Author: barista

Hello, dear patrons. Thank you for stopping by.

It is with a heavy heart we announce that for the foreseeable future, the Cafe will not be producing new content. We are putting chairs on top of tables, shutting down the espresso machine, and turning off the lights.

That said, the benefit of the Cafe being a virtual space is that the stories we’ve written will continue to live on, here. Please stop by any time and catch up on stories you may have missed or revisit stories that you loved.

And maybe someday, the stars will align, and we’ll return to this place of pure imagination.

Thank you so much for visiting us, and for all of your support over the years. Take care, and never stop dreaming.

-The Confabulators

Hello, dear readers. Welcome back to the Confabulator Cafe for our final month of stories for this year.

Our prompt for this month is “goodbyes.” We bid this year, and all of you, a fond farewell.

Here’s the schedule for December.
Monday, December 16: “Kate and Tate Were Great” by Eliza Jaquays
Monday, December 30: “Of Fathers, Ghosts, and Beans” by Dianne Williams

Autumn is officially here, Halloween only a month away, which means here at the Cafe, we finally have permission to up our creepiness level.

The prompt for this month was: “To open the door, a person must use a key whittled out of one of his or her own bones.”

We hope you’ll enjoy the two stories we have for you this month. Here’s the schedule:

Tuesday, October 15: “Bone Deep” by Sara Lundberg

When does autumn officially start? Can it begin in September? I think so. The wild sunflowers are already peeking their heads out. Hopefully soon, the weather will cool down, the leaves will begin to change, and neighbors won’t mind Halloween decorations out this early.

To kick off the Halloween season’s mood, our prompt for this month was “the bite of a creature (insect, animal, person?) either kills you or gives you powers.” Could be spooky or could be super heroes. Only time will tell.

To find out what our sole Confabulator contributor did with the prompt this month, please visit us on the scheduled day:

Monday, September 16: “Blood and Darkness” by Sara Lundberg

Welcome back, readers. It’s been rather quiet at the Cafe, these days, and our time is winding down. Our last month of stories will be December.

I’ll write a bit more about that soon, but in the meantime, please enjoy our August story! Our prompt was treehouses versus castles.

Thursday, August 15th: “The Cutest Dragon” by Dianne Williams

It’s full-on summer, here, so grab an iced latte and relax. We only have one story for you this month, and I blame the heat. Everything is slow and sluggish this time of year, moving even a little causing sweat and exhaustion, and that includes words.

But serious kudos to our sole Confubulator who shook off the summer lethargy to write us a story. The prompt she wrote to: patients are woken up from hibernation when the cures to their diseases have been discovered.

We hope you’ll come visit us when the story goes live! Here’s the date:

Monday, July 15: “All the Same” by Emily Mosher

Welcome back to the Cafe, reader. We hope you’ve enjoyed the stories the Confabulators have spun thus far. And we hope to continue to dazzle you.

This month, the prompt was a first line, last line. Confabulators were challenged to begin their story with “That escalated quickly” and end it with “only time will tell.”

Only one brave soul took on that challenge. Please visit us later this month to read Dianne’s story for this prompt:

Friday, June 14: “Career Day” by Dianne Williams

Spring is in full swing, here, and summer is just around the corner. And summer means vacations. Which often means travel. Long road trips. Sight seeing. Cramped, cheap hotel rooms.

Have you ever wondered about what has happened in the hotel rooms you’ve stayed in before you were there? Or after?

This month, we’ve tasked the Confabulators to write about a specific situation. If you were to find an unopened letter in your room when you checked in, what would you do with it? Open it? Turn it in? Leave it alone? What if any one of those answers had unintended consequences?

Read this month and find out.

Here’s the May schedule:

Monday, May 29: “Lisa West and the Goat” by Dianne Williams

April Fool’s day is an interesting holiday. Many cultures celebrate it, but even its origins are a mystery.

So for this April, Confabulators were prompted to make up their own holiday and tell us a story about it. We hope you’ll visit us throughout the month to see what they came up with.

Here’s the April schedule:

Monday, April 8: “False Spring” by Aspen Junge
Monday, April 15: “Hero Day” by Dianne Williams
Monday, April 22: “Carnival of Farts” by Eliza Jaquays

Hello, readers! Welcome back to the Cafe! Spring still seems to be dragging its feet, so pull up a chair by the fire and get ready for some entertainment.

This month, the Confabulators were tasked to write stories in which a character’s magical powers do not work when the character is drunk (or otherwise incapacitated, whether overly tired, sick, has the hiccups, or whatnot).

Two brave souls took on that challenge. Please join us this month to see where our Confabulators took the prompt.

Here’s the March schedule:

Monday, March 11: “Bound in Blood” by Eliza Jaquays
Monday, March 25: “The Strength of Winter” by Dianne Williams