Two quick announcements!
1.) My short story Desert Motel was published in Bristol Noir this week- Read it Here
2.) Inspired by a Substack post by Sunday Ripley, I set up Peach Parchment’s “Buy Me a Coffee” page. This is a way to support this project without putting any of the writing behind a paywall.
If you feel like tossing a few bucks my way, it’ll help support further growth—including research, and fueling some bigger projects on the horizon (including interviews!—one’s already done and burning a hole in my… computer. More on that soon).
If you're interested, the orange link below will take you there.
But truly, there’s no pressure. The best way to support Peach Parchment is to read and enjoy. Thanks!
Let’s talk about coffee! & Desert Motel
PART I: ON COFFEE
Buy Me a Coffee has inspired me to think about some of the most memorable cups of coffee I’ve had in my life:
When I was 12, I helped a theatre company unload the set for their summer show. We had to arrive at 6:00 a.m., and I was barely awake. A___ who organized the load-in had brought a box of coffee and said I should drink some.
I poured a cup, took a sip and grimaced. A____ said: “Put cream and sugar in until it tastes good.” That was my first cup of coffee.
One morning in 10th grade, I was being driven to school; I used to drink those bottled Starbucks Frappuccinos. The car went over a bump at the exact moment I took a swallow of the Frappuccino.
The sudden jerk of the bump sent the coffee up my nasal passage instead of down my throat— my eyes started to sting— and I realized the Frappuccino was leaking from my tear ducts. I was crying coffee.
At 19, I got my tonsils taken out. I couldn’t eat for about 48-72 hours, except for water. I broke my fast going to the Skylark Diner in Vestal, New York. I got a coffee, and when I took a sip, it tasted incredible. I was with J___ and they said:
“Your taste buds have grown back because you haven’t been drinking coffee for three days.” “Is that true?” I asked.
“I think so.” J___ said.
I don’t know if that’s true, but that was the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had.
During finals in undergrad, I was incredibly stressed trying to finish everything by the end of the semester.
I listened to a podcast about coffee. It discussed how to avoid coffee making you jittery. The podcast recommended adding turmeric, coconut oil, or olive oil to a cup of coffee to remove that “jittery” feeling. I was so stressed that I decided to mix all three together in the same cup. This wasn’t the worst cup of coffee I ever had, but I’ll never do that specific combo again. (I didn’t feel jittery though…)
I was rehearsing a scene from Chekhov’s The Bear.
My scene partner K____ and I only had twenty minutes to squeeze this in between classes; we didn’t have a room to use, so we rehearsed on a stairwell. The theatre collections office had a coffee machine where I’d grab a coffee every day. The office was out of both sugar and cream/milk. I was going to forego any coffee entirely when K___ said: “Isn’t some coffee better than no coffee?”. I drank it black, and a switch flipped. I only drink it black now.
My latest cup was cafe Bustelo, brewed at home in a drip coffee machine, in a “Your Mom’s House” podcast coffee mug. I drank it black. The mug rested next to my laptop as I wrote this.
PART II: ON DESERT MOTEL
The second half of this I am going to share three influences that inspired my short story Desert Motel.
Sam Shepard’s play Fool for Love was adapted into a film by Robert Altman in 1985. While I love the play, I think the film is so squirrely and strange. There’s something about a motel off the highway that captures my imagination- and Fool for Love started it. Desert Motel sprang out of my thinking “what might have happened in one of the other rooms at the Fool for Love motel?”
I love 1950s sci-fi movies.
Robot Monster, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, and It Came from Outer Space.
A lot of these films are set in the desert, mainly because it doesn’t cost any money to film in the middle of nowhere. Being “on location” gives them a special punch, you get great visuals by being in a natural environment. These movies always make me wonder: “What things is the desert hiding away?”
Louis L’Amour is a writer of Westerns. He wrote over 100 novels, and 250 short stories. This book Education of a Wandering Man is his memoir. It details his journey as a young man jumping from job to job, before becoming a full-time writer. A majority of this memoir details his discovering the hundreds of books that built up his life.
A key moment is when L’Amour gets as gig as a prospector in the Mojave desert. He takes the job because the shack where he’ll live for the season has an extensive library. In no time, L’Amour’s loneliness sets in— he’s working completely alone— and he switches between the wonder and horror of being alone in nature.
There’s a passage in this that instantly made me go: “I need to write a horror story in the desert” and thus Desert Motel was born.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Thanks for reading—
If you’d like to support Peach Parchment via “Buy Me a Coffee”
Here’s the link again:
There’s some fun announcements coming up. I can’t wait to share them.
In the meantime—
have a coffee.
See you next week.
April 2025.