Banned Books On-line
What's café life without a book to read? And, since cafés and free-thinking are synonymous, what better to read while lounging here at The Nearby than books that other people don't want you to read, because those books upset them? If you've forgotten your dog-eared copy of Henry Miller's Opus Pistorum, browse the offerings of Banned Books On-line: Voltaire, Joyce, Whitman, and countless others, something to offend everyone -- perhaps even you.

Online Books Page
That site's a mere subsection of the University of Pennsylvania's Online Books Page, which as of early 2005 portals "20,000 free books on the Web." More added every day.

Office for Intellectual Freedom
Of course, you'll also want to keep tabs on what the Thought Police are concentrating their attentions on nowadays. And there's no better source for that information than the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, with up-to-the-minute news on what irate citizens and decency-obsessed school-board members are stripping from the library shelves to protect our children from real life even as we speak.

The Life and Works of Herman Melville
If you prefer simply to immerse yourself in the life and work of a major writer, visit the generically named The Life and Works of Herman Melville. It offers links to the full on-line texts of much of Melville's writing, plus connections to Melville discussion groups, biographical material, Melville-related current events -- even discourse on whether or not Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne went all the way. Perhaps someone should have gotten the late Melville descendant Paul Metcalf (Will West, Genoa) and Hawthorne descendant Alison Hawthorne Deming (Science and Other Poems) together to collaborate on a project imagining that relationship.

Alibris.com
We can't seem to open the the front door, much less leave the house, without coming back with a book -- sometimes a new one, usually a used one -- that somehow just jumped into our shoulderbag. They come in the mail. We find them in boxes on the street. People give them to us. And, of course, we buy them, at yard sales, in thrift shops and second-hand bookstores. Speaking of which: Just about any title you're looking for can be found through Alibris.com, which allows you to search the book dealers on the 'Net and get comparative prices on whatever book you're after. Abebooks.com is an online consortium of 12,000 small book dealers with a combined inventory of 50 million books. Bibliofind, newly allied with Amazon.com, does the same thing. Between the two, you'll locate the next addition to your library at the lowest possible price.

Oyster Boy Review
And what's an afternoon in a café without a literary magazine to browse? Herewith a few of our favorites: Oyster Boy Review offers itself, a fine print and on-line literary journal, plus bibliographies and other material on several perennial café literary favorites: expatriate Harry Crews and the late barfly Charles Bukowski.

March Street Press Online
March Street Press Online offers two journals, Parting Gifts and Fatal Embrace. There's good stuff aplenty in their current and back issues.

Beatrice
Originating as a Gen-X 'zine, then going online, and since December 2003 a blog -- that's Ron Hogan's Beatrice, full of acerb, astute commentary on the literary scene and the book biz. Plus interviews with the likes of Ilan Stavans. Try it, you'll like it.

rejectioncollection.com
The writing life ain't for sissies. Feeling rejected because no one wants your work? Misery loves company, yes? Then head for rejectioncollection.com, where you'll find a terrific assortment of real rejection letters that artists, photographers, creative writers and others have received from galleries, magazines, artists' colonies, and other sources. Read 'em and weep -- or laugh. You're also welcome to post your own favorites from your personal collection of nay-saying. As this site's Catherine Wald (who bills herself as "President and Chief Rejecutive Officer") proposes, "It may not make you feel any better, but it's better than banging your head against the wall."

National Writers Union
YEW-nyun! YEW-nyun! YEW-nyun! Ye Executive Director of the Café is a Founding Member and member in good standing of the National Writers Union, and if you're a serious, publishing writer you should join too. They've created new divisions for creative writers and academic writers as well. The great health plan -- including eyeglasses and dental work -- is worth the dues all by itself, but this outfit will fight for your rights across the board, and supports a hard-working Grievance Committee to tackle specific situations for you, at no cost. So sign up and tell your rights-grabbing editors: You can't scare me; I'm stickin' to the union . . .

The New York Times
Speaking of rights-grabbing editors: the NWU sued The New York Times to prevent assorted attempts at strong-arming free-lance contributing writers into relinquishing all rights to their work for no extra payment -- and won. You certainly won't find any discussion of that bullying frontal attack on writers' survival discussed in the sedate pages of the influential New York Times Sunday Book Review Section. Fortunately, however, much of the paper is now on-line; so you can keep up with it without subsidizing it. All of the current week'sBook Review section is posted there -- along with daily and Sunday book reviews from 1980 on, assorted feature essays, audio clips of readings and more. Bonus: those stacks of unread Sunday Magazines, Arts & Leisure Sections, and News of the Week in Reviews don't clutter up the bathroom reading rack for months, and you don't have to feel ecologically guilty for dumping 4/5ths of the paper into the trash bin as you leave the newsstand.

American Society of Journalists and Authors
Whether you're a working writer or an aspiring one, you need to keep abreast of what's happening in a once-static but now rapidly changing field. The best way to do so is to be aware of -- and, if you're qualified, to seek membership in -- the medium's professional organizations. Certainly one of those you should consider is the American Society of Journalists and Authors, whose website offers a wealth of information for all visitors, plus special features accessible to members.

The Art Deadlines List
Writers: Richard Gardner's project, The Art Deadlines List, contains announcements of literary prizes, writers'-colony residencies, calls for manuscripts, and much more of value. Go on, roll the dice.

The World's First Collaborative Sentence
Taking a break from the dutiful café-goer's task of writing in your own journal? Add a few words to The World's First Collaborative Sentence, an ongoing project initiated by Douglas Davis.