April 28, 2021

Friday on FC: Our First Live Webinar with Dan Blank!

It’s almost here! This Friday, April 30th, at 2pm Eastern we will be hosting a webinar for writers who want to learn how to create an author platform and market their books. Dan Blank will be presenting on various topics. Check out the description below! Here’s the link to join in the webinar (Meeting ID: 863 9109 4393). An Introduction to Author Platform and Finding Your Ideal Readers Dan Blank has helped thousands of writers develop their author platforms, launch their books, and create marketing strategies that work. In this one-hour webinar, he will share his methodology for how to develop your author platform, market your writing, and find a sense of joy and fulfillment in the process. He will discuss social media, finding your ideal readers, how to present yourself online, and the key elements…

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April 27, 2021

“Head Space,” Poems by Ted Millar

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Head Space I still know my childhood best friend’s telephone number even though I’ll never dial it again. I’ve taught certain poems so many times I can recite them on demand, yet some claim that has no practical application. Most find my ability to name the American presidents by years in office amusing before urging me to remember “something important” (like last night’s winning Powerball numbers?). I embrace my savant-esque ability to rattle off every Bob Dylan album and the songs featured on them. I prefer not to cram my head with empty crap on the radio and celebrity gossip, thank you very much. Want something proofread, I’m the resident grammarian, but if it’s scores to last night’s game, I suggest turning on ESPN. I’ve actually read the whole Constitution, not cherry-picked excerpts. Ditto the Declaration of Independence, the United Nations’ Declaration of…

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April 26, 2021

This Friday: Live Webinar for Writers on FC!!

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

This Friday, April 30th, at 2pm Eastern we will be hosting a webinar for writers who want to learn how to create an author platform and market their books. Dan Blank will be presenting on various topics. Check out the description below! Stay tuned for the link for the webinar later this week. An Introduction to Author Platform and Finding Your Ideal Readers Dan Blank has helped thousands of writers develop their author platforms, launch their books, and create marketing strategies that work. In this 1-hour webinar, he will share his methodology for how to develop your author platform, market your writing, and find a sense of joy and fulfillment in the process. He will discuss social media, finding your ideal readers, how to present yourself online, and the key elements of book launches. A Q&A…

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April 25, 2021

April Edition of “The Break from HOKAIC”

Posted by Mike Rochester in News

Jason’s Notes From the Lab… This month I tried something new. I’d heard about other writers doing it, and tried one as a sort of rough draft to some success. I’m sharing the details and results here with you, so if you want to give it a shot you know how. Who is this for: authors with self-published books and a mailing list. What is this: a giveaway sweepstakes to gather new emails for your list The Details: Here’s what I did. I found a bunch of other authors with mailing lists who write in genres related to mine. We all kicked in $25 for prize money and advertising. Our genre was safety, specifically family safety, and we gathered a library of 13 safety books, plus some supplies and even a AAA membership for the prize bundle. For…

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April 24, 2021

“The Sojourn” by Daniel Orrett

Posted by Ruby Fink in Audio Arts

Welcome back to the next segment of our Sci-Fi Month! This week we’re covering “The Sojourn” an audio drama by Daniel Orrett! The Tantalus Cluster is the fragile cradle of humanity. Adrift in the divide between galaxies and surrounded by the vast emptiness of the intergalactic void, the Tantalus Cluster is the only home humanity has ever known. Desperate and facing starvation, humanity’s only hope is a strange nebula that has suddenly appeared beyond the edge of the cluster. Its shifting clouds may hide a source of salvation for the people of Tantalus, but time is running out. Signing on to the ambitious Avalon Expedition, Privateer Captain Cassandra Farren will face the shadows of both the past and future as she leads her small crew into the unknown in a last, desperate bid for the…

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April 21, 2021

Jennifer Green & Lorraine Martindale: New Baristas

Posted by Mike Rochester in News

Please join us in welcoming our two newest Baristas, Jennifer Green and Lorraine Martindale! We are excited to add these two talented editors to our team. You may have noticed their contributions already, but if not, check them out here and here. You can learn a little more about them on our Baristas page or just keep reading! About Jennifer:Jennifer is our Publications Barista. An English teacher by day and freelance editor by night and weekend, she loves helping writers find their voices and refine their craft. In addition to completing the editing certificate through the University of Chicago Graham School in 2020, Jennifer holds degrees in psychology and English from North Carolina State University, Meredith College, and the University of Nottingham (UK). When she’s not teaching or deep into a developmental edit, she can be…

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April 18, 2021

“Rat Road,” A Short Story by Paul Negri

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Because I had no father, no brothers or sisters, no aunts or uncles, and no friends, and was scared of everything, Mom was worried about me. “I’m worried about you, Tommy,” she would say, and she looked it. And that worried me. She was all I had, my lifeline, and even at nine I knew a frayed rope was not the best lifeline, though I did not think of it in such fancy metaphoric terms, as being a child I had no need for metaphors. What I knew was instinctive, a heightened sense of risk that permeated my day to day and night to night life. Like me, Mom’s father left before she was born and her mother (who I later came to call the Unknown Grandma) gave Mom up for adoption, which launched her into a carousel of foster care for several years. But unlike me, Mom was not afraid of anything, as far as I could tell, and I imagined she never had been. …

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April 15, 2021

“Botticelli’s Oranges,” The Poetry of Reed Venrick

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

Botticelli’s Oranges In an Italian port village near where the boy called “Allessandro” grew up, some thought his circles drawn must be made with a mechanical compass, so round, so fine, there in the Mediterranean sand, where Botticelli grew into youth, wandering through the orange and lemon groves of the Italian littoral; even then sketching lines of muscular trunks and extending arms branching into fingers of leaves, mixing into colors of rinds of reds and yellows. But when youthful fingers grew long enough to put a brush to canvas, he tinted the precious fruit In Madonna with Child and Angels, where she sat under blooming orange trees in spring, for the artist used orange trees to symbolize the virgin, because as he said: among fruits, only oranges are evergreen, “if one sees the mean.” So…

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April 12, 2021

“Kali,” A Short Story by Emily Chaff

Posted by Mike Rochester in Writing

“Is everything okay here?” “Well, it’s fine. But, can I ask you, I mean, I don’t know if you can do anything about it, but—” Kali waited beside the table, her fist tightening around the handle of the coffee pot she held. She couldn’t care less what the problem was. She wondered if her customers realized she was contractually obligated to ask them if they were enjoying their meal and if she could get them anything else. And with this guy, it was always something. He came in every morning the second the door was open. Breakfast started at 7am and she dreaded seeing his face peering through the glass, without fail, at 6:55. He sat himself at the same four-top table, table 32, and set himself up like a king holding court. Extra napkins….

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April 10, 2021

“A Most Clever Girl,” by Jasmine A. Stirling, A Book Review

Posted by Mike Rochester in Book Reviews

In Jasmine A. Stirling’s debut children’s book, A Most Clever Girl: How Jane Austen Discovered Her Voice, she paints a kid-friendly portrait of the literary life of Jane Austen. As a rule-breaking and imaginative child, young Jane was to become one of the first female novelists—and a massively successful one at that. A Most Clever Girl highlights Austen’s determination in the face of adversity in a time when a woman writing books was simply preposterous and the only roles women had in literature (“fluff” she calls it) were one-dimensional. Focusing on Austen’s childhood, Stirling implores children to see themselves in the character enthralled in a world of writing stories in her study, performing plays with her large family in their barn and staging dramatic readings of her work. Young readers also learn about finding their…

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