Share your Successes

We thought it would be great to celebrate our writing successes, large or small, here at Cafe Aphra 
so we have created this space to do so.

Please send us your success stories of publishing, competitions, getting a manuscript read by someone or getting an agent. Whatever you feel proud of and pleased about 
- we will be delighted to cheer with you!


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Bren Gosling has written in to tell us of his success with two other 'flashes' since we published Room (Now) in our Flash Fiction Fridays series at the end of February. 

Let Me Pay was placed in the Runner Up category for the 2014 Words with Jam Shorter Short Story Competition, and will appear in their July 2014 Anthology. Wrong Entrance was long listed for the 2014 Fish Flash Fiction Prize.

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Frances Hay - who has contributed several pieces to Cafe Aphra including the flash fiction piece, Chameleon, in January - has also had a good run of writing successes recently. Her short story, The Foxes, appeared online in the most recent issue of Damselfly Press.

Frances' story A Stake in the Future will appear later this year in Persimmon Tree Press and an extract from her novel, Cloud Illusions, was published earlier this year by Mulfran Press.

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Regular Cafe Aphra contributor, Frances Hay, has now had her fabulous short story published in the latest edition of The Persimmon Tree... well done Frances! Check out the link to read the story: A Stake in the Future

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Congratulations also to regular contributor Chad Broughman, whose flash fiction story, Into the Light of Things, was published by "Wild Violet" magazine a few months ago. In addition, "Bound Off" literary audio magazine has chosen to feature another of his pieces, Our Sugar Maple, in this August's podcast. Fantastic news. 

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One of Cafe Aphra's founding members, Sara Roberts, is also celebrating a few writing successes with her flash fiction this week. She will have her story Rainbow Weather included in "FlashFlood", the National Flash Fiction Day journal. It will appear on the journal blog, Flash Flood, at around 2-3pm (BST) on National Flash Fiction Day - Saturday 21st June  2014.

Sara is also having one of her pieces of flash fiction, Apple Tree, read at a live flash fiction reading event at The Albion Beatnik Bookstore in Oxford on Saturday night. Here's to independent bookstores everywhere - long may they thrive! 

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 Tina Smith, who has contributed a number of pieces to Cafe Aphra, has written in to tell us that a short zombie film she co-wrote called The End, has just won 'Best Horror' at the 2014 Limelight Film Awards. She has completed the feature length version and this is already attracting interest from investors via We Are Heroes film production company. (The film was produced and directed by Crash Taylor and Raj Pathak) Well done Tina!


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Cafe Aphra contributor Bren Gosling has written in to tell us that he has four flash fiction stories - Bench, Wrong Entrance, A Statement and Travesty - now available as free app downloads published by Ether Books, available here: http://www.etherbooks.com/ Ether Books publish short fiction suited to be downloaded and read on  smart phones. Well done Bren!

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Cafe Aphra co-founder, Sara Roberts, and regular contributor Chad Broughman, have both been selected for this week's "Remix" as part of the if:book Australia online project, Open Changes. Sara's piece, Redback, and Chad's, Of Deaf Ears and Contrition, were both inspired by last week's selection. They look forward to reading and writing more 200-word micro-stories using other writers' stories as prompts in this really fun online project. 

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Well done to Cafe Aphra contributor Nick Stone, who will read his work at the Worcestershire LitFest Flash Fiction in November. His story, No Place for Sissies, will be included in the anthology 'Fifty Flashes of Fiction'.

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Sara Roberts (The Holiday) and Barbara Seidl (The Giggles) have both had pieces of flash fiction published by Flash Fiction Magazine recently - well done!

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Sincere congratulations to Nancy Bevilaqua, who has just published her collection of poems Gospel of the Throwaway Daughter. Cafe Aphra was the first literary journal to publish a poem from the collection ('Night Gathering'). Well done Nancy! 

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Well done to contributor Nick Black, who has twice been voted best flash fiction entry of the week by the public vote at Ad Hoc Fiction and has had a flash fiction story published in an anthology by Retreat West, Inside These Tangles Beauty Lies. Great stuff Nick!

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Bren Gosling, who has had three stories featured now in Cafe Aphra's Flash Friday spot, has recently had a new short story Meatballs performed by Liar's League Hong Kong and headlines with his story Where we were happiest in visualverse.org for September. He's recently learned that two of his other new flashes, Getting over Peter and Thinking outside the box, will be published in November by Black Pear Press in the 2015 Worcestershire Flash Fiction Anthology A Stash of Flashes. Congratulations Bren!

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Congratulations also to regular Cafe Aphra contributor, Frances Hay, on her latest writing success - her short story, A Bad Date, was included in the Welsh Short Story Network anthology Secondary Character and Other Stories, edited by Barrie Llewellyn, Opening Chapter Publishers. Well done Frances!

