I love coffee. If you have known me anytime during the past 10-15 years, you probably know that already. I have coffee t-shirts, coffee-themed coffee mugs, three coffee makers at the house, and countless half-finished bags of beans collecting in our cabinets, much to Gina’s chagrin. When I see a new single-origin batch or colorful bag of beans at Trader Joe’s, I want to snap it up and try it out right away, even though half the time they are too dark for my taste. In grad school, the physics department even had its own espresso machine, which I was in charge of for a period of time until my dissertation absorbed all of my time.
So it should be no surprise that I also wrote a coffee story. The first draft was probably finished sometimes in 2017, in between bouts of dissertation work, research travel, and hikes in Hawaii. It has some of that academic paranoia and ever-persistent imposter syndrome that haunts people working in academic research, or those pursuing the ever-more-elusive ‘academic career.’ Despite my enthusiasm, this story was not a success. I workshopped it repeatedly with my writing group at TL;DR Press and mostly got positive feedback. But time and time again I would submit it and get rejected. Looking through my drive, it went through seven major iterations, was a flash fiction piece at one point, and even changed titles a couple of times. But last winter I got good news – someone wanted to publish it!
If you’re curious about my thoughts on coffee, academia, the art world, or really just looking for a read that’s not too long, it’s available at Suburban Witchcraft Magazine, together with some artwork I photoshopped for the piece in their 11th issue, around page 182. Let me know what you think!
