Writers and Coffee and Giant Pink Logos and People with Cool Names like Jessica London-Shields

I frequent a coffee shop in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago called New Wave Coffee. It's a badass place. Here's their logo:

Pretty Queer, yeah?

Anyway, I dig the place. Serious agent of gentrification maybe, but that process has already been underway for quite a while in Logan Square, and New Wave is a great alternative to the heinous Starbucks on California, and I have the sense they are the kind of place that would be totally open to providing space for, say, a group of folks organizing around maintaining affordable housing in Logan Square ...they definitely seem very supportive of Logan Square's indie artist contingent.

They're maybe the first public space of their nature (like not part of a campus or anything) I've been in that seems to be dominated almost entirely by folks from my generation (born 1982), which seems kind of weird and makes me feel old-ish.

Anyway, I've gotten off topic... what I was going to write about was how all (or most) of the writers I'm friends with I've only "met" online, and how nice it would be to have a "real-life" writer-type community. I often find myself asking, "where do all the writers hang out together?" To which my partner says, "the writers don't hang out together sweetie, writers work alone," to which I say, "but no, I don't believe that. I imagine a public space where all the writers sit around and exchange bullshit philosophies and sleep with one another and create mini-dramas, and I want to hang out there, in that space."

Anyway, I think someone on staff at New Wave coffee must be a writer, because they've got random copies of lit journals like Gulf Coast and Triquarterly and Another Chicago Magazine lying around, and because they've got a pile of fliers for Featherproof Books. I have long suspected other writers may frequent New Wave Coffee, and have often sat in New Wave Coffee reading obscure indie lit-type books and literary journals in the hopes that one of these writers would see me reading something writerly and strike up a conversation.

This morning my suspicions were confirmed, when I sat down on the bus beside a lovely young woman named Jessica London-Shields, an actress and New Wave Coffee employee I first met when were both students at DePaul University. Here is a heashot of Jessica London-Shields I found on the internet. I am going to say the name Jessica London-Shields a couple more times just cuz it's awesome. Jessica London-Shields.

Jessica London-Shields confirmed that indeed many writer frequent New Wave Coffee, but that they are shy and disinclined to strike up conversations. They will probably not speak to me unless I speak to them. Unfortunately, talking to people I do not know is not something I'm particularly good at doing.

So... if you live in Chicago... and you write... and you somehow stumble upon this post... and you dig the New Wave Coffee... leave a comment.