Today with a dash of cinnamon

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This weekend I saw a dear friend of mine who had just finished reading my manuscript (Update: The Silence of Trees is with my agent, who is shopping it around to the next round of publishers), and she shared with me an observation that no one has ever brought to my attention:

TSOT has a lot of coffee in it.

This made me laugh, AND take pause. It was certainly not intentional, but once I thought about it, I could see that coffee was often present: the ritual of a morning cup, the luxury of coffee during WWII, the comfort of coffee with a dear friend, and so on.

How very interesting and not altogether surprising.


"After all, coffee is bitter, a flavor from the forbidden and dangerous realm."
— Diane Ackerman

Published by Valya

Valya Dudycz Lupescu has been making magic with food and words for more than 20 years, incorporating folklore from her Ukrainian heritage with practices that honor the Earth. She’s a writer, content developer, instructor, and mother of three teenagers. Valya is the author of MOTHER CHRISTMAS, THE SILENCE OF TREES, and the founding editor of CONCLAVE: A Journal of Character. Along with Stephen H. Segal, she is the co-author of FORKING GOOD: An Unofficial Cookbook for Fans of The Good Place and GEEK PARENTING: What Joffrey, Jor-El, Maleficent, and the McFlys Teach Us about Raising a Family (Quirk Books), and co-founder of the Wyrd Words storytelling laboratory. Valya earned her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her poetry and prose have been published in anthologies and magazines that include, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Kenyon Review, Culture, Gargoyle Magazine, Gone Lawn, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium. You can find her on Twitter @valya and on Mastodon.social @valya

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5 thoughts on “Today with a dash of cinnamon”

  1. traveler64 says:

    Oh, it’s GREAT! I’m glad to hear that your agent is taking another crack at it. It’s a wonderful story.

    Too much coffee? LOL. Mine has too much smoking, I’ve been told. Everyone is lighting up, puffing and looking for the next smoke. Ha! Never smoked in my life, so I have no idea…

    Okay… what is TSOT? (probably when you tell me, I’ll slap my forehead.)

    PS. Oh, that was STUPID! It’s the title of your book. DUH… I’ve been like that for the past two weeks. Bear with me.

  2. traveler64 says:

    My novel would be TWOP. Hmmm….

  3. charyvna says:

    LOL Yes, it’s the title. No worries, that’s the kind of week I’ve been having as well.
    🙂

  4. focals says:

    I love the picture you attached to the post. I can’t wait to read this book.

  5. zuricrow says:

    I love that! I’m having coffee as I type!

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