Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

For the past few years, I have daydreamed about doing an MFA in Creative Writing. As I conceive it, an MFA (Masters of Fine Art, taught in American universities) or an MA (Masters of Art, taught in British universities) would provide me with expert tuition in writing. In my daydream, I cycle happily along to the university each day, spend my time engaged in exciting writing activities, and at the end of two years I emerge, in my cap and gown, as a Writer. BUT.... 1. Money . That two years would cost about the same amount as buying thirty gas combi-boilers. When we bought one gas combi-boiler a few years ago, I was so alarmed by the cost that I demanded a fairly detailed breakdown of fuel bills to demonstrate that, within five years, the reduction in our household gas bills would justify our initial expenditure on the boiler. I'm struggling to work through the potential returns on investment for an MFA/MA. I can imagine that, if I was a business person for example, it would

" Hi. I'm Zoe Fowler and I'm a writer ...." There is something about those words which carries echoes of Alcoholics Anonymous: I'm confessing to something; revealing something that I might otherwise keep hidden from people (and in most areas of my life, I'm more likely to say "Hi, I'm Zoe and I'm a mom"). When I say that I'm a 'writer' I'm taking on an identity which only feels truly comfortable when I'm within a community where other people are similarly afflicted, and it's only recently that I have had a community within which I can 'be' a writer. I take my writing seriously and I work hard. My daughters leave for school early in the morning and I wave goodbye to their big yellow school bus, come back into the house, squeeze the last drops of coffee from the coffee-maker, and sit down at my desk to start writing. I'm lucky and I appreciate how lucky I am. I have a tiny room at the top of the house wh

This has been the summer of inspirational women. It started with the Jubilee. The nation, the Commonwealth, the world celebrated sixty years of reign by Queen Elizabeth II. Aside from the all the pomp and ceremony, the necessary rituals and rigmarole that come with her position, Her Majesty is a constant and consistent example of a strong, loyal and dedicated woman: tireless, despite being in her eighties, and a model of decorum and exemplary behaviour. Then came the Olympics. From the outset, women were portrayed as strong, brave and vital. When Danny Boyle’s industrial revolution began in the Opening Ceremony, a group of Suffragettes marched into the stadium and re-enacted the 1913 death of Emily Davison (a prolific feminist writer herself) as she tried to attach a protest banner to the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby. This was the defining moment of the suffrage movement. The banner itself was carried in a box into the stadium, reminding us of the passion and determination

Want to comment on something but not sure how to?   It should be easy and hopefully more so with this... Scroll down to the bottom of the post, where it should say in small letters either No comments or 3 comments, or however many comments there already are on that post. Click on this phrase. You should go through to a page with the comments on it and a small white box where you can write your own comment. Here you will need to go to the drop-down menu that says: "Select profile" and choose the profile you want to comment under. This can be with: a Google account , LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, AIM, Open ID, or just a name or URL, or as Anonymous. If you want to comment from your Google Account or blog I believe you will need to be logged into it at the time when you post your comment.  When you're happy with your comment, press publish. You can also preview your comment before your publish it if you want to. In theory, it should be a simple

All Women Together.......  ‘ All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn… for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.’ (Virginia Woolf). APHRA – The Inspiration: Imagine a woman who writes. She’s blazing a trail of poetry and drama and words, but she’s in debt, lacking time, scandalizing friends and society; she’s a ‘darling’ among the creative set but struggles to gain acceptance in the eyes of the wider public.   Aphra Behn, writing nearly four hundred years ago, overcame each of these challenges and became the first great English female writer. Her life might have been very different from ours, but the challenges and experiences that she had around her development as a writer are not so very different from our own. We, too, are busy women, working women; we are women with professional and familial obligations and responsibilities; we struggle to find time, we struggle to make financial ends meet; and we are women who write. None