Robert Glück founded the San Francisco-based New Narrative movement with Bruce Boone, Camille Roy, and others in the early 1980s, in reaction to Language poetry. New Narrative writing celebrates LGBTQ identity, autobiography, poetic disjunction, critical theory, gossip, pop culture, fable, and sexuality. Other writers associated with New Narrative include Steve Abbott, Kathy Acker, Dodie Bellamy, Mary Burger, Dennis Cooper, Sam D’Allesandro, Kevin Killian, and Gail Scott.

This collection of stories by Robert Glück was originally published in 1982 in San Francisco by Four Seasons Foundation under the title Elements of a Coffee Service.