More news about the Creative Café Project

More cafés needed

We’re always on the look-out for new cafés, so if you know of one, please do tell us about it.

How do you recognise a creative café? Have a look at a few on the site and you’ll probably get a sense of it. There are two main criteria:

1.      It must be first and foremost a great café

2.      It must have some sort of creative activity going on such as:

a.       Provide gallery space

b.      Have literature available for customers to read – newspapers, magazines, books

c.       Host a writing group

d.      Host  live music

e.       Host a reading group

f.       Provide informal meeting space

Each café is completely different in the way it operates and each one has a unique atmosphere. Do you know of a café that should join the scheme? If so, contact me here.

Time for Tea

Time for tea is such a haven. As soon as you’re through the doors, you forget the business of the day and the hectic traffic that makes its way through Prestwich toward Manchester or to the nearby motorway junction. It’s all white tablecloths, china tea services and delicious food.

The Creative Café as Part of Free-lance Writing Life

There are a few ways in which the Creative Café Project can help a writer lead a free-lance writing life. Some help the writer to earn money, some help to raise the writer’s profile, some do both and some will raise money eventually.

Advertise all events at the café itself, local libraries, local adult education centres and on your Facebook page. Create your own newsletter  - Mailchimp is good for this – and ask people to subscribe.  

Writer’s surgery

Offer a script surgery. Offer a fifteen minute session free of charge. The writer comes with the script, buys a coffee from the café and you discuss their script with them for fifteen minutes. If you offer editorial services, you can give them your price list.

Raises profile, may lead to payment

Creative writing workshop

Offer anything from a couple of hours to a whole day. This works especially well if the café has a function room. Negotiate with the manager / owner to have the function room for free if the delegates buy drinks and lunch from the café. Charge a modest fee.  If you can’t have the room for free, you will have to charge a more realistic fee. You may get a reasonable charge if you ask for an all-in package – drinks on arrival and / or mid-morning coffee, lunch, afternoon tea.

An alternative model is to arrange a course over a few weeks, with each session being up to a couple of hours. You might charge by the session, perhaps making a taster one free.

Makes money straight away but take care to budget properly.

Be a writer in residence

You spend set amounts of time at the café, perhaps spread over anything up to a year. You offer all of what is mentioned here. If doing this on a small scale, you may simply “camp” at the café for a day, chatting to people interested in reading, talking about your books, offering advice on writing and selling signed copies of your books.

Makes money eventually. Raises your profile.

Launch a book from the café

You might make a loss on this unless your publisher agrees to pay some costs. You will need to provide some refreshments for your guests. They may not all buy a copy of your book but they will now be more aware of it.

Makes money eventually. Raises your profile. 

Author readings

Work with a couple of other writers and offer readings, Q & A sessions and sell copies of your books. You can share the costs.  You’ll probably make less on your books than at a single launch – most people will buy just one book.

Makes money eventually. Raises your profile.

Hold a literary salon

Ask the café to put on an evening or afternoon event at a set price. Charge your guests a little more – to cover all costs and perhaps reward you a little for your hard work. Invite all of your writerly / reader friends and fans.  Ask two or three people to come and talk about their work – probably best to ask published writers. Agree to pay them a fee and expenses.  They can bring copies of their work to sell.

My first salon was free of charge but I would like subsequent ones to make a profit for the project. I’m actually going to ask people to donate as they see fit. I’ll tell them what the actual costs are. 

You probably wouldn’t sell any of your own books here. But see my more detailed description of the literary salon on this blog. You can put one of your own into the book swap.      

Do this often enough and it will raise your profile anyway. 

Raises profile. Makes money eventually.

Start a reading group

Perhaps make this a couple of hours long and negotiate for the café to waive charges but encourage members to buy drinks and cakes. Take it in turn suggesting books. Never one of you own. But you can invite your group members to your launch and give them flyers about your books.  Curiosity will probably make members try one of your books eventually.  

Raises your profile. Makes money eventually.

