Coffee Novelist

I don’t write about coffee, I write about what coffee does. How it collects us, unites us and affects us.

 Has Starbucks gone to pieces? Starbucks today and the Starbucks I worked at in Chicago and set my historical fiction novel Tripio in, would have a hard time recognizing each other. For one, there are about 25,000 more stores and 200,000 more employees around than when I wore the green apron. Those numbers tell the …

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.   Thoughts on Barista to Boardroom   “It felt like the circle had softly closed, like it was all meant to happen exactly that way. I could now let go and move forward, embracing life as a former partner.’ These couple of sentences conclude Christne McHugh’s’ memoir, From Barista to Boardroom.  In my historical …

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. ‘He reminded us that the ambitions for Starbucks were focused on large and global company growth.”   – from Barista to Boardroom recounting Howard Schultz announcing Starbuck’s IPO       “I look down the now quiet tree lined street and wonder why it wasn’t enough? Why wasn’t a record breaking weekend at store …

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“It is odd to realize how little we know ourselves.” -Oscar Wilde “What is sometimes simply needed is just a gap of pure time, an insulating period, between the making of your art and the time your share it with others.” – Art & Fear -Observations on the Perils and Rewards of Art Making   …

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  A troubling thing has been happening since I published my historical fiction novel, Tripio. I have been getting asked quite a bit the question: “What is a tripio?”  This question was first asked me at a class on memoir writing at the Indiana Writers Center. No one in the class with me knew what …

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A book I wrote, a book I am reading This year Starbucks is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary. I thought it was time to mark the occasion by reading books on Starbucks. I have written and published an historical fiction novel called Tripio, set at a Chicago Starbucks in 1992. Firstly, my comparative study of Starbucks …

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