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Afia Nkrumah is delighted to see her short fiction film, Shadow Man, about undocumented migrants in London, screening at film festivals around the world. This is a double celebration for her having been selected by the London Calling Plus Scheme, part of Film London, as one of only five finalists nationally in the UK. That gave her the funding she needed to turn her screenplay into a short film. The fact that it has been so well received (for example, at the Vienna Film Festival), is fantastic news and we are delighted for her. Congratulations Afia!

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Regular Cafe Aphra contributor Chad Broughman has, happily, several publications to report: One of his stories has appeared in the East Coast Literary Review. A poetry anthology dedicated to Mackinac Island, entitled Beneath the Lilac Canopy, will also be featuring one of his poems. Finally, he has pieces forthcoming in Carrier Pigeon magazine and Fickle Muses online magazine. Fantastic news - congratulations Chad! 

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Huge congrats to Cafe Aphra contributor, Kevlin Henney, who was a judge for the NFFD Micro-Fiction Competition in 2015: http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/comp.html 


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A big shout out to B.E.Seidl, a regular contributor to Cafe Aphra, whose story "The Man in Front of the House" has been included in the February issue of 'The Sirens Call' eZine as part of Women in Horror Recognition Month. Great news!

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Also our heartfelt congratulations go to Afia Nkrumah, whose interview we featured here on Cafe Aphra, and who will start work this month as the first EVER black female director of that classic of British television... EastEnders!!! Very well done from us all at Cafe Aphra - a really huge achievement.

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Santino Prinzi - whose story 'Handball' Cafe Aphra published earlier in 2016 - has just had his debut flash fiction collection published by The Nottingham Review Press. Dots and other flashes of perception is a collection of flash fiction that plays with the idea of perceptions, especially with the way we view the world and how what we see isn't always the truth. You can purchase Dots in print from The Nottingham Review or in the Kindle version from Amazon. Well done Tino!

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Our best wishes to Cafe Aphra contributor James Woolf, who has recently sold two short stories to Ambit magazine. Mr and Mrs Clark and Blanche will  be published late January 2017, and Good Morning, Azar will be published in April or July 2017. He was also shortlisted for the prestigious Bridport short story prize last year for his story The Crossroads at Jijiga
Sincere congratulations to him!

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Heartfelt congratulations go to long-time Cafe Aphra contributor Chad Broughman, who recently won the 2017 Adobe Cottage Writers' Retreat Fiction Contest with his coming-of-age literary short story, 'Uriah's Last Rites'. For his prize, he is spending a week this summer at the writer's cottage in Placitas, New Mexico, receiving coaching from bestselling authors Susan Donovan and Darynda Jones. Well done Chad!!

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A big shout-out also to Claire MacRae, a relatively recent joiner of Cafe Aphra, who after having her flash fiction 'Liz Taylor' featured on here has since been long-listed for the prestigious Bath Short Story Award! Great news Claire. 

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Cafe Aphra contributor James Woolf will be having his short story 'Good morning, Azar' featured in the next issue of Ambit magazine. Launch date is today (Tues 18th July 2017) @ 7pm at the Sun and 13 Cantons, 21 Great Pulteney Street, London, W1F 9NG... in case anyone can make it along to the reading! Sounds like a fascinating idea for a story - reproducing the collected notes left by a barrister to his cleaner over a four month period. Can't wait to read it! Very well done James, excellent news.

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One of Cafe Aphra's editors and founding members, Sara Roberts, has a piece of flash fiction featured in Chris Fielden's Sensorially Challenged: Volume 1 anthology, along with that of two long-standing contributors, Frances Hay and Tina Smith, and one of our newer followers from Australia, Glen Donaldson. The pieces are: 'A Sense of Place', 'Indigo', 'The Draughtsman' and 'No Brain-Pickers for Her', respectively. The volume is available from Amazon and the book launch will be held on 14th January, 1-3pm at Alexandra Park Library in London. Profits go to the National Literacy Trust.

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Chad Broughman's new book the forsaken...: a story collection is being released this month by Etchings Press,available here on Amazon. Huge congrats to Chad! We look forward to reading it...

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All our sincerest congratulations go to Frances Hay, one of Cafe Aphra's longest-standing contributors, on the imminent publication of her novel, The Night Fogs, by Holland House Books. You did it, Frances! What a huge achievement - very well done from us all.

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James Woolf would like to invite all Cafe Apra-ites along to a reading of his work at the launch for the summer 2018 issue of Ambit Magazine, at the Tate Modern art gallery in London. Tuesday July 17th, 6-10pm. The event is free but places must be booked using this link. Congratulations James, and have a great time at the launch!

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Got anything you want to shout about? Email it to us at: cafeaphra@yahoo.com

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