. Caitlin was gracious in answering some questions from the Fictional Café editors about her work, as well as her own writing. FC: How would you describe Authors Publish? AP: We are a weekly eMagazine that publishes information for authors, including reviews of literary journals and manuscript publishers open to submissions from authors. Of course, we have changed a little over the years. We now publish eBooks and special issues that focus on just one topic, but we can still be mostly summed up in that first sentence. FC: What inspired you to…

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July 19, 2017

“Every Picture Tells A Story, Don’t It?” – Charlotte Penabel’s Collages

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Fine Art

Rod Stewart sang it best in song, and Charlotte Penabel’s Etsy collages take flight over Rod in image and words. Click on each image to enlarge it so you can read their titles. And for even more fun, listen to Rod sing the “Every Picture Tells A Story” as you enjoy Charlotte’s collages. ** Artist’s Statement I find a lot of visual appeal in pop culture, glamour, vintage Hollywood, femininity and anything glittery – but I don’t think I could create a feminine or aesthetically pleasing digital collage without emulating a subtle undertone of suffering and self loathing to the celebrity-crazed world we live in. I am fascinated, pained and enchanted by first-world culture and the effects, power and persuasion images can have on us as a mass consumed society. For every collage I create,…

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July 18, 2017

Channie Greenberg Returns With A New Story

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Member Writing & Art

The Price of Cheap By KJ Hannah Greenberg Nathan chose a cheap flight to Kobarid. Seeing the Julian Alps had long been on his bucket list. He planned to sleep the ten hours from JFK to Ataturk, to remain inconspicuous in Istanbul, and then to make friends on route to Ljubljana. With luck, he’d score a night on some local’s sofa before traveling from the capital to the mountains. Nathan believed himself sufficiently charismatic to succeed. Hearsay about Slovenian tourism suggested that a stranger’s room would be equivalent to a fee-driven guesthouse. By taking advantage of complimentary accommodations, Nathan would save enough cash to hire a guide to accompany him to the Kozjac Waterfalls and on the Alpe Adna Trail. It was foolhardy to tour remote places alone. Unfortunately, at Ataturk, instead of deboarding, Nathan’s…

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July 15, 2017

Writing Contest Deadline Extended!!!

Posted by Jason Brick in News

Hi all! Just a quick note about our fabulous writing contest. We’ve had a lot of emails in the past few days, all of which run along the same basic theme: Dear (somebody) I really want to submit a story, but it’s not perfect yet. Can I please have a few extra days to finish it up? Thanks (somebody) We’re not monsters. We get that sometimes art takes a little longer than expected. Because of this, we’re rolling the whole contest forward a month or so. As of right now, the deadline to submit stories to our contest is Friday, August 18th. After that, we’re going to be monsters. At 0001 on the 19th, submissions are closed forever. You have an extra month. Show us what you can do with it.

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July 14, 2017

Podcast: ZBS’s “Tiny Dreams” Part 2

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Audio Arts, Podcasts

Original art by Genevieve Shapiro, http://gentoons.com/ Welcome to Week 2 of “Tiny Dreams,” very short podcast stories which will appear here at the FC every Friday evening in July. I encourage you to visit the ZBS website, where you will find a treasure trove of fun listening. More about ZBS in coming weeks. A Short Introduction to “Tiny Dreams” by Tom Lopez, ZBS Earlier this year, we were commissioned to do a series of short pieces for a group of radio stations, what they call “Triple A,” commercial rock & roll radio! And so our writer, M. Fulton, spent two days listening to one of their stations. He woke up the next morning with an idea, a series of dreams that could be inserted between songs. The one restriction he was given – the pieces had to…

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