Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

Indeed, we're sad to say that  Cafe Aphra is closing its doors from the end of December 2018 , at least for a temporary period during Spring 2019 and possibly longer. This is so that the three of us who currently run the blog can have some time to concentrate on other life and writing projects that we have going on.  We will therefore not be accepting any more submissions from now on. We'd like to thank all our lovely contributors for sharing their wonderful work with us and for giving us and so many others so much reading pleasure over the years. It's been a fabulous experience! We hope that we've provided a safe and welcoming online environment for aspiring and established writers to air their work in public, sometimes for the first time. With all our thanks, yours as ever, Sara, Barbara and Charlotte - current baristas on duty ... and, of course, all the other Cafe Aphra baristas who have helped us keep this place open over the years! Chad, Yvonne, ...

Here Cafe Aphra barista Sara Roberts interviews writer Chris Fielden about his work and the highly successful flash fiction challenges he has been running since last year. Cafe Aphra: Hi Chris, so tell us what is your main interest as a writer, in terms of form and genre? Chris Fielden: Dark humour. Most of the stories I write involve an element of fantasy too, but are often set in our world. So there might be a demon in London, or a zombie in Washington. I’ve always been a fan of writers with vivid imaginations – Stephen King, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Pratchett and Roald Dahl to name a few – so I’m drawn towards the weird, the wonderful, the macabre and the amusing. CA: Do you also teach creative writing? Tell us about your latest course. CF: I’m not a teacher in the academic sense, but I have written a book called How to Write a Short Story, Get Published and Make Money . That uses my own published stories as case studies, clearly showing how all the advice ...

A friend recently sent me a link to this wonderful article on the excellent blog, Writer Unboxed. It really resonated with me and reflected something true for the season, I think, which we tend to overlook. As ever, we should be taking our cues from Nature rather than our crazy hyped-up and currently rather unhealthy human society... Here is the article for those of you who are interested in the idea of allowing our creative side to lie fallow for a season and embrace it. Winter Rest All our best wishes from Cafe Aphra for this Christmas season and the end of 2017. Photo by Pavan Trikutam on Unsplash

And our personal Cafe Aphra favourite...

Greetings all, If you enjoy hanging out in Cafe Aphra, you may like to check out this recent interview with the current editor, Sara Roberts: Six Questions For... Writer Jim Harrington has set up this excellent blog with a series of interviews called 'Six Questions For...' with editors of various literary magazines and journals. It's a really fantastic resource, with an incredible number of magazines listed, and w ell worth following for all those of us who are interested in submitting work for publication. Thanks Jim!

‘I believe I lost my husband outside the Church of Miracles. I knew he had been there at the time in the gardens, which were dark green and dismal after rain. I was trying to use up the end of a long roll of film and called out to him. He looked back at me and I think he smiled. But when the photographs came back from the developer, he was no longer there. You could just about make out some distant shape, almost a shadow,  at the end of the avenue of cypresses, but it no longer resembled a person.’ Cafe Aphra follower M.S. Clary has won three prizes for short fiction and has now published her first novel, A Spell in France , with Matador. It is available as an eBook   on Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad and all electronic readers. Cafe Aphra: Tell us a little bit about your novel,  A Spell in France . How would you sum it up for a potential reader? M.S. Clary: It's a psychological thriller which involves a mysterious disappearance and its aftermath. ...

Do you like horror fiction? Is that your writing genre? February 2017 marks the 8th edition of Women in Horror Month (WiHM), an international initiative showcasing the underrepresented work of women in the horror industries.  At www.womeninhorrormonth.com  you can find information about fun events in your area. These range from art projects to meet-ups, film screenings and performances taking place in various countries all over the globe including Australia, Japan, Germany, England, Scotland and the United States. Of course there are also literary projects dedicated to Women in Horror Month, such as the 5th annual WiHM issue of The Sirens Call . Check out  last year's issue including a story by one of our Cafe Aphra baristas, B.E. Seidl. And - worth knowing - if you want to promote your own horror writing project which will take place in February, simply use the hashtag #WiHM8 on Twitter or Facebook and take advantage of a readership of approximately 35,000 read...

I quite enjoyed this article recently  from 'Writers & Artists'...  David Savill busts a few 'golden rules' that we're taught for creative writing. Five Lies Creative Writing Teachers Tell What do you think? Do you agree with him? Post your comments below!

I recently spotted this piece about time and writing in the Glimmertrain Press newsletter, and enjoyed it very much. I found many of the things Gabe Herron mentioned spoke to me. In particular, the quote:  "You must put time aside at the very moment you realize there isn't enough, that you have started too late, or from too far behind the start line, or both. You have to forget time because it's going to take how long it takes, not one minute longer, not one minute less." So I thought we should share it here on Cafe Aphra.  Gabe Herron on time and writing... and carpentry What do you think?  Did you find anything in this article that resonated with you? How do you deal with time and finding the time - or making the time - to write? Post your comments below...

... and here is Part Two, as promised last week! Again, well worth the read. Rules for Writing from everyone under the sun (Part Two) Let us know your thoughts below... which ones were your favourites?

