** Next week: The final thrilling six episodes of “Saratoga Noir.” Don’t miss them!
More! More! “Saratoga Noir” Episodes 8-14
Introducing Ruby Fink, FC’s New Audio Arts Barista
You’ve heard me rave about how wonderful podcasts and audiobooks are for years. Now it is with great pleasure I present Ruby Fink, a kindred spirit and very talented audio producer, as our new Audio Arts Barista. I met Ruby under the most auspicious of circumstances: She had joined FC and submitted some episodes from “Mickie McKinney, Boy Detective,” a very funny and entertaining podcast which she wrote, directed and produced with a host of actors playing different roles. It was like listening to the old-time radio dramas, but better! She studied Film Production at Chapman University’s Dodge College, taking a minor in Narrative and Dramatic Literature. She fell in love with audio shows while finishing her senior year and began writing and creating her own Mickie McKinney podcast with the help of a MacBook, professional…
“Sitter Envy” by Christopher S. Bell
Even on a Friday, Nina felt guilty calling off. She wouldn’t have to improvise a cough on Monday; her fellow technicians recapping their weekends in expenses and well-planned excursions, an occasional raw moment surfacing from the dust. Usually this meant somebody out of place wandered in, caused a ruckus, and migrated back to their designated end. Flagstaff had many corners to facilitate bad habits. “Don’t pick your nose, honey,” Nina instructed her son, both mildly catatonic on the sofa. She’d wanted to have an adventure with Levi that day, take him somewhere new and gauge his expression. Instead, her four-year-old spent a good portion of the morning sleeping before they discussed Shirley over breakfast. The young boy had grown quite fond of his babysitter, championing their endless summer in between bites. Beyond disappointment, Nina felt…
5 Audiobook Episodes of “Saratoga Noir”
As promised [sorry I’m a little late, friends] and without further adieu, enjoy! Genevieve Shapiro’s cartoon strip precedes the audio. As always, please click the arrow to play. Will there be more?
“Saratoga Noir” – Five New Episodes Tonight!
It’s Friday and just in time for all you crazed, imploring fans of ZBS Media’s “Saratoga Noir” we present five – count ’em, five, as in 5, new episodes of the this great story, replete with Genevieve Shapiro’s cartoon strips. We pick up the story with Episode 3, so if you need to refresh your memory of the first two, click here and here. So be sure to log in to FC after 6PM EST tonight to continue this great tale!
Introducing Charlotte Pierce, FC’s New Managing Editor
Sometimes you just get lucky. I don’t mean the “good luck!” kind of lucky, I mean the fortunate kind where you do something unanticipated while you’re in a certain time-space continuum and it produces unexpected and quite beneficial results. That’s what happened to me recently. Charlotte Pierce and I were having coffee at Caffè Nero, chatting about our mutual love of all things publishing. I said something – not sure of the exact words – but it had to do with Fictional Café. Charlotte immediately said how cool FC was and how much she would enjoy being a part of it. And now she is. Charlotte has worked in nearly every aspect of the publishing business. Her first position was as a regional editor for Outdoor Empire Publishing in Seattle from 1980-1985. She went on to serve as managing…
“Forgetting She Forgot” by Roger McKnight
Addie Voss’s Michael was the one with asthma, but she learned to share it with him. He wheezed and hacked and she complained about his clogged-up tubes like they were her own. Looking for relief, the two fled Illinois and headed for sunny Albuquerque, but the desert air gave Michael nosebleeds. In Redding and Denver, it was the heat or the altitude. That had been the go-around since they got married in the early ‘90s, nomading it here and there, looking, hoping. Now today, an ordinary Tuesday, Addie was waiting in confusion at San Francisco International for a plane back to Minneapolis, their latest city, where she had left Michael and their four kids a couple days earlier. For Michael, jobs were plentiful in Minnesota, even if breathing remained a chore. She guessed other things…
Debut Novelist Whitney Scharer’s Million-Dollar Book Deal
Barista Rachael Allen meets the novelist everyone will be talking about. Whitney Scharer and her fierce protagonist are set to take the literary world by storm! At this time next year, Whitney Scharer’s debut novel, The Age of Light, will stare up at you from your nightstand. The book will not stare at you so much as, potentially, display a woman staring into the distance, anonymously cropped at the neck, with scenic Paris blurred behind her. As much as she hopes for something different, Scharer says wryly, audiences are familiar with this kind of book jacket (think Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife). And, following its million-dollar deal widely covered in the media, the book is banking on this commercial success. Perhaps a dreamy woman will attract an audience, but the book—and its personable, expressive author—aims…
“Saratoga Noir” Podcast, Episode 2
It’s Friday night again and we present another podcast, this week the second episode of “Saratoga Noir” from our friends at ZBS Media. Be sure to follow along in the accompanying comic strip created by Genevieve Shapiro, whose splendid art has appeared here at the Café a few times in the past. We love her illustrations! This is the second of 20 episodes. If you like what you hear – and see – let us know and we’ll post some more episodes. If you scream really loud, maybe we’ll post them all! But if you just can’t wait for more, hop over ZBS where you can download the entire work, and many, many others, for chump change. Please click on the arrow to listen to Episode 2 of “Saratoga Noir.”
“Saratoga Noir,” 2018’s First Audiobook!
Welcome back to Friday night podcasts here at Fictional Café, except for the new year we’re renaming this popular feature audiobooks. Reason being, podcasting has really evolved a lot, and since we concentrate on fiction, anything you listen to here is a story – and that makes a podcast, to our way of thinking, an audiobook. If that makes any sense. If it doesn’t, you could always fall back on the Firesign Theater’s David Ossman’s handle, radio movies. This week, we welcome back our friends at ZBS Media and one of their very best works, “Saratoga Noir.” Not only is the audio great, but just check out the comic book that accompanies it! This is just the first of 20 episodes. If you like what you hear – and see – let us know and…