There’s a new pair of contestants every 48 hours. Click here to read and vote. Your participation makes our contest more fun for everyone, so please jump on in! And here’s what to expect over the next few days. Literary Round 1 (Mindy Windholz vs. Dee Home) Genre Round 1 (Bill McStowe vs. Joanna Ghazali) Poetry Round 1 (Judy Wood vs. Annie Tventenstra) Literary Round 2 (Mike Mavilia vs. Jack Rochester) Genre Round 2 (Beth Roper vs. Peggy McAloon) Literary Round 3 (Natalie Rodruigues vs. William Cook) Poetry Round 2 (Dee Home vs. Suman Chatterjee) Literary Round 4 (Natalie Rodruigues vs. William Cook — another one) Genre Round 4 (Joanna Ghazali vs. Chelsea Keenon) Poetry Round 3 (Alison Whittenbeck vs. Michael Larrain) Literary Round 5 (Jane Ward vs. Jake Simons) Poetry Round 4 (Judith Manzor vs….

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Whoa, what happened to those lazy, crazy days of summer? Or “Indian Summer,” that Fall event that it’s politically incorrect to be called? They just flew by, and here we are, us New Englanders, bracing for a cold, snowy winter. But at least we still have a glimmer of hope for a colorful leaf-turning October and, of course, Halloween. So with those thoughts in mind, we plan to bring you some season-changing creativity month. We baristas are trying to select works we’ve received that link in on an October-y theme without resorting to outright horror, ghosts, spooks and trick-or-treating. We’ll get you something new each week in fiction, poetry, art, podcasts, and – NEW!- video. If you want to pumpkin-up your java before you sit down with our offerings, by all means do so! But……

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Great news from Jason Brick, our Anthology Barista, who’s been working hand over fist to get this incredible Fictional Cafe Anthology Contest going for your favorite authors and artists. It begins tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 26! Here’s a brief intro, with more details tomorrow.  Greetings! At long last, the Fictional Café writing contest is launching! Here’s how it works. For the next month and a half, each weekday will feature a contest between two submissions: fiction, poetry, and art. When it a contestant’s day to compete, they will receive a link in an email. Contestants click that link and are taken to a website with their story and another contestant’s story. FC Coffee Club members, FC visitors and just about anybody else you can think of gets to vote for which work they like the best….

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This month’s issue is about hope for the future. Wherever you are, whatever is going on, two things are certain: there will be strife and amidst that strife there will be hope. We can’t always see it right away, but it comes in many forms. We think this month’s member work will fuel some hope for a better tomorrow, whatever that may look like for you. Whether it is the wide-eyed optimism of a child’s writing, the reflective joy of a long-time love affair, the realism of a budding artist,  the coming-of-age perceptiveness of a young writer or the commitment to servitude that one’s work can inspire within one’s own community, we believe these works of creative expression can give our members a little hope in the unseen. Fiction A big welcome to our youngest…

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Please pardon us for snitching the title of William Faulkner’s momentous novel about race relations in the 1930s South, but it’s on our minds a lot as we continue to see ugly racism rampant in our country. Which, of course, begs the question posed in the gorgeous song, “Why Can’t We Live Together“, performed by Diana King and Kyle Eastwood. We hope you’ll find interesting and provocative aspects of what’s good about a diverse culture in our offerings this month. That’s about it, save for the more obvious metaphor of our contributors shedding some light into your own personal August with our bountiful creative offerings. Fiction. Sandor Blum has given us a short story about an American Jew who encounters latent – and perhaps blatant – discrimination in “My Last Night in Paris.” We also…

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Hi all! Just a quick note about our fabulous writing contest. We’ve had a lot of emails in the past few days, all of which run along the same basic theme: Dear (somebody) I really want to submit a story, but it’s not perfect yet. Can I please have a few extra days to finish it up? Thanks (somebody) We’re not monsters. We get that sometimes art takes a little longer than expected. Because of this, we’re rolling the whole contest forward a month or so.   As of right now, the deadline to submit stories to our contest is Friday, August 18th. After that, we’re going to be monsters. At 0001 on the 19th, submissions are closed forever. You have an extra month. Show us what you can do with it.    

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