Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

A group of people huddles around a man lying down on the cobbles, turning green. The people are looking over each other's shoulders, not knowing what they would want done, had they been in his position. A woman in a brown cardigan is hysterical. She is sat on the cobbles next to the man with her legs sprawled out, like a marionette. Someone from the theatre café has brought her tissues and water in a plastic cup. The woman weeps, but all she can think of is how now she will never see the waters of Sharm El Sheikh or puff shisha sitting on satin cushions in overpriced seaside bars. She won't see the pyramids. The thought of not seeing the pyramids in particular makes her give off a high-pitched wail. The traffic policeman is tired. The bribes he's collected today aren’t enough to get that lamb shank his wife’s ordered. He should be on the road, fining Mercedes drivers for making the wrong U-turn, restriction sign obstructed by a birch tree. “Where the heck’s the ...

Ken spotted the grand piano idling by the shoreline as he took Blue for his early morning walk. It was a huge ebony instrument leaning slightly into the lapping waves. The piano lolled like a drunk around midnight. One leg was wedged deeper into the saturated sand than the others. It must have lolled there a while, he thought, as the lid already had speckles of seagull shit dotted like polka dots. Yet, it hadn’t been there last night, when Ken had taken his evening stroll with Blue. Had it washed up on the tide? He wondered. But then, it was standing bolt upright, as though dumped there once the tide had gone out this morning. He considered his tide timetable back at the cottage. Living on this part of the coast, you had to be aware of such minutiae. Ken studied them religiously. Had more than once had to warn youngsters to get off the beach before they got washed off the rocks. Ken stroked the top of the piano. He tapped a couple of the keys with cold, gloved fingers. ...

And then at times the dips of our marriage are no different than the falling into love in Richmond Park before we started home, and I wrote every day until the motion of the ship made me certain that for every berth going out, new souls put in, spit from foam. If I could read Greek or understand the errand of the cardinal we watch for with coffee in our hands, I could make poetry on the tips of fence spears where he stops and the fire of you would go urgently from land to land. by  Charles Bane, Jr. 

Welcome to the life of a Greg. Every morning, for five days a week, I inhabit the rickety, sweat-filled 7.32 train across to Manchester for 62 juddering minutes. Surrounded by what I can only assume to be a plethora of Gregs in their uniform of a grey suit, grey tie, black shoes, we ride together solemnly and silently. Fidgeting now and again, we jostle along with the train’s movements as one. But not me, not anymore; the misery ends today. This affliction will haunt me no longer. No longer shall I be one of these lifeless chumps by whom I now find myself surrounded. You fools! Can you not feel the tedium of your lives? Do you not see the meaninglessness? Wake up! It's time for a new name. A new name, a new life. But what name should it be – what name is really Me? I could be Ignacio, the imperious. Hawthorne, the heroic. Reuben, the rascal! How about Keith? Keith! I know anything is a step up from Greg, but Keith? Well, for now you'll just have to call me Not Greg. Hang on....

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!

The Oldest Member occupied his usual seat, by the window, looking out over the golf course. As he sat his mind drifted back to the time when the view was of manicured greens, lush fairways, neatly pruned trees and bushes. The fairways and greens had been long subsumed by The Wild. No golfers measured their stately progress round the course any more, stroke by stroke. To venture out now would be instant death. His domain had shrunk to these few rooms on the first floor of the clubhouse. The ground floor was uninhabitable, at least by his kind. He knew that his time here was limited too. Every day the creepers reached higher, and the animals and god knew what else became bolder. He lived in squalor, eking out a miserable existence, always on guard, never truly relaxed, never fully asleep. But he was The Oldest Member. Muirfield Golf Club had always had an Oldest Member, and he was damn sure he wasn’t going to give in to the savage world without a fight. When he had first joined th...

Your love is an injury time winner  in the World Cup Final; a knockout punch. It's overtaking on Beckett's corner, or winning the National by ten lengths. It's a treble-twenty, a perfect score, a one-four-seven at the Crucible. It's the game, set and match at Wimbledon. Your love's like Istanbul, it's beautiful. Your kisses are a number one single at Christmas; a festival headliner. An anthem through the last term of High School; a slow dance at a Wedding in summer. They’re a disco beat with a hook to match; they’re spitting rhymes and waxing lyrical. They’re the Motown hits with the fingersnaps; your kisses are like Smokey, a miracle. by T. J. Dennett