Hi there! Litsa here. Geez Louise we got so many events lined up for this summer! Thank you for making us your neighborhood coffee shop. The dollars you spend at Dear Diary Coffee buy much more than coffee.

TLDR:

1. Rwanda Mwito espresso is now on bar in addition to our Dear Diary Medium Blend.

2. What do you think of our new Dear Diary tacos?

3. VEGAN & GLUTEN FREE! Wow! What a rare combo! We now largest VGF pastry menu as far as coffee shops go

4. X Y Zine event lineup: storytelling, artist markets, campouts, and more! This series goes through October.

5. X Y Zine short fiction contest winners have been chosen

6. We’re having at least two more writing / storytelling contests, and the prizes include Austin Film Festival passes!

7. New resident artist exhibit: meet Carey Atchison, Dax Norman, and John David Brown

1. Rwanda Mwito Espresso

Dear Diary Coffee is the only coffee roaster in town offer Rwandan single origin coffee (to my knowledge). We lucked out — Rwandan imports are risky because you can end up with beans that taste like raw potatoes. However! Our Rwandan coffee is nothing short of delightful. The tasting notes are very fruity—jolly rancher and aloe. Rwandan Single Origin is probably our best selling coffee, so we decided to offer it on bar. Woo hoo!

Oh! While I’m on the topic of coffee: we have coffee subscriptions now. ✌️

2. What do you think of our new tacos?

Do you ever get overwhelmed by big ol’ menus with lots of choice? I don’t! It’s actually kind of great having exactly one vegan go-to most of the restaurants I visit. The restaurant becomes synonymous with that dish. Easy!

On that note, I apologize to all the vegans out there. We’re dropping 4 taco choices on you. 😭 It’s like four kicks to the pants!

Even though I’m being a total taco jerk, I would still like to ask you for a favor. Haha! Will you let me know how they are? These tacos are for you, not me. I want to be sure you like them.

Okay, thanks!

3. Vegan AND Gluten Free! Wow!

We hit a goal, you guys! We went from having pretty much zero gluten free options to having… A LOT! AaaaAAAnnnd we have cookie subscriptions! I’m so proud of our cookies because they are soft forever. You eat one, and the theme song from Sanford and Son pops out.

• Chocolate covered cookie dough

• Chocolate chip cookies

• Double chocolate muffins

• Seasonal muffin #1

• Seasonal muffin #2

We leased kitchen space so we can bake some of our own pastries. I decided to focus on vegan + gluten free because there’s just not enough of it. We use our own equipment for gluten free baking, and we don’t bake gluten free and wheat products on the same shift. Gluten and wheat sensitive people should be A-okay. 👍

If you have really bad celiacs, though… well you know. You already live in a world where you can’t trust anything, and I’m really sorry about that. I feel for you! One day I hope to work out of a dedicated kitchen, but for now, I think Zucchini Kill and Pie Jacked are still your best bets.

4. X Y Zine event line-up

We are all about small press this summer: short stories, comics, anthologies, etc. What does this mean for you?

• We have lots of community events lined up already, and more coming. Head over to our X Y Zine page to RSVP for stuff so you don’t forget!

  • Short story contests

  • Artist meetups

  • Indie comics & zines market

  • Campfire storytelling at McKinney Falls, with optional bike packing and camping

  • Scott McCloud’s 24 Hour Comics Challenge

  • X Y Zine closing party

• We are building up our small press inventory. We still have tons of stickers on consignment, but now you’ll notice books written and illustrated by indie authors as well.

OPEN CALL #1 If you are an indie small press person, it’s not too late to apply to be a vendor at Dear Diary.

OPEN CALL #2 If you have an idea for a storytelling event, writers workshop, or anything related to X Y Zine, please reply to this email and let me know! I want to help you make it happen. 😀

Below: One of the things we did as part of the X Y Zine series was participate in Bike Story Night

5. X Y Zine fiction contest winners

James Frierson, Rebecca Bendheim, and Elizabeth Wolensky-Gadea won first, second, and third place in our short fiction contest called Four Queens. It was really hard to choose a first place winner; James and Rebecca wrote equally excellent stories, and they were so different, there was really no comparison! All three stories are pretty quick reads and very entertaining. We’ll link to audio recorded versions as soon as those are done. For now, you can read the stories here:

• The Four Queens by James Frierson – Fantasy fiction about an evil game

• The Four Queens of Tarot by Rebecca Bendheim – A story about coming out to your mom at Barton Springs!

• Nieta by Elizabeth Wolensky-Gadea – An immigration story

6. Two more contests coming up!

We bartered cookies and LOTS of coffee for two Austin Film Festival passes. Each pass is for all 8 days, and the festival is in October. We’re not sure what the prompt will be yet, but we’ll definitely let you know on Instagram when we think of one! Second and third place will have prizes as well. Follow us at @deardiary_coffee to stay in the loop.

7. New resident artists

We have a new show up! Well, it’s more like an art installation. Carey Atchison, John David Brown, and Dax Norman are all super prolific artists that have been active since at least the 90s. I got permission to photocopy their sketchbooks, and over the next few months, I’ll be tacking more and more and more pages to our walls.

Below: Dax Norman standing in front of the current installation

Artwork below, from left to right: Carey Atchison, John David Brown, Dax Norman

That’s it!

Thanks for reading to the end! And again, thank you for being part of our little artsy fartsy coffee community. <3

Cheers,

Litsa