523 posts by Jack B. Rochester

December 1, 2024

Does Not Want the Hill to Die

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Featured Posts, Member Writing & Art, Writing

Featured Image photo courtesy of Mandana-r at en.wikipedia A Short Story by Fereshteh Rostami We’re pleased to introduce a new voice from Iran to our international Coffee Club membership. Fereshteh Rostami’s native language is Persian, but she wrote this transcendent story in English . . . with a little editorial help from her husband. “Does Not Want the Hill to Die” is a very contemporary narrative, yet one which explores some of the oldest and most fundamental issues humans confront: the nature of life, the delicacy of our relationships with other people, and our responsibility to the land on which we live. Does Not Want the Hill to Die Forestgirl knows that she is gnawed bit by bit; not just her, everything, from the time she was a little girl, she knew. That time things…

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October 28, 2024

“The Grays of Truth” A Novel Excerpt

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Book Reviews, Guest Posts, Interviews, Writing

*Featured image courtesy of mumu limlim, https://openart.ai/@beautifulworld8?tab=creation* In Reconstruction-era Washington and Baltimore, city elites are turning up dead. It’s Tuesday once again and we would like to entice you to read the excerpt from a new novel, The Grays of Truth. Written by bestselling historical true-crime author Sharon Virts, it’s a gripping tale set in Washington, DC, and Maryland in the late 1860s, and is based on true events. In Virts’s hands, the settings in and around the nation’s capital and Baltimore come alive as she reveals the cruelty and cunning of various members of a rich and respected family, one death after another after another. After reading the excerpt below and the bio about Sharon, we think you’re going to want to learn the whole story by reading this novel, written by a master…

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September 30, 2024

Introducing Our New Arts & Design Barista!

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Fine Art, Member Writing & Art

We’re very pleased to introduce to you, Coffee Club members, Yucen Yao, our new Fine Arts and Graphic Design Barista. It’s hard enough finding a qualified poet, fiction writer or audio arts barista, but finding a creator with the talent and skills to curate contemporary arts has been the toughest. We’ve had to go without one for several years. Now you can meet her. Yucen was raised in Nanchang, China. She took her bachelor’s degree in visual communication at Guangzhou University. Her parents encouraged her to follow her dreams in the arts, and she came to the United States to earn her master’s degree in graphic design at the prestigious California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita. Her career has rapidly taken off: she’s been interviewed in several LA zines, one saying she is…

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September 18, 2024

Radio . . . What? RadioGAGA!

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Audio Arts, Featured Posts, Interviews, Member Writing & Art, Web Video, Writing

Philip Gabbard returns to Fictional Cafe with a new creative fiction project: a film treatment based upon a very popular song from the 1990s. Phil is a create-preneur of many talents and interests and we’re always interested in his work. He’s written creative nonfiction, THISday: Words for the Venerable and the Vulnerable, and Thrivation: The Everlasting Philosophy of Providence + Privilege. He penned (on his MacBook Pro) Every Saint, Every Sinner, a novel about his spiritual experiences. He produced and directed an extraordinary video based on the life and death of an archetypal Hispanic woman called La Llorona. Phil is beholden to Freddy Mercury and Queen for the inspiration to write about radio. More specifically, the rise and nowadays the fall of radio broadcasting. With the rise of television, its demise was probably inevitable. TV…

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September 16, 2024

Rachel Gonzalez’s New Story

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

Rachel is our Fiction Writer in Residence, and she has written an outstanding new story for us, “Scrappy Metal.” It takes a very contemporary – and ironic – perspective concerning technology and its ever-encroaching desire (read between the lines: AI) to take over our human lives. It’s not only current but it’s also very funny. One of the most enjoyable stories we’ve published. Please let us know what you think of it in the Comments section at the end. Scrappy Metal Photo credit: IRobot.com I crushed another Cheez-It in my hand and sprinkled it on the floor. “God. Would you stop that?” My roommate’s shrill girlfriend, Molly, screeched at me. Although she was always here she didn’t actually pay any bills, so I didn’t have to listen to her. “Hey, I’m just feeding the little…

