From all of us baristas at the Fictional Café, we would like to thank all of you – our readers, writers, artists, photographers and fans – for your continued support of our site. We simply would not exist without you! Thank you for your submissions, for your subscriptions, for your comments and emails, for your “likes” and friendships, retweets and follows, for your invitations to readings, exhibitions or cups of real coffee. But most importantly, thank you for being a part of our community. We hope that you have found some inspiration for your own life on these pages this past year, as we bid a fond farewell to 2015. We are so excited for next year and the offerings we have in store for you all – some familiar, others novel (no pun intended)….

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If summer seems far away already to you, you’re not alone. Much of the country has donned its winter coats and woolen sweaters, like the gals in our cover photo, a floating art installment by Hilary Zelson called “Who Wears Wool,” a tribute to the wool industry of yesteryear in Fort Point, Boston. The sculpture eerily reminds me of a Trojan Horse – a wolf in sheep’s clothing or in this case perhaps a shark in sheep’s clothing – floating toward an unsuspecting city. Speaking of sharks and sheep, consumers this holiday season may be interested in this new invention to prepare for the winter ahead. But I digress… Here are our December Submissions to celebrate the solstice. This month’s fiction comes from Lloyd Prentice, a novelist whose gritty crime fiction caught our attention in…

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I step into the din that is opening night of “Abstracted” at UFORGE Gallery, and am instantly struck by the energy of the small space on Centre St. in the artsy Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. The brightly lit white walls scream hospital sterile, yet the patrons paint the room vibrantly colorful. This is not the pearl-adorned SoWa crowd of those warm, careless summer days. No, the crowd here is salt-of-the-earth artists and art admirers, chatting away about process and inspiration as much as about personal interests and weekend plans. The sheer volume of artwork strikes me. Thirty artists are featured in this exhibit with one to three pieces each, making the walls close in a little and the people stand nearly shoulder to shoulder throughout the room. As I make my first pass through,…

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Calling All Authors – you don’t want to miss this opportunity to hear wise and experienced author-consultant Jason Brick today! He’s being interviewed on the Author’s Academy, a service of Wheatmark Publishing. Last month, two Wheatmark pros  brought listeners up to speed on the basics of social media. Now it’s time to take it up a notch, and discover how to use social media to sell more books! The featured guest will be Jason Brick, top-shelf business writer, writing coach, speaker, ghostwriter, and business writing coach extraordinaire. Jason owes the success of his series of self-published books to a strong social media presence and his use of Tactical Social Engagement. Jason will explain how to identify the three kinds of people who can help you sell your books, as well as how to develop three levels of strategy…

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