The Confabulator Cafe

Category: Notes from the Management

  • June Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    We had an amazing turnout for our May stories. So many cases of mistaken identity! We’re back with another awesome line-up for June.

    We’re turning our attention to something a little more otherworldly this month. We’ve decided to explore the age-old question of what happens after death. Although perhaps not in the metaphysical or religious sense, exactly.

    Our prompt was “the business of the afterlife.” This can be anything from the mundane to the magical, but all of these tales touch a bit on what the afterlife might look like.

    We’re also pleased to welcome another brand new guest author, Amanda Hadley! We’d also like to welcome back August Baker, another long-time Confabulator who is back with us this month.

    We hope you enjoy our stories. Here is the schedule for June:

    Thursday, June 2: “Market Crash” by August Baker
    Monday, June 6: “The Resurrection” by Emily Mosher
    Monday, June 13: “Honour The Dead” by Anita C. Young
    Thursday, June 16: “Shop Girl” by Eliza Jaquays
    Monday, June 20: “Old Mother Nitala” by Aspen Junge
    Thursday, June 23: “My Only Human” by Sara Lundberg
    Monday, June 27: “White Collar” by Amanda Hadley
    Thursday, June 30: “Working for a Living” by Neil Siemers

  • May Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Welcome, friends. Welcome back to the Confabulator Cafe. Or, if you are here for the first time, welcome! Have a seat, sit back, and enjoy some fresh new stories, written just for you.

    This month, the Confabulators were tasked to write about a case of mistaken identity. Each author went about this in different ways, so we hope you will enjoy the diverse range of stories.

    We have an old familiar face who hasn’t been around here in awhile, so welcome back long-time Confabulator Jason Arnett. We’re all excited to have them join us this month.

    Here is the schedule for May. We hope you’ll stop by to read each of these stories!

    Tuesday, May 3: “Swagger and Sway” by Emily Mosher
    Friday, May 6: “D.M.(S.R.)” by Jason Arnett
    Friday, May 13: “Picture Perfect” by Eliza Jaquays
    Tuesday, May 17: “Fall Interrupted” by Rob Conway
    Friday, May 20: “Lessone the Firste” by Aspen Junge
    Tuesday, May 24: “Alexandra’s Awakening” by Anita C. Young
    Friday, May 27: “The Monster Next Door” by Ashley M. Hill

    (and a bonus story: “What Happened to the Goat,” still a case of mistaken identity, but written as a follow-up to “Picture Perfect.”)

  • April Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    While the Confabulator Cafe is a virtual place, a handful of the writers for the Cafe live in Kansas. We’ve been having some strange weather lately. Fires, snow, tornadoes, and eighty-degree afternoons when it was below thirty in the morning. The old saying that if you don’t like the weather in Kansas just wait five minutes is hyperbolic but not entirely untrue.

    It feels a bit apocalyptic at times. Perhaps that is why, when consulting a random prompt generator, we all acquiesced when it spat out: a library, a road warrior, and self sacrifice.

    Look, we know it’s a little Mad Max. But that’s something worth aspiring to, right? We hope you’ll enjoy this month’s stories. Here’s the schedule for you.

    Friday, April 8: “Snakebite” by Eliza Jaquays
    Friday, April 15: “Shiloh” by Ashley M. Hill
    Friday, April 22: “The 34-Year Harvest” by Dianne Williams
    Friday, April 29: “The Wandering Library” by Sara Lundberg

  • March Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    The Confabulator Cafe has been generating fiction in some capacity or another since its inception in 2012. In that time, the Confabulators have produced over 200 original short stories.

    We have quite the impressive body of work, if we do say so ourselves. If you ever feel like perusing past work, head on over to the Fiction page. Just be careful. You could get lost down the rabbit hole once you get started.

    For March, we decided to use that list of stories as prompts. We challenged ourselves to choose a title from the 200+ stories that have been written, write the story we felt went with that title, and then give the story a new title. All without reading the original tale until all of those steps were complete.

    It is fascinating to see how our own creativity has sparked additional creativity. We have all linked the original story that prompted the new story (at the end of the story, though, to avoid any potential spoilers).

    We hope you’ll enjoy a double dose of Cafe stories this month, and delve into our (sometimes shady) past as we forage ahead into the future.

    Here’s the March schedule:

    Friday, March 4: “The Tithe for Broken Dreams” by Sara Lundberg
    Wednesday, March 9: “The Sea and the Sky” by Emily Mosher
    Monday, March 14: “To Simplify Sadly ” by Rob Conway
    Friday, March 18: “The Last Sunny Day” by Dianne Williams
    Wednesday, March 23: “Missing Days” by Eliza Jaquays
    Monday, March 28: “A House with Many Doors” by Jack Campbell, Jr.

  • February Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    We hope you enjoyed leftover month at the Cafe. Now that we’re firmly into 2016, we’re all back in action and ready to write new fiction based on brand-new prompts.

    This month, our prompt was a fill-in-the-blank line. The line was: “There’s no ___ in this house. This probably won’t end well.” Some chose to use the line in the actual story, some just let it inspire the story, but, as always, we have a wide range of genres and tones spring from this prompt.

    We also have a brand new guest author, Rob Conway, so please make him feel welcome for his first story debut with us!

    The February schedule is below. We hope you enjoy!

