When visiting Taiwan, you might think it is a country noted more for tea than coffee. But you would be mistaken. There are small storefronts that roast and grind the beans to brew your espresso a cup at a time. There are Starbucks and Mr. Brown’s coffee shops. A modest but solidly superior choice to all of them is Dante. It was because it was named after the great Dante Aligheri (author of The Divine Comedy; 1265-1321) that Dante first caught my attention. I knew I was in coffee heaven the first time I ordered a cup. First because it’s served in a real mug if you choose to sit inside. The nice big mug is heated with hot, steaming water before the coffee is poured in. Even if you opt for a takeout cup, it’s sturdy and of high quality. Last but…

Continue reading →

Walking Crow, one of my finest, closest friends, no longer walks among us. He now walks the paths of Summerland, far away in space and time from the cold, bleak New Hampshire winter lands. At 2PM on December 9, 2016, Walking Crow, nee Stephen Croft, took his last breaths. Stevie, as I often called him, had been my friend – indeed, more like a brother than those bound to me by blood – for the past decade. He was dying of cancer, and I was on my way from Massachusetts to see him. His other best friend, Stormi, was at his bedside and held his hand as he took the Last Great Walk. I didn’t make it in time. Stevie and I lived on the same dirt road in Holderness, New Hampshire, overlooking Big Squam…

Continue reading →

(Photo Credit: Audubon Society) A number of years ago, while visiting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, I was struck by the fact that many science fiction authors had envisioned the future in their novels, then watched as their vision become reality. Well, guess what? It’s happened at the Fictional Café, too! We recently published a short story by Kathryn Holzman entitled “Rattlesnakes.” It concerned a group of people demonstrating against creating a sanctuary on an island in a Massachusetts reservoir for…yep, rattlesnakes. Oooo, I thought, that’s a creepy idea! But I liked the story a lot, especially the dream-like ending. So it was with some surprise that I read this article by Jan Gardner in the Boston Globe a few months later: “Tale of the timber rattler” “After a public outcry, the state of Massachusetts earlier this…

Continue reading →

By Simran P. Gupta The author Jhumpa Lahiri is an inspiration to me, particularly with her latest memoir, In Other Words. In this work, she chronicles her journey with learning to write exclusively (as well as read and speak) in Italian. As a South Asian learning a language that is not from that subcontinent, her thoughts resonated strongly with me, and led to some reflection of my own. I am not by any means embarking on a mission to write exclusively in French yet, but thanks to my French major I have been reading more and more French and Francophone literature. I have quickly realized that this literature is not the same beast as the film or literature I study for my English major. French literature takes me almost twice as long to read, is…

Continue reading →