A Cafe Aphra contributor recently sent us the links to two excellent articles from The Guardian newspaper . ..  Now, to be honest, I'm a bit sick of reading endless lists of other people's 'Rules for Writing' at this point.  But even I have to say this made for fascinating reading - if for no other reason, because of their diversity, which shows me that in fact, there are no rules.  Or at least, that the rules that work for one writer don't necessarily work for another.  At all.  And I enjoy that. ;) Have a read and let us know your thoughts! This is Part One... Part Two to follow. Rules for Writing from everyone under the sun (Part One)

Greetings Aphraites! I have just read the article below on the ever-wonderful website, Writer Unboxed . (If any of you are not familiar with this fabulous blog, check it out now.) This piece, called  The Off-Road Vehicle Mind vs. the Paved Story Plan , by Therese Walsh, really resonated with me.  Do any of you feel the same way? Do you ever get bored of writing a story if you have it all plotted and planned out in advance? And what do you do if that happens? Comments welcome below... And may you all have a block-free writing season this Christmas!! Sara x

10 top writing tips from Without Bullshit. Quite a general list but still well worthy of a perusal! (Peruse?) Without Bullshit 10 top writing tips Some good ones in here, including re-writing the passive voice. I'd also include getting rid of adverbs.  Which top pieces of writing advice would you include?  Post your comments below...

Thanks to a recommendation from one of our Cafe Aphra contributors, I have just watched this amazing video interview between Elizabeth Gilbert and Marie Forleo, and I have to say I found it absolutely brilliant.  The pacts and contracts we have to make with ourselves and our creativity; perfectionism as fear in high heels.... authenticity and originality... martyrdom and tricksterdom, and the many traps we lay ourselves and misconceptions we hold onto regarding our creative process.  I have enjoyed hearing Elizabeth Gilbert speak about writing in the past before and on this occasion she has lived up to my every expectation. I can feel I will be buying her new book, Big Magic, and reading it for myself very soon! So, Aphraites, this is my offering to you on this 'What We Do Wednesday'! Enjoy!! Big Magic: Elizabeth Gilbert and Marie Forleo

Cafe Aphra contributor, Afia Nkrumah, is a theatre director who moved into making films a few years ago. She recently got a break when her short film, Shadow Man, was selected for funding by Film London. Here she tells us about her experiences... Cafe Aphra: Hi Afia, I know you've been involved in film for quite a long time, but what made you want to write screenplays in the first place, rather than novels or short stories? (Or anything else!) Afia: I come from an oral story telling background and I worked as a theatre director, so scripts are a more natural way of telling stories for me than the novel or perhaps more 'literary' forms of writing. I also love working with actors and screenplays facilitate that. Cafe Aphra: Where did the idea for Shadow Man come from? Afia: Last year after seeing the "go home" vans driving around parts of London asking migrants to leave the UK or be deported, I was so incensed that I sat down to write my resp...

Catherine Cooper is a Canadian writer of fiction and non-fiction. Her first book, The Western Home , was published by Pedlar Press in 2014. Her first novel, White Elephant , will be published by Freehand Books in Spring, 2016. She lives in Prague, Czech Republic.   Cafe Aphra: When did you first realize that you wanted to write as an occupation? It crept up on me. I chose English literature as a major in university because I enjoyed it and I was able to reliably get good grades, but I don’t think I had any particular interest in creative writing. In my mid twenties I started to write short stories, and since then I’ve continued to write. I’m sure that I will always write, because I love it and it helps me a lot in my life, but I’m still not sure that I want to do it as my primary occupation, because I find it hard to live in a balanced way when I am writing full-time, and it doesn’t pay well. CA: You did a Creative Writing Masters course some years ago in Canada...

Want to get the joy of writing back? Today I have discovered a brilliant live online project called 'Lost in Track Changes', which is part of if:book Australia. That's the curated version of the flash fiction event, with well-known Australian authors 'remixing' each other's work, week by week.  The un-curated version of the event, however, is open to everyone - that's you and me - and is called 'Open Changes'. What it involves is reading a few pieces of flash fiction and using any part of the them that catches your (mind's) eye as a writing prompt to set you off with writing your own piece. The maximum wordcount is 200! Ouch! This is a seriously fun writing exercise, though. I actually made myself laugh today. And who knows, your 'comment' might be selected and used as one of the pieces for next week's prompts for other writers. There are several publishing incentives, as well as just the fun of doing it. And there are only ...

Sara: So you currently teach an online course in flash fiction writing run by Fish Publishing, which I’ve recently completed (and can whole-heartedly recommend!). Tell us a bit about the course and why you decided to set it up. M-J: The Flash Fiction course has been running since 2009 following demand from writers who wanted to explore the genre further but couldn’t find much guidance either online or through writing groups. At the time it was difficult to find workshops exploring Flash and few creative writing institutions offered a course solely dedicated to the medium. It caused a flurry of excitement when it was launched and since then has continued to be a very popular program. Sara: Flash fiction is an interesting form of writing, something of a ‘niche’ or minority form, which seems to be gaining popularity at the moment. Why do you think that is? M-J:   Many writers on the subject suggest that this form of fiction is enjoying resurgence and renewed ...