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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It’s a busy time at the Fictional Café, but what else is new? Even though summer is only a few weeks old for us, here in the northern hemisphere, it already seems like it’s been an endless summer. No not that kind. We’re pumping out so much Fresh Java, we can hardly keep up! We hope you can, though. In addition to our European Penpals series, we’re sharing the great work of some folks in the industry at Dead Darlings and Authors Publish (stay tuned for this one).  We are even celebrating the genesis of our first ever Fictional Café Print Edition! We’re so excited to get our members’ work in people’s actual hands this winter. Of course, in addition to all this Café fare, we have the monthly work of our amazing creative members….

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Our first Fictional Café Writing Contest is underway. Winners will get to see their work appear in our first Fictional Café Anthology, in both a print paperback book and an e-book. And if you get your work in between now and July 4th…read on. You can click here for the long version of the rules, but here’s the short version. Use the link above to submit your story Unless it’s poetry, art, or flash fiction your tale should be from 2k to 8k words It costs $10 to submit Submissions close on Friday, July 14 Starting Monday, July 17 we run head-to-head elections to see who wins each genre category Winners of 1st through 3rd place go in a print anthology. They win glory, honor, and two free copies! As a special incentive, the first 10…

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We baristas have had many fun, innovative publishing experiences here at FC over the past four years. We thank each of you for becoming a member, and are grateful to everyone who has contributed their creativity. We can’t keep the FC going without you! I want to express my personal gratitude to Rachael and Simran for their pen pal exchange, published here in May and June. These two talented writers had never met one another, yet they both responded to our request to embark upon that old-fashioned notion of writing a pen pal – updated, of course, for the internet era. I loved reading their exchanges. They wrote from the heart, sharing many personal feelings amid their experiences – something we as a culture don’t do enough of anymore. Here is the last photo we…

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