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September 7, 2024

Your Saturday Podcast: The Zany “The Coach”

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

Hello there, you faithful, loyal, intrepid, adventure-seeking audiophiles. It’s Jack, Fictional Cafe’s hosta witha mosta, pinch-hitting for Ruby who is on vacation (sure hope she comes back!). Here are the first episodes of “The Coach,” about the journey (sic) of Evan Nixon, a former performer turned Life-Coach. Aided by his husband, Kevin, his best friend, Minxy, and his mentor, Miss Erica (of Miss Erica’s Life-Coaching Institute and Cross-Dressing Academy), Evan navigates a host of zany clients, all while “life-coaching” his own journey. It’s hysterically funny and you’d better agree or we won’t play any more episodes for you.

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August 19, 2024

Winner’s Curse: A New Novel by L.A. Starks

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Book Reviews, Interviews, Writing

Editor’s Note: A Weekend Arts article in The New York Times caught my attention with its title, “Blending Poetry, Ritual and Data on Oil Drilling.” It’s about an installation created by Imami Jacqueline Brown she calls “research art” and in which says she wants to “demystify oil and gas production.” It was the last thing I ever thought I’d see pursued in art, but then again reading Winner’s Curse was a revelation of its own: a novel set in that same business, which its practitioners used to refer to in the Texas drawl, as “th’ awl an’ gaas bidness.” The notion of a “winner’s curse” is explained on the first page of L.A. Starks’ engaging new novel, the fourth Lynn Dayton thriller. It stems from the fact that drilling for oil was (and may still…

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May 2, 2024

Michael Larrain’s “The Life of a Private Eye”

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

“You’ve made it,” says the narrator of the Firesign Theater’s “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him.” “You’ve made it. Welcome to Side Six.” This is Part 6, the last noirvelette about Michael’s nameless private eye. Thanks to all of you who have commented, so enthusiastically, about this series. It makes Michael and your Baristas so happy to know you’ve enjoyed it. And this last one you are sure to enjoy as well, as it takes place in the Hollywood film business. Its resonant irony will have you grinning and you will appreciate the identity mashups. So without a commercial break or a single coming attraction, we pull the curtain back and roll ’em with “The Pontiff & the Wiener-Monger.” The Life of A Private Eye A Noirvelette in Verse By Michael Larrain Part…

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May 1, 2024

The New FC Anthology is Now Published!

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Member Writing & Art, The Fictional Café Anthology, Writing

The Strong Stuff, Volume 2, presents the best creative work we published from 2018-2020 500 full-color pages of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and art from our members This is one handsome book, and it’s big – 8″ wide by 10″ tall, just a few pages shy of 500 pages of stimulating writing and art. The cover art is an original design by one of our former baristas, Amanda Grafe. Using Amanda’s original painting, Barista Melanie Marston prepared the book’s front and back covers. The interior design and page layout was designed by Sophie Hanks, who has worked with us on several books now. FC Partner Antony Woooten guided it through publishing and printing with Ingram/Spark. The back cover. Each contributor’s color photo and bio appear in the book. This contributor’s poetry, accompanied by their art….

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April 24, 2024

Michael Larrain’s “The Life of a Private Eye”

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Member Writing & Art, Writing

No, you’re not seeing double. This is Part 5 of the poet’s extraordinary narrative poem about his fictional private eye. Each is told by our one and only gumshoe, each a separate adventure in the streets of Los Angeles, and in each a dame. Of course. If he can figure her out, he can solve the crime. Let’s see how he does in this episode. One more to go next week. The Life of A Private Eye A Noirvelette in Verse By Michael Larrain Part 5: Quadruple Indemnity Original illustrations by Katherine Willmore My doctors had been advising me to get more exercise, so I learned how to put myself into a trance and slipped a couple of useful ideas into my post-hypnotic suggestion-box. The first was to take nightly sleepwalking perambulations. The second tricked…

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