• coffee,  desserts,  fiction,  food,  wine,  writing

    Treats for the Soul and Stomach

    Tonight I have Critique Group. I am lucky to be a part of a group of five fabulous women writers who get together every other week to weigh in on one another’s projects. We are bold: we blog and send our work out into the world for publication. We are brave: we read one another’s manuscripts without the shine of extensive revision (we put the “rough” in rough draft). And we are hungry: hungry for a place in the literary world, yes, but also physically hungry. We show up, exhausted and starving, after our various day job in the worlds of law, motherhood, sales, and office administration. Often one or…

  • coffee,  food,  local

    Go Ahead, Call Me a Cheesehead

    A new food magazine, Edible Madison, threw its launch party on Saturday. Edible Madison is a quarterly publication that celebrates the local foods of Southern Wisconsin and the people who grow, produce, and prepare them. Free copies of the debut issue can be found at various locations around town, including Ground Zero Coffee and Fromagination cheese shop, which is where the launch party was held. While chatting with writers, farmers,  and small business owners, we snacked on a delectable variety of Wisconsin cheeses. Some of my favorites were the soft lavender and honey Driftless sheep’s milk cheese from Hidden Springs Creamery, Spanish Manchego-style Gran Queso from Roth Käse in Monroe,…

  • art,  coffee,  local

    Gallery Night

    Tonight is Madison’s semiannual Gallery Night. Get out there and support your local artists! And if you don’t like art, go for the drinks. You don’t need to be a highfalutin fancy pants to attend. Artists’ work will be shown at coffee shops, museums, and even pet stores. Here’s a listing of all the events around town: http://www.mmoca.org/events/gallerynight/index.php I will be attending an exhibit of artist and fellow writer, Juliette Crane, at EVP Coffee Shop at 1250 E. Washington Avenue. Ghost Town Council will be providing live music, so stop on in between 5:00 and 9:00 if you are in the neighborhood. Even if you aren’t, it will be worth…