Calling all New England writers and book enthusiasts! This Saturday, December 7th, the Association of Rhode Island Authors is holding its annual writer’s conference: the Rhode Island Author Expo. This will be the third year the Fictional Café will be attending the ARIA Expo. Stop by our table and chat with Jack, Mike and Honorah. Tell us about your creative work, your book interests or your favorite coffee brews. We always love meeting our members in person! You can enter to win one of our giveaways while you’re there. We’ll even have copies of our hot-off-the-presses Anthology for sale. At this all-day event, you’ll find writing workshops, tables with local authors and resource groups for writers. Come talk shop with other writers, get tips on crafting engaging dialogue or simply pick up a few holiday…
Please Welcome Mbizo Chirasha, Our First Poet in Residence
It’s a great honor to introduce Mr. Mbizo Chirasha to our Coffee Club members. We met Mr. Chirasha through Poets & Writers magazine when he sent us an email recognizing our efforts. After reviewing his credentials and reading, “I am a capable literary and cultural arts worker. My role and purpose is to shift perceptions, inform and educate society through my writings and literary arts activism projects,” it was evident we could ignore neither Mbizo’s internationally acclaimed poetry nor his extraordinary activism. After discussion among us baristas, we decided Mbizo should be offered a new position, created especially for him: the first Fictional Café Poet in Residence. When it was offered, he wrote: “I am greatly impressed by your offering this position. I accept with my all poetic humility. I thank you greatly.” Mbizo is a…
The Strong Stuff
The First Fictional Café Anthology Has Arrived!!! October 3, 2019: The Fictional Café is proud to announce the publication of The Strong Stuff: The Best of Fictional Café, 2013-2017. This beautiful, coffeetable-format anthology presents the fiction, the poetry, and the four-color art and photography of 55 contributors, wrapped in an original cover designed by Steve Sangapore, FC’s Fine Arts Barista. The Strong Stuff (like the coffee we prefer) is a first-edition, limited printing of 200 copies. It is not available on Amazon, or as an ebook. As such, it’s a collector’s edition, a treasure to those whose creativity appears between its covers as well as to you members of the FC Coffee Club. Future editions are planned. November 25, 2020: The Strong Stuff: The Best of Fictional Café, 2013-2017, makes a great gift. The list…
“Evidence of V” a Novel by Sheila O’Connor
Reviewed by Honorah Creagh In her novel Evidence of V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, and Fictions, Sheila O’Connor pieces together the true story of her maternal grandmother, V, a woman whose existence was a family secret. O’Connor’s mother, June, was adopted by V’s sister, and O’Connor did not know about V until she was sixteen years old. Working from incomplete information, O’Connor colors in the spaces between the facts, transforming V from a name on court documents into an effervescent, audacious girl. In the process, O’Connor tells an affecting story not just about the injustices V and other young women like her suffered, but about what it means for someone to be family, and how a person’s influence reaches through generations. In 1935, fifteen-year-old V lives in Minneapolis and spends her nights singing at…
How To Succeed In Your Writing Career
An Interview with Fictional Cafe Barista Jason Brick In this wide-ranging, 30-minute conversation about today’s writing and publishing environment, Jason shares his knowledge and experience as a writer, an author, and a publisher with curious Fictional Cafe writers who wish to create a sustainable business and income from their writing, rather than its being a hobby in which one indulges in his or her spare time. Jason Brick is a professional writer, martial artist, travel addict, and dad whose work has been published across multiple genres and formats. He has contributed over 3,000 articles and short stories to print magazines and online sites on topics ranging from home improvement, to health and wellness, to cocktail recipes, to small business management. Some of Jason’s top-level corporate clients include BlackBelt and Thrillist magazines, American Express, Intuit, and Mint.com. Jason has ghostwritten more…