    Monday, February 1: “The Promise of Running Water” by Eliza Jaquays
    Monday, February 8: “Maybe While I’m Asleep” by Sara Lundberg
    Monday, February 15: “Invisible Dad” by Emily Mosher
    Monday, February 22: “Morning Girl” by Rob Conway
    Monday, February 29: “The Shadow Thief” by Sarah Bredeman

  • January Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Happy New Year, friends! Welcome back to another year of free fiction from us here at the Confabulator Cafe. We’re brainstorming all new prompts and preparing for another awesome year of storytelling to entertain you all.

    We’re kicking off this year with a 2015 throwback, though. January is going to be what we’re calling a “leftover” month, because after the holidays, we’re too tired to cook and we still have tons of frozen leftovers from Thanksgiving and the holidays.

    So visit us all this month for a bit of a “best-of” as we all revisit our favorite prompt from 2015. And keep coming back all year for brand new, free fiction that we write just for you.

    Here’s the January schedule!

    Friday, January 1: “Autumn’s Fall” by Sara Lundberg
    Friday, January 8: “Home in Time for Cake” by Aspen Junge
    Monday, January 11: “The Cat Came Back” by Emily Mosher
    Friday, January 15: “The Cow of Cthulhu” by Jack Campbell, Jr.
    Friday, January 22: “The Stork’s Feather” by Dianne Williams
    Friday, January 29: “The Workers’ Tower” by Ashley M. Hill

  • December Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    NaNoWriMo has drawn to a close, and we’re back to our regularly scheduled stories for December.

    So, here we are, friends. The last month of the year and the last batch of stories for 2015. We hope you have enjoyed reading as much as we have writing this year.

    For December, the prompt was “unexpected gifts.” While some people took a holiday turn with that, others did not. However, all of these stories seem designed to make you think twice about accepting those gifts you weren’t expecting.

    Here’s the schedule below, so be sure to check in on these days for brand new, original free fiction! And happy holidays from us here at the Cafe.

    Friday, December 4: “WereTeddy” by Dianne Williams
    Wednesday, December 9: “What Kind of Mother” by Emily Mosher
    Friday, December 18: “The Smell of Christmas” by Eliza Jaquays
    Wednesday, December 23: “The Fruit Cake Invasion” by Sara Lundberg
    Monday, December 28: “The Gift of Flesh” by Jack Campbell, Jr

  • October Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    October is a wonderfully colorful and crispy time for writers to write. There are all sorts of associations with October and fall: pumpkin spice, sweaters, pie, haunted houses, Halloween, autumn leaves, death and decay, zombies, ghost, ghouls…ok, maybe that’s just us.

    This month, the Confabulators were asked to write about either fall and/or Halloween to fit with the mood of the season. Some of these stories might not be for the faint of heart.

    We hope you enjoy, and leave us feeling cozy and…haunted.

    New stories go live on Mondays and Thursdays this month. Here is the lineup. Don’t miss a day!

    Thursday, October 8: “Birdie” by Dianne Williams
    Monday, October 12: “Harvest Party” by Emily Mosher
    Thursday, October 15: “Secrets of Passages” by Jason Arnett
    Monday, October 19: “The Murder Cabin” by Sarah Bredeman
    Thursday, October 22: “Beneath the Waves” by Eliza Jaquays
    Monday, October 26: “Alexandria’s Halloween” by Anita C. Young
    Thursday, October 29: “Party at Pinehurst” by Jack Campbell, Jr.

  • September Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    It is often said that all stories have already been told, we’re all just rehashing the same plots over and over with our own unique perspectives.

    So this month at the Cafe, we intentionally did just that. We were challenged to write a retelling of a fairy tale, mythological story, or urban legend. See if you can recognize the original tales these stories came from this month. We hope you enjoy these strange and different retellings of common tales.

    Here’s the schedule this month:

    Thursday, September 3: “The Blind Poet’s Dog” by Emily Mosher
    Thursday, September 10: “Goldilocks and the Three Empty Cryopods” by Dianne Williams
    Monday, September 14: “Skinwalker” by Anita Young
    Thursday, September 17: “The Prince and the Poltergeist” by Sara Lundberg
    Monday, September 21: “The Sleeping Strategy” by Neil Siemers

  • August Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    We hope you all enjoyed our setting prompt last month. This month, the Confabulators were given a new challenge: to all write stories all using the same first and last lines.

    While all of our stories will begin and end the same, you will be amazed at the wide range of different stories that happen sandwiched between those common lines. We will let you discover for yourself what those lines are, and as you read, see if you can figure out how each author will get to their final destination.

    Not only are we exploring a wide range of prompts, we are also collecting a wide range of new guest authors, as well. This month, in addition to having a repeat offender, Topekan Anita C. Young, we will also have a debut story from Sarah Bredeman, a Kansas City resident, add her voice into the mix. Please welcome them both to our world of pure Confabulation.

    Here’s the August line-up:

    Thursday, August 6: “Glitterbomb!!” by Eliza Jaquays
    Monday, August 10: “The Glowstone Quest” by Anita C. Young
    Thursday, August 13: “Midnight’s Mission” by Sara Lundberg
    Monday, August 17: “Control” by Kevin Wohler
    Thursday, August 20: “Don’t Let Me Drown” by Sarah Bredeman
    Thursday, August 27: “Death World One” by Dianne Williams