Editor’s Note: Kathy Parker is a Fictional Café member, poet and Instagram All-Star. She wrote this piece about her work in the writing field on her blog. We loved her honesty, courage and hope she inspires to fellow creative folks so much, we asked if she would share it with our community. We hope you enjoy her piece. * * * Creativity Matters: Jumping Without A Parachute With the year still fresh and shiny I’ve been thinking lately about my goals and direction for the coming 12 months. After much thought, I have decided I will no longer continue to write for Elephant Journal. While having that kind of exposure can be of benefit, I can simply no longer advocate an organisation who do not pay their writers, yet still demand exclusive ownership and rights…

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Our friend and publishing colleague, Michael Boezi at Control Mouse Media, has offered Fictional Cafe members an interesting opportunity to help you focus your creative efforts, the results of which he is going to share with us. Michael and Jack know each other from book publishing days and reconnected at the recent Independent Publishers of New England conference, where Michael gave an outstanding, SRO presentation. Here, in his words, is his enticement for you to take the short survey. If you’re interested, please jump right on this. Hi Fictional Cafe Members, Creatives have unique challenges when trying to market and sell their art. Over the years, I’ve seen many writers, musicians, and visual artists struggle to build a business – even if they produce great work.   In my experience, the issue always seems to boil…

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Our frequent contributor and friend Michael Larrain is, first and foremost, a poet. And, in some of his verse, he is  a surrealist poet. Thus it’s quite natural for him to comment on surrealistic poetry. We found this short article very interesting and hope you will, too. Notes on Surrealistic Poetry by Michael Larrain To do any kind of serious writing work, you need—simultaneously—to sink both into yourself, your own torments and obsessions, and the world’s multifarious irresistible corruptions, to learn the savor and cost of every vice and the weight of every disappointment, and at the same time to rise up in great joy, to rise and rise always like bubbles in a glass of beer. The tension between the sinking and the rising holds you in place, listening to your own mind, overhearing…

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There are essentially two schools of thought about how to become a writer. The older European school says read, read, read. The newer American school says, go to college – in particular a graduate creative writing program – and study to be a writer. Emily Harstone (a nom de plume) wrote the following article, “Why Writers Need To Read To Be Writers” for the AuthorsPublish website [if you’re a writer and you aren’t a member, you should be]. Following AuthorsPublish guidelines, here is an excerpt from Emily’s article. Go to the article link above to read it in its entirety. “When I was a child I read one book every day. And by a book, I mean a one hundred to two hundred page novel. Usually it was part of a series. Often it was nothing that would…

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