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