Coffee Shop Writing in a Networked Age

Today the author drove roughly ninety miles to Caffetto, his favorite cafe in Minneapolis, an establishment with wireless Internet, rich black coffee, tables with access to electrical outlets, and a ping-pong table in the basement. He sit alone, typing on his MacBook Air, sipping on coffee, and listening to the conversations around him and to the rockabilly playing through Caffetto's speakers. The clientele today is mixed: a few people working alone on their laptops (some with headphones, some without), some reading books silently, and a few small groups chatting lively. He have long been a coffee shop writer. Although he had a quiet apartment in grad school with only one roommate (in the same program), and although he had a fellowship that provided an office away from the louder, cluttered graduate student cubicles, he still avoided campus for the actual writing of his dissertation, only trekking onto campus for teaching, office hours, meetings, and errands.