Howard Shultz and I were partners once. The Starbucks Coffee Company in my historical fiction novel Tripio was, in real life, far and away the best workplace I have experience, before or since. There have been a lot more workplaces since I hung up my apron than I care to admit. My point is, it …
Books for the Starbucks fan on your list A while back I read How Starbucks Saved my Life by Michael Gates Gill. In the interest of full disclosure, I read it out of curiosity, as opposed to organic intellectual interest. In other words, I read it to see how that memoir compared to my historical …
The story of a coffee house Tripio opens with a prologue, which was the suggestion of my editor. He felt the book needed something to grab the reader right away. My immediate reactionary, immature and arrogant thought was that Tripio is great and that its greatness demands patience! Those thoughts did not travel from my …
“Who would read a novel Starbucks novel?” I asked the facilitator of my “Author Development” class. Her answer would be important to me. After all, I had just written one. She looked my way and made eye contact for a moment. She then looked out above my head towards the wall behind me …
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 …
. 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 …
. ‘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 …
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 …
“This can’t be happening.” It was nearly dinner time when the realization struck me. There would be no coffee available tomorrow morning. But, indeed it was true. You see, I was visiting my family in Ohio and the house I was spending the night in was being renovated. Not in a …
“Just dash something down if you see a blank canvas staring at you with a certain imbecility” Painters block? I take this blog seriously. I know I have come to use humor more frequently as the blog goes on. However I believe that is an indication of growing confidence in the blog itself. The humor, …
Coffee Novelist 
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