Category: Notes from the Management

February has arrived. A month where winter still holds on to our hearts, and we fight the chill by celebrating our loved ones on Valentine’s Day. And then hurry the month along by only giving it 28 days.

Hopefully a couple of stories from the Cafe will help warm your days this month.

The prompt: “Dance with me and pretend the world doesn’t exist,” he pleaded. And after that, there was no going back.

Please join us on the following days to see what the Confabulators had to say about that.

Monday, February 11: “Like the Sun” by Eliza Jaquays
Monday, February 25: “At the Edge of the World” by Dianne Williams

Hello and welcome to the new year. And another year of stories here at the Cafe!

This year, we have new prompts, new stories, and some new guest authors!

For the first batch of stories for the new year, the Confabulators were challenged to write an origin story of their own (or their own twist on a an existing myth).

Here’s the lineup for the month of January:

Friday, January 4: “The Stylist” by Eliza Jaquays
Friday, January 11: “In a Better World” by Greta Valentine
Friday, January 18: “The Myth of the Venerable Trauer Klouse” by
Cigan Cuk

This year is drawing to a close, and we’re celebrating our third full year of fiction here at the Confabulator Cafe. Thank you so much for joining us each month, reader. Your support means a great deal.

We already have our prompts for next year, which you can get a sneak peek for by visiting the Fiction Archive page. Make note of those months you’d really like to read so you’re sure to come check us out.

For this month, the last month of the year, we tasked the Confabulators to write letters. Tis the season, after all! The only requirement for this month’s prompt was that the story had to be told in epistolary format (the entirety of the story told in correspondence back and forth). We hope you’ll enjoy this slightly different format (although we have had a brave Confabulator do it once before!).

Here is the schedule for December:

Friday, December 7: “A Sticky Exchange” by Eliza Jaquays
Friday, December 14: “(22) Missed Calls” by Kita Haliwell
Friday, December 21: “Help My Elf” by Dianne Williams
Friday, December 28: “Christmas All My Life” by Sara Lundberg

In my experience, couch cushions are greedy things that pickpocket us while we’re sitting on them. Coins, socks, remote controls, food crumbs all seem to end up deep within the cracks of comfortable (or in some cases, not-so-comfortable) couches. Sometimes, though, the couch gives things back.

Our prompt for this month is “We found the lost ___ in the couch cushions.” Let’s see what the Confabulators found.

We’ll have stories every Thursday except for Thanksgiving. Couches don’t return things on holidays.

Here’s the November schedule:

Thursday, November 8: “Living Room Moon” by Emily Mosher
Thursday, November 15: “Spelunking” by Dianne Williams
Thursday, November 29: “A Matter of Time” by Sara Lundberg

Fall has arrived, dearest patrons of the Confabulator Café. Shorter, cooler days, apples and cider, pumpkins and other squash, Halloween and Thanksgiving. This particular Confabulator considers this to be the most wonderful time of the year.

And this time of year wouldn’t be the same without apples. So, this month’s prompt included that necessity. The prompt is: “an apple a day keeps the doctor away. What happens when you run out?”

I hope you’ll join us every Monday this month to find out.

Here’s the October schedule:

Monday, October 8: “Ugly Fruit” by Emily Mosher
Monday, October 15: “Il Dottore” by Aspen Junge
Monday, October 22: “Apple Heart” by Eliza Jaquays
Monday, October 29: “Apple of Her Mother’s Eye” by Sara Lundberg

Hello, readers. Hope you’re ready for a brand new month of fiction.

Our prompt this month was about dreams. Confabulators were given this line to inspire stories: “Every night you visit me. Sometimes in my dreams. Sometimes in my nightmares.”

Here’s the schedule for September. Hope to see you around!

Friday, September 7: “Dream Wars” by Emily Mosher
Friday, September 14: “Sunday Morning Coffee” by Kara DeLaughter
Friday, September 21: “Motorcycle Jack” by Dianne Williams

Hello, readers! We have a fantastic lineup for you this month, with a record-breaking number of stories for your enjoyment. We’ve got guest authors, newly minted full-fledged contributors, and returning authors we haven’t heard from in a while.

What prompt incited so many authors to come out of the woodwork? Time travel. Writers love to mess about with time, and for this month, we encouraged our Confabulators to tell us a tale using their interpretation of how time travel would work. Is time fluid and history changeable, like in Back to the Future? Can you only go back to moments in your own life, like in Reply or Time Traveler’s Wife? Are there fixed points in time you can’t change, like the Doctor is so fond of telling his companions in Doctor Who? Only time–and our writers–will tell.

So have a seat, order a drink, and let us entrance you with our confabulation. And as always, thank you so much for your time. We promise to use it for good rather than evil.

Here’s the August schedule:

Wednesday, August 1: “The Past Like a Pudding” by Emily Mosher
Friday, August 3: “The Museum of Claire” by Dianne Williams
Wednesday, August 8: “All The Time We Need” by Lea Orth
Friday, August 10: “A Multiverse of Possibilities” by Sebastian Sanchez
Wednesday, August 15: “Time Sleeper” by Kara DeLaughter
Friday, August 17: “Until Death Do Us Part” by Eliza Jaquays
Wednesday, August 22: “Timeline Unlimited, Inc.” by Nate Morsches
Friday, August 24: “Deep Shaft Run” by Aspen Junge
Wednesday, August 29: “The Scavenger’s Jar” by Ashley M. Hill
Friday, August 31: “Tourtime Terms and Conditions, Page 6” by Neil Siemers

Hello and welcome back to the Cafe. We hope you enjoyed our stories last month. We’ve got even more stories for you this month! We even have two new guest authors, Kara DeLaughter and Nate Morsches, so I hope you’ll give them a warm Cafe welcome.

The prompt this month was a first-line-last-line prompt, where Confabulators were all given the same line they had to start their story with and a line they all had to end their story with. It’s always interesting to see what directions the middle of the story takes within those parameters.

Please visit us to find out! Here’s the July schedule:

Friday, July 6: “Consideration” by Emily Mosher
Friday, July 13: “Jade and Hugo” by Kara DeLaughter
Friday, July 20: “The Date” by Nate Morsches
Friday, July 27: “The Bounty Hunters” by Sebastian Sanchez

Welcome to another month of free fiction here at the Cafe. Pull up a chair and let us get you a nice iced coffee or tea. It is much too warm out there for June. Which really means it’s great weather to stay inside and catch up on your reading.

This month, Confabulators were charged with looking back through the titles of old Cafe stories and using one for inspiration to write an all new tale. Then they had to give it a new title to make it their own. We call this Recycled Titles. We’ve also linked the original story at the end of each piece, so you can go read the original story, as well, to see how they measure up.

Here’s the schedule for June:

Friday, June 8: “The Real Boy” by Emily Mosher
Friday, June 22: “Witch Way” by Sara Lundberg

 

Greetings, readers. Welcome to the Confabulator Cafe, where us Confabulators write tales based on prompts every month.

This month, the prompt was: “legendary/mythical beast vs. legendary/mythical beast.” We didn’t limit what kind of creature or even what kind of verses. We hope you’ll enjoy the stories that sprung from this prompt.

Here’s the May schedule:

Tuesday, May 15: “The Upset” by Emily Mosher