The First Literary Salon is underway

So, I’ve now done it. I have booked my first Literary Salon with Time for Tea in Prestwich ,  Greater Manchester. This will take place 16^th May, 6.30 – 8.30, all vegetarian.

Tea – scrumptious, I can vouch for this. Readings from three writers.  Everyone is invited to bring a book to swap – either one of your own, if you’re a writer, or perhaps one you’ve enjoyed. You might also bring a second book to donate to the café’s library. I suggest writers include a short bio and contact details if these aren’t already in the book.    

This event it by invite only as places are limited. However, if you’d like an invite, please contact me here.  Even if all places are full, I can put you on the reserve list.

For this first event, the Creative Café will foot the whole bill so this time it’s free. Thereafter, there will be a charge that will cover the cost of food plus a little to cover writers’ expenses.  I’m hoping  for lots of feedback and ideas about how we can make the Salon even better. See you in Prestwich on 16 May?  By the way, this is also National Flash Fiction Day.  

Expansion of the Creative Café Project

I believe it is time now to see this project expand massively. Although hopefully a full-time manager will be employed eventually, much of the project’s success will depend on the hard work of volunteers. The work will be fun, however.

How can you help?

CaféLit

This is an e-zine and an annual publication that makes some money for the project and pays an editor. We want to improve the circulation. So we need more hits on the sites and more people buying the book – available as a paperback or on Kindle. Anyone like to push that for us?   On one of our sites we have Google ads. On the other we would like to sell appropriate advertising directly. Could you advertise with us? Do you know anyone else who could? See our advertising rates.  

And don’t forget to submit! See submission guidelines.         

Finding more cafés

Oh, dear oh dear. It’s a hard life. That just might mean trying out more cafés in your local area and deciding whether they are already creative cafés (see definition) or have the potential to become them.  Even better if you can email admin@creativecafeproject.co.uk with the copy for the web site.

Review a Creative Café

Write a review about a creative café or about a café that’s about to join the Creative Café Project. We’ll post it on this blog and link it to the café on the Creative Café web site. You can include a by-line and a link to your own site(s).    

Developing creative cafés

This could mean helping a café to become a creative café or help existing creative cafés become better ones.

Be a creative practitioner at a creative café

See my previous blog post on Writers in Residence. Or, if you are an artist could you arrange with the café to display and / or sell your work? If you are a musician and the café has an entertainments license could you busk there for a few hours? Sell your CDs? Give out leaflets?

Run a literary salon there

See details about this in this post on this blog.

Any other bright ideas?

Please share!   Contact admin@creativecafeproject.co.uk

A Literary Salon

I’m intending to hold this at the Time for Tea Café in Prestwich, Greater Manchester. I don’t have a date yet, but it will be early evening, probably 6.30-8.30. It will include afternoon tea style snacks: sandwiches, quiche, cake and tea or coffee.  And a glass of wine. Afternoon tea just isn’t what it used to be! If it is successful, I’ll organise more and I’ll also post a description here and on the web site so that other writers / café owners can adopt it for their local Creative Cafés.    

Who is invited

I shall be inviting writers and people who love reading and listening to words. It has to be by invite only – there is limited space at Time for Tea and anyway, a “salon” needs an intimate atmosphere.  THE FIRST ONE WILL BE FREE. Thereafter, cost will be £10 to include “afternoon tea”, a glass of wine, excellent company and a book to take home.  It won’t be the same people every time but there will be some overlap.

What will happen

You’ll enjoy a great “afternoon tea”. Two or three of the writers will read out some of their work. I intend to move people around three times so that you mix with different people. You are also invited to bring one book to give away. It can simply be one you’ve read and enjoyed.  It doesn’t have to be brand new. Hopefully everyone can do this, so everyone will go home with a new book. Writers may also bring up to three books to sell and they can bring flyers to give out. They are also invited to consider donating a book to Time for Tea. And we can chat all the time about books and writing.

What you can do now

Let me know that you would like an invite.

Tell me what you think of the timing – is 6.30 too early / too late? What about using a Saturday?

Is the price reasonable?

What about the idea of swapping books? What would be the fairest way to distribute these?

Does the book sale system work for writers? I’ve limited it to three as we don’t want to spend all evening swapping money. Maybe the flyer could offer a small discount? Should I restrict sales to the writers who read their work? But let everyone bring flyers?  

The Creative Café is all about serving creative practitioners, their audiences and the cafés.  Does this do that

Some News form Café at The Edge, Brixham

The Cafe@TheEdge is a great example of a Creative Café. It  hosts regular Open Mic evenings and would soon like to start a writing group. Anyone interested in helping them? Contact us if so.