Writing project

Organise a writing project. Arrange meetings at the café. Perhaps you’d like to collect ghost stories from the old town in which you live, for example. Discuss ideas. Offer workshops on the writing. Hold critiquing, editing and design meetings. You become the publisher. You may even be able to get an Arts Council grant for the right sort of project. TheCreative Café Project can help you with the publishing process.

Raises your profile. Makes money eventually.      

Literary Salon at Time for Tea, Prestwich

This was hugely successful and I’m going to do it again in the autumn. Time for Tea did us proud – the £7.00 a head is really good value. Endless cups of tea / coffee. A choice of quiches, sandwiches and open rolls, scones with butter and jam and really scrumptious  cakes. And all out of and off proper china.

The tables were set out in such a way that we could all see each other and this aided the general conversation, the book swap, the readings and the Q & A sessions.

We had two readings: one from Jo Langton, one of my MA students who also did her BA at Salford University. She read from her recently published chap book fill the silence, published by Erbacce Press. Jo has done well to be published whilst still at university. She talked to us about her work. She also brought along one of her MA projects – a set of beautifully crafted “tea-bags” that contained words so that readers can create their own texts. Most appropriate in a tea-shop!

We also had readings by members of the Phoenix Writers Group who meet in Horwich. They read extracts from their recently published book, Fleeting Moments.

Both reading were delightful and led to some lively discussions.

The book exchange was exciting too. People had the chance to say why they liked the book they were offering and it was good to receive books from the readers.

Naturally, as there were two of my students present, the conversation turned from time to time to Salford University and the whole idea of studying creative writing at university. Another participant, who has an MA in Creative Writing but from another university, astounded us all by reporting that in his day – some time ago now – there was a cap of seven on the MA course! Useful information indeed.        

One disappointment was that four people who said they would come did not show up. Naturally we had to pay for their food anyway. We couldn’t expect the café to cover those sorts of costs.  But if they had come, I’m not sure we would have got through everything. And would the informality be the same?

So, there are lessons to be learnt.

I’m intending to make the next event free as well, but I will make clear to people that we have to pay even if they don’t turn up.  I will, however, ask for donations towards the Creative Café Project at the end of the evening.   

Having two sets of readings is about right. It would however take quite a lot of time for readers all to talk about the books they have brought along. We need to limit this to a couple of sentences each.

The informal discussion is great and we really want to keep that.                            

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

Time for Tea, Prestwich

Yet another wonderful find.  Time for Tea was pointed out to me by a colleague who posted a comment on my blog after I’d posted a comment on the VC’s blog at the University of Salford, where I work.  Ah, the joy of social media!

I actually drive past this pretty establishment every day I go to the office. I’ve often thought it looked quite cute.

Yet it is far more than that.

On Friday I arrived early. I’d arranged to meet a friend there. She said “What about a coffee?”  earlier in the week and I’d said “What about helping me to check out this new café?”   

So there I was at ten to three ordering a pot of tea.  And what a pot it was! A proper china one. The amount of tea reminded me of returning form a day of teaching and my late father making a whole pot of his special brew which I would consume before settling down to  some marking and / or lesson prep.  In Time for Tea you get a little jug of milk and a separate pot of hot water.  

Once my friend arrived, we ordered more tea and some of the homemade cake.  It all lived up to expectation. Much nicer than the big chains!

The colleague who’d recommended it said how tranquil it feels. I’d doubted that as it is situated on the busy A56. But she was absolutely right. You feel detached form the big city when you’re in there.  You are back in the world of lace tablecloths and waitresses in black and white.

But how creative is it?

It works. There are books that the lone customer can take down from the shelf and read.  Once a week, a journalist spends a couple of hours there collecting stories for her local newspaper.  So they already had a writer in residence. They also do tea parties for £7.00 a head- minimum number 15, maximum 25. I’ve already decided to hold a “literary salon” there in the New Year.  There will be readings of poetry and short stories and a chance to buy signed copies of books.  There will be sandwiches, cake, tea and coffee, and a glass of wine.

Definitely worth a visit!     

Time for Tea