The Best of CaféLit 12

by Gill James (Editor)

This year we present a selection of some of the best stories from each month. There is a balance of longer and shorter stories, darker and lighter tales, serious and funny prose, experimental and conventional. Many of them invite you to reflect. There is also a welcome balance of old friends, writers who have contributed to CaféLit over the years, and of new voices.

Each story in this little volume is the right length and quality for enjoying as you sip the assigned drink in your favourite Creative Café. You need never feel alone again in a café. So what’s the mood today? Espresso? Earl Grey tea? Hot chocolate with marshmallows? You'll find most drinks in our drinks index.

199 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 12, 2023

About the author

Gill James writes novels for middle grade and young adults and short fiction for everyone. Her current work consists of a cycle of novels set mainly in Nazi Germany and of some texts of experimental fiction.

She is published by Crooked Cats, Tabby Cat Press, The Red Telephone and Butterfly. She is an associate lecturer in Creative Writing at Salford University, UK, where she formerly worked as a senior lecturer. She has published several academic papers.

Her stories are published on Litro, CafeLit, Alfie Dog, Ether Books and in several anthologies.

She offers workshops on creative writing, book-building, creative writing in other languages and the Holocaust and life in Nazi Germany.

Reviews by Gill can be found in Armadillo Magazine, IBBY, Troubador, GoodReads, Amazon and on her own web site.

Member of the Society of Authors, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Literature Wales and the National Society of Writers in Education, Gill has an MA in Writing for Children and PhD in Creative and Critical Writing

She edits for Bridge House Publishing, CaféLit, Chapeltown Books and The Red Telephone.
Before becoming a writer and an academic she taught modern languages for 23 years in various schools and has continued to make school visits as a writer of fiction for children and young adults.

Reviews

[Pam Keevil · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, I loved the structure of the book, with stories assigned to each month and with each one designated a drink to enjoy while reading. Brilliant idea. The stories are all a pleasure to read and so diverse. I was particularly struck by the portrayal of extreme cold in January’s offering by Jim Bates, the poignancy of the disappointment of Ma in Never Count Your Chickens, the true-life pain and reconciliation in S. Nadja Zajdman’s How My Mum Came to Forgive Omar Sharif and Dawn DeBraal’s Good Times with a portrayal of a burgeoning friendship between two senior citizens. But every story brings something different and as each one is short, it’s the perfect book for the bedside table or the sun lounger. And add a drink of your own choice, of course!

[Sheena Bamsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant collection of short stories, all magically evocative. Particularly so, Julie Wise’s Tea and Turpentine. Her tale captures and portrays such a pure love, caught
at the moment of its fulfillment. I think everyone will feel and respond respond as I did, very viscerally. Julia Woods’, One Green Bottle, is pure time travel to a past she, nor any human could forget. I became her as I read it. Martha, by Henri Lewi, is also an excellent read with a perfectly tuned and twisted finish! A great mixture, some so funny and others deeply sad.

Each story gives you a new reason to continue on to another, perhaps timely or hauntingly timeless, another shared discovery, picked seemingly with great care for your head, heart and soul.

[Doug Jacquier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to declare an interest here as one of the authors represented but this is a fine collection of short fiction to dip into and out of as you please. There are perspectives from across the globe and its cultural variations. Well worth snuggling up with, accompanied by your favorite drink.

[Sarah Swatridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Best of CafeLit 12 is a collection of 45 short stories by various writers worldwide, so you get a wide variety of voices and as there's no specific theme, you get a huge range of subjects and some wonderful characters. There's a family hiding from Covid in Minnesota, in January they struggle with the freezing temperatures, in May they find snakes and in August they go blueberry picking only to be met with a bear and her cub.

Doug Jacquier writes about a cook in the trenches, Allison Symes writes about celebrating the Jubilee and Lynn Clement writes a fun story about a woman in a red straw hat!

I loved the gentle romance in Good Times by Dawn De Braal and the short, but clever Lies by Mari Phillips as well as Fleur Lind's funny Christmas story. Sue Cook writes about Welsh traditions and Dawn Knox makes you think again about familiar fairy tales. You're bound to find a story for you.