Here are some of their recent events:

June 2011
Student art from Brixham College

July 2011
Open Mic

Felting

Games

August 2011
Open Mic

Pirate Biscuit Challenge –what a fascinating idea – more details please.

Felting

September 2011
Open Mic

Book Club

 Felting

Devon Open Studio

October 2011
Open Mic

Felting

 Music Club

Book Club

Karaoke

Dichroic glass workshop

Activities during Monster Mash

November 2011
Open Mic

Pre-Christmas Craft Fest

 Book Club

Felting

Monster Craft Session to prepare for Xmas Market

December 2011
Open Mic

Craft Tables constantly resupplied during Grotto Felting

January 2012
Open Mic

Regular Weekly Craft Sessions

February 2012
Regular Weekly Craft Sessions

Seeds of The Edge as Art Award Centre

March 2012
Open Mic

Regular Weekly Craft Sessions

Art Awards launches

I think we all have to admit that Café@TheEdge is one proactive Creative Café.  Do go and visit them if you live nearby or take a look at their web site.

Do you know a café that works like this or could be persuaded to do so? Do contact us if so.  

2012 Flash Fiction CaféLit Calendar

We’re looking for pieces of Flash Fiction 250 works max, associated with a month of the year and a drink.  If the work is good we’ll publish it anyway in our on-line magazine. The best piece of flash fiction each month will go into the calendar. Profit from the calendar will be shared 50% between authors/ artists  / editors  and the Creative Café Project.

Please submit Flash Fiction to editor@creativecafeproject.co.uk . Please put name of story, month and drink in the subject line.   

If you are an artist and would like to send a picture for a particular month, we’ll use that as prompt for the Flash Fiction for that month. If we like your picture, you’re guaranteed to be in the calendar. Pictures should be 72 dpi, 250 x 250 or 300 X 300, jpeg format. They may be illustrations or photos.  Send your pictures to admin@creativecafeproject.co.uk

Even if your piece of Flash Fiction is not used for the calendar, it may still be eligible for The Best of CaféLit 2012.

Please send Flash Fiction by the following dates. Keep your eye on the Creative Café Web Site for picture prompts.

January by 29 February

February by 15 March

March by 31 March

April by 15 April

May by 30 April

June by 15 May

July by 31 May

August by 15 June

September by 30 June

October by 15 July

November by 31 July

December by 15 August

The Best of Cafelit 2011 and Supporting the Project

The Best of CaféLit 2011

This is available now. We’re rather pleased about how smart it is and the stories are of course super. They’ve been vetted twice. The second time they were selected after being edited, so they’re of a good standard.      

Supporting the Creative Café project

Half of the profit from CaféLit goes to the Creative Café project. The other half goes to the authors and editors. Now, we’re not expecting to sell millions, but, of course, you never know. 

If you want to help the project anyway there are various things you could do:

·         Buy a copy of CaféLit -the Kindle version is out now, the hard copy will be available form Amazon shortly. Remember, if you’re an author you can buy hard copies at a discount - minimum order five.  Contact us to get a quote.

·         Make a donation via our Chip-in button.

·         Contribute a story to CaféLit

·         If you’re a writer, working as a Writer in Residence with a café on our list or one you know that we don’t know about – but please tell us about it!  

·         If you’re a café visitor, let us know here about other cafés that should be in the project.   
   

The Janus Report for the Creative Café 2011 / 2012

2011 has seen a handful of new cafes come into the project but even more importantly there are another half dozen people out there looking for and managing to identify them. Several writers are getting interested and I’ve spoken to quite a few about setting up as a writer in residence in a café.  The most popular ideas are:

·         Running a creative writing workshop

·         Holding a creative writing clinic

·         Just writing

·         Selling and signing books

Unfortunately we didn’t get the funding we applied for but some of the writers and cafes have found innovative ways around that.   

I’ve actually enjoyed visiting one or two new cafés and chatting to the owners / managers about the project.  

CaféLit is trundling along nicely and bringing in come good stories. I’ve almost finished the copy edit on The Best of 2011 and although I’d read all of the stories before, I certainly enjoyed reading them again.  I think we achieved what we set out to do – provide stories that go with a cuppa in a café. I’m delighted with how well the drinks match the texts.  So thanks go to Debz Hobbs-Wyatt for her excellent editing.   

For 2012 I’m keen to get more cafés, writers and other creative practitioners involved. I’m keen to get CaféLit into the cafés.  I’m toying with story cards and story pamphlets also. I’m hoping to fund this by selling advertising. Also, I’d like to send attractive notices to the cafés alerting customers to the Kindle version of The Best of and to the online versions.  

I’ve started a Chip-in campaign to raise funds to cover the cost of having a logo designed and getting some stationery printed. Gradually, we’ll start producing merchandise that the cafés and their customers can buy.