December 14, 2021

Announcing an FC Cento Poem Contest!

We’d like to announce a fun challenge for all you poets at the Café. We’re doing a Cento Poetry Challenge! For those who have never heard of centos, they are poems crafted from words and phrases found in others’ works and pasted together to form your new, unique thoughts. The best poems will be featured on FC’s site. The deadline is 12/31. To enter, email mike@7zn.8f6.myftpupload.com For more information on cento poems and how to create them, check out The New York Times‘ post.

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December 6, 2021

Announcing Our First Ever Pushcart Prize Nominees!

Posted by Mike Rochester in News

Hello Coffee Clubbers! We are excited to announce that, for the first time, The Fictional Café has nominated a handful of our members for a Pushcart Prize. For those who are unfamiliar with Pushcart, they publish an anthology of short stories, essays and poetry from small presses and literary magazines each year—they’ve been doing it since 1976! Small presses and literary magazines can nominate works they’ve published over the course of that given year. The idea to nominate FC members came to us in early 2020. With the pandemic bearing down on the writing world, we wanted to offer something else to our talented, creative members. Ruth Simon, Michael Piekny and I were throwing around ideas and this one stood out as a perfect way to show just how much we value the work we…

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October 25, 2021

Wanna NaNoWriMo With Me?

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in News

An invitation to join me in a great month of novel-writing Several years ago I was working on a novel about this same time of year. I’d begun it quite a few months earlier at my home in Boston, but at the time I was happily—if not somewhat chilled—writing from a 150-year-old farmhouse in rural France. My fingers, clad in fingerless knitted gloves, flew over the keyboard, pausing occasionally to sip from my café au lait or tea for warmth. I was having a best-of-times. An email came through cyberspace from a best friend and writing colleague who lives in Oregon. I stopped writing to see what he had to say; several years earlier, again while lodging at this same Finistere stone maison, he had done me a great service by buying and shipping me a…

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October 6, 2021

Independent Publishers of New England’s Virtual Conference

Posted by Mike Rochester in News

Dear Coffee Clubbers, The Fictional Café is excited to announce that the nonprofit publishing group Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE) will be holding their annual conference virtually this year, so anyone, anywhere can join! Several of your baristas are members of the group and our founder, Jack, will even be presenting himself! Please join us for 2 days of education and networking at the 10th Annual (virtual) Independent Publishers and Authors conference November 5-6. WHO SHOULD ATTEND? · Independent Publishers · Author Publishers (Self-Publishers) · Partners of Publishers; Industry Suppliers · Writers and Others Who Dream of Being Happily Published! The conference will feature some big names in the publishing industry, including keynote speakers Paige Allen, director of IngramSpark, Cevin Breyerman, CEO of Publisher’s Weekly, and Jane Friedman, indie publishing guru. We’ll have speakers…

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September 26, 2021

September Edition of “The Break from HOKAIC”

Posted by Mike Rochester in News

Jason’s Notes From the Lab… I’ve been gone for a few months, diving deep into the next stages of my publishing career. Most specifically I’ve been looking at companies to manage some advertising and publicity, so I can focus more on what I’m best at. There are dozens, probably hundreds of options and candidates. I won’t speak to any specific brands this time, but here are the most important things I’ve learned about this over the past months. Fiverr is good for graphic design, but bad for managing advertising. Fiverr pro is better, but expensive enough you can hire a local for the same money most of the time. Many publishing and advertising companies offer free webinars to gather leads. These webinars alone have enough information to up the game of most writers breaking into publicizing their own books. If you’re not spending…

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Announcing an FC Cento Poem Contest!

Announcing Our First Ever Pushcart Prize Nominees!

Wanna NaNoWriMo With Me?

Independent Publishers of New England’s Virtual Conference

September Edition of “The Break from HOKAIC”

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