465 posts by Mike Rochester

August 23, 2016

“Fear of Commitment: My Relationship with Writing, Time and Discipline” by Rachael Allen

Posted by Mike Rochester in Guest Posts, News

Time moves differently when I’m home from college. An hour at home means deciding what to do, watching two Food Network episodes at my grandparents’ house, driving to the beach, or puttering out half-sentences at my computer that I tell myself I’ll finish later. An hour at school means completing a homework assignment, attending a newspaper meeting, reveling in this unusually lengthy chunk of free time, or simply talking with roommates right before bed, making me lose sleep but feel the good tired of a full day. This discrepancy in time is a welcome product of summer and its lazy days of food excess, television and marathon reading (most recently for me, Emma Cline’s The Girls and, of course, the latest Harry Potter). It’s also a product of place. School is an academic environment of…

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August 11, 2016

“Coffee in the Moonlight” by Paul Germano

Posted by Mike Rochester in Member Writing & Art

Her name rolls off my tongue like a sweet puff of smoke. She is a potent mix of innocence and caution with vibrant black hair, smooth alabaster skin and a slender willowy frame. She seems completely unaware of her own beauty. And she is here, in my apartment. She was reluctant, at first, to stop by. She had heard far too much about me from a misguided co-worker who had raised the red flag. She wouldn’t say his name, but I knew who did the trash-talking. When time permits, I’ll have a little chat with him, make sure he knows not to stick his nose in my business. She stood there, yesterday afternoon, in the drab grey-carpeted hallway of our stuffy downtown Syracuse office building, her body swaying, reluctance in her soft voice as she…

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August 8, 2016

Francoise Menebrode: New York Photography

Posted by Mike Rochester in Fine Art

Editor’s Note: Just as Paris is alluring, fascinating, filled with wonder to a visiting American, so is New York to the foreign visitor – in this case Francoise Menebrode. Some people spend their time filling their eyes and ears with the sights and sounds of travel, but for a visual artist, the richest experiences are found looking through a camera lens. Francoise captured her visual impressions of New York from behind her Nikon, then devoted herself to hours in front of her computer and Photoshop, rendering her images into unique works of art. Herewith are her evocations of one of the world’s greatest cities. Please click on each image to see a larger view. * * * * * * Francoise Menebrode is a photographer,…

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August 4, 2016

Three Poems by Chrysa Keenon

Posted by Mike Rochester in Member Writing & Art

Wavelength Oh how I wish I was them The two humans linked together As one, pressing fingers together, creating The invisible spark Shooting across hearts, into starry eyes. You can practically see how Their heart beats sync together, until Every beat is the echo of another. She breathes out, He breathes in Her heart thumps, His replies, now connected In the same electrical wavelength Like man made magic, strummed together In the heavens above, reenacted on this earth Below. And as I see them falling farther Into the love I crave I want to hold Your hand. Cold Morning Here I sit in the early hours of the morning Listening to the birds squawk And the clocks clang The world is waking up— Who said mornings were quiet? Silence was not an…

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August 2, 2016

“Green Thumb” by Timothy Boudreau

Posted by Mike Rochester in Member Writing & Art

Roland looked both ways, then trotted across the street with the flower pots under his arm. He climbed the stairs to the porch along the back side of Sissy’s apartment building and set the pots down among everything else he’d brought—several flats of marigolds, pansies and petunias—then went to work, quickly dividing the flowers and arranging them in the pots, carefully watering each when he was finished and lining the five full colorful pots along the edge of the porch. He paused to catch his breath and frowned down at the backyard—the thick lawn choked with crabgrass, clover and dandelions, clumps of choke cherry bushes gnarled and bent as arthritic old bones. Inside Sissy had fruit punch and a bowl of chips ready for him on the kitchen table. “Thanks Dad, but Jesus you didn’t…

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August 1, 2016

It’s a Summer Romance – August Submissions

Posted by Mike Rochester in News

Something about the hot weather makes people come together. Maybe it’s all the time outdoors or the shedding of all those winter layers. From summer camp crushes to the “long walks on the beach” everyone claims they enjoy, summertime is a season of love. The Rolling Stones knew a thing or two about a “Summer Romance.” So do our members in this month’s issue. Here’s our “summer reading list.” Don’t worry, you won’t be quizzed on it the first week of school. Timothy Boudreau’s short story about unrequited love in mid-life hits hard at just how cruel the heart and its desires can be. If love is a language, perhaps not everyone can speak it. This month’s poetry comes from Chrysa Keenon, a Writing undergraduate student in Indiana. Her poems look at love as if…

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July 24, 2016

The Call of the Whale

Posted by Mike Rochester in News

It all started with a little getaway in March. My girlfriend and I had booked a cruise and, in anticipation, I was gathering books to bring along. Those of you who are book nerds can attest to the anxiety of trying to pick out just a few books to take in your luggage. I was weighing my options, no pun intended, when I came across Moby Dick, that hefty tome of classic American literature which had eluded my syllabi in both high school and college. Now as an “adult,” I thought it was time to give it a read. When I told my girlfriend of my choice, she sort of looked at me sideways, then said that’s a bold choice for a vacation read, especially one where we will be spending a week at sea….

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July 22, 2016

And the Winner is…

Posted by Mike Rochester in News

We’re excited to announce the winner of our Logo Design Contest! Congratulations to Dan Chu for submitting the winning design!! It captures the “round-the-clock access “of our virtual café while giving a nod to the effects of drinking coffee all day and all night. This is a big 3-inch in diameter adhesive sticker on circular vinyl, suitable for affixing to your car window, your bumper, your water bottle, your laptop or a porta-potty… you know, the usual sticker places. If you’re low on ideas and want to buck tradition, here are a few other worthy candidates: your Keurig (because, obviously.), your phone/tablet case (because let’s face it, who uses computers anymore?), your self-balancing scooter (because who drives cars anymore?), your coffee mug (because what’s better than an ad for an imaginary café on a real-life…

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July 11, 2016

“The Scars of Our Lives” a Short Film by Natalie Rodriguez

Posted by Mike Rochester in Web Video

Editor’s Note: Natalie explains the genesis of her short film: In one of my past college classes, my professor gave the statistics for the ongoing rates for anxiety, depression, and suicide amongst young adults. The concept of two strangers having more in common than they believe comes from my own struggle with anxiety and acute depression. It can be a lonely feeling and, sometimes, we convince ourselves that nobody seems to understand us, which was why I kept thinking about two survivors coming together for a story. The Scars of Our Lives is a story about two strangers, who realize that they share a similar past when one of them sees a scar on the other’s wrist. The story had originally started out as a short film, which is now online, as well as active in…

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July 8, 2016

“The Spirit Books” – An Art Series by Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord

Posted by Mike Rochester in Fine Art

Editor’s Note: Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord creates handmade books out of morsels of matter from the world around her. She says: “The Spirit Books bring together my love of the book and my response to the natural world that we see and to the invisible one that lies behind it. I find evidence of that deeper world not in wide vistas and scenes but in small objects that I gather. While I enjoy the expanse of the horizon as I walk along the beach, I am drawn to the scattered piles of shells and driftwood I see on the sand. As I walk down the street on a glorious fall day, I find myself looking down at the fallen stems of the chestnut rather than up at the blazing orange maples. It is in the subtle shifts…

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