Editor’s Note: The following story by up-and-coming journalist RACHEL STAMFORD was published by Nicholson Student Media on its website NSM Today for UCF by UCF on April 8, 2017. Her story profiled our local writing group Writers of Central Florida or Thereabouts.
As the sun sets on a Wednesday evening, twenty-or-so patrons file in to a small Winter Park coffeehouse. The walls are lined with bookshelves and the ceiling is adorned with colorful lanterns. Fairy lights crawl up the cement walls and over the bar in the back of the performance room. The bartenders serve wine and lattes alike under the menu written on a chalk board with names like Best Boring Waffle and Vote for Pedro.
While there is usually a featured writer slated to speak on the schedule, a clipboard left on a table near the stage offers last minute sign-ups to anyone who wants to perform throughout the night. The writers range from UCF affiliates to complete strangers and patrons of the coffeehouse.
One may see retired UCF math professor Mike Taylor reading his own science fiction. Writing and rhetoric major Ross Ellison is developing his novel, and asks the audience for critiques on his characters. A young man in a hoodie who calls himself “J” requests no one takes his picture, joking he has some “alleged outstanding warrants or whatever.” J. Bradley shows off copies of his newest novel “Jesus Christ, Boy Detective”. Published writer Shasta Grant stays in the back of the room and reconnects with her old dance coach; someone she ran in to at the venue just by chance, as they haven’t seen each other in over a decade.