July 31, 2015

August Submissions

August Submissions

As we roll on through the best beach days of the year, we baristas at the Fictional Café have been working hard this month to serve up a sampling of the creative arts’ finest. Here are our fresh brews for August: This month, starts off with the wonderful poetry of Judith Ward – a first-time submitter, long time Coffee Club member. Her imaginative poems feature lighthearted imagery juxtaposed by themes of heartache, as she peeks around dark corners for brief glimpses into the curious bits of life. Next up, we have sculptures made from typewriter parts by Erich Griebling. We think his art is a great blend of what the Fictional Café is all about: writing and art. Although we use computers now, many of us remember a time when the typewriter was a very…

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July 30, 2015

Lessons From Infant Footwear

Some Fictional Cafe patrons already know about the Baby Shoes flash fiction anthology, a Kickstarted project I led that’s now up on Amazon for anybody who wants to buy it (hint, hint). Last November, I launched the campaign based on a simple concept: 100 writers, 100 stories, less than 1,000 words each. We looked for enough funding to pay an editor, get a hot cover, and do an offset print run. And it failed. We got nearly half the money we needed. In December, I retooled with a trimmed budget and more support for contributing authors to bring in backers. We funded, and I promised delivery in April. Just today I sent out the last backer orders, which is another way of saying I delivered three months late. Needless to say, there was stuff I didn’t…

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July 26, 2015

Enter Our 100th Member Contest, Win A Fictional Café Baseball Cap!

Enter Our 100th Member Contest, Win A Fictional Café Baseball Cap!

We’re quickly approaching the century mark in membership at the Fictional Café Coffee Club [WOO HOO!], so we baristas have put together a contest to celebrate the event. We’re asking you Coffee Club members to encourage your friends, family, colleagues, writing class, church, skydiving group and kickball league to join us. Member #100 will receive a Fictional Café baseball cap! [You can see us wearing ours here.] But that’s not all. In appreciation to our loyal and supportive followers for spreading the word, we’ll send the member who refers our hundredth new member a Fictional Café baseball cap too! All you need to do is send us an email with the names of your referrals. We’ll keep track of those who sign up and make sure you both get your just reward. And even if…

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July 24, 2015

Randy Cade’s New Thriller is a Western

Editor’s note: We published an excerpt from “Call Me Harry,” from the the prolific Mr. Cade, in May, 2014. His new novella is a Western. The trick question in the title, “At the Request of James Dougle,” may keep you wondering for a while, but wait – it’s a zinger. This is an old-fashioned Western, and I love the genre. Maybe because I grew up wearing cowboy boots, but more likely because in many ways the Western was the progenitor of the mystery and suspense genre, in which I dearly love to read and to write. The tales James Fenimore Cooper told of Matty Bumppo [aka “Leatherstocking”] were thrillers set in an untamed America, which translated forward into the wild-in-the-streets American cities where cops and private eyes fought crime. Race, it seems, has always been…

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July 4, 2015

365 Docobites: “A child’s life in my hands” video

A few months ago, The Fictional Café made a pledge to an enterprising young couple of video documentary makers, Epiphany Morgan and Carl Matson. They’re from Sydney, Australia, and have been touring the world making a video documentary a day – “365 Docobites.” Our contribution has come back to the coffee shop to roost in the form of a video gift, which you can watch here. We’re very proud to have supported this creative endeavor and hope to publish a few more of the 365 Docobites here in the future. For the nonce, you can go watch a few yourself at their website. Again, congratulations to Eppie and Carl on a very big project, well done. Hey guys, please stop by the ole Fictional Café for a cuppa next time you’re in town! Jack, Mike,…

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Welcome to the Fictional Café! Your baristas are interested in all genres of short fiction, poetry, excerpts from novels-in-progress, your photographs, art, and audio or video podcasts. We encourage you to share your work for publication in the Fictional Café. Click on the Join/Submit button above to learn more.

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