Mike, Jack and Jason in a rare cross-country get-together – in a Boston coffee shop, of course. We’ve recently introduced you to several new Baristas here at the Fictional Café. To honor and recognize their talents and achievements, and to thank them for their selfless, unremunerated contributions to our iconoclastic and utterly nonprofit coffee shop, we’ve put up a new page where you can meet all ten of us. You’ll get to see what we look like, what each of our special art interests are, and learn a little about us. So without further adieu, please click on the BARISTAS tab on the menu bar, or click your mouse here to meet us. As always, thanks for being a member of the FC Coffee Club! (And if you’re not, here’s your chance to sign up.)

Continue reading →

Thanks to Creative Nonfiction Barista Rachael Allen, Marketing Barista Mike Mavilia and Visual Arts Barista Steve Sangapore for their collaboration, putting together the following brief but interesting art feature and calendar of literary and artistic events around the country. We kick it off [thanks to Mike and Steve] with an in-depth look at a photographically simulated expedition to Mars, which itself is a simulation. And while admittedly only a small sampling, Rachael hopes “So You Don’t Miss It’ stimulates you to be on the lookout for similar events where you live. One of the worst feelings is learning a George O’Keeffe exhibit or a reading by Kristin Hannah was in your town—yesterday. Lucky Bostonians will have an opportunity, starting tomorrow, to see the extraordinary photography of native New Englander Cassandra Klos. Entitled “Cassandra Klos: Mars…

Continue reading →

Your baristas wish you and your loved ones a Happy Valentine’s Day! Each of us has chosen a V-Day message to share with you:   Caitlin: “Sometimes I think of you and I feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone has said this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shift of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it.” -Written on the Body by Jeannette Winterson:   (A little Valentine’s message for parents…) “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”  -Elizabeth Stone, A Boy I Once Knew   “The brain appears to…

Continue reading →