Blog - Auroras & Blossoms

Special Announcement!

On April 25, 2025

Hello everyone,

We are very excited to announce that A Warm Mug of Cozy has joined the Auroras & Blossoms family!

A Warm Mug of Cozy

We launched A Warm Mug of Cozy in October 2022 to celebrate and promote cozy mysteries. After two very successful volumes in our yearly Warm Mug of Cozy Anthology, we felt that it would be a great idea to expand our offering.

What does this mean? That we now accept all genres, as long as they follow the cozy concept.

We define cozy stories as stories that promote kindness, community, comfortable settings (e.g. bakeries, libraries, nature…), rich sensory descriptions, and character growth, while staying away from gory and graphic details.

A Warm Mug of Cozy is now seeking submissions of short stories on a rolling basis. Accepted stories will be published on our blog.

Of course, it is free to submit to us for potential feature on the blog. But donations help us stay afloat.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Auroras & Blossoms

On another note, Auroras & Blossoms is also seeking blog submissions on a rolling basis. And we still have a few spots left for our PoArtMo Anthology: Volume 6!

For those who don’t know us yet, PoArtMo stands for “Positive Actions Rally Thoughts & Momentum,” a concept based on the following tenets:

Family-friendliness & clean language
Positivity and upliftment
Inclusivity and respect for all.

Inspired by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month), PoArtMo seeks to promote positive and inspirational art and creativity.

Every year, the Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology offers a selection of works (poetry, stories, photography, drawings, paintings…) from Cendrine Marrouat, David Ellis, Azelle Elric, Marjolein Rotsteeg, and special guests ages 17 and over.

We hope that you will send us your work.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Have a great weekend!

Cendrine and David

Submissions are open for ‘A Warm Mug of Cozy: Volume 3’!

By Auroras & Blossoms

On January 9, 2025

In Submission Calls, The Warm Mug of Cozy Corner

Hello everyone,

Happy new year! We wish you the best for 2025, especially great success with all your writing endeavours. We also hope that you had a wonderful holiday season.

This email is your official invitation to submit your work for potential inclusion in Volume 3 of our annual Warm Mug of Cozy Anthology. We are starting things early this year because our goal is to try and release two volumes this year!

Our official submission guidelines can be found here: https://warmmugofcozy.com/anthology-submission.

Please submit to us no later than March 31, 2025.

We can’t wait to read your gripping stories again!

Cendrine & David

Submissions are open for ‘The PoArtMo Anthology: Volume 6’!

By Auroras & Blossoms

On January 7, 2025

In Announcements, The PoArtMo Corner

Hello everyone,

Happy new year! We wish you the best for 2025, especially great success with all your creative endeavours. We also hope that you had a wonderful holiday season.

Just a quick note to let you know that we are back in action. We are now accepting a limited number of participants for the sixth volume of our PoArtMo Anthology.

Every year, The PoArtMo Anthology offers a selection of inspirational and uplifting works (poetry, stories, photography, drawings, paintings…) from Cendrine Marrouat, David Ellis, Azelle Elric, Marjolein Rotsteeg, and special guests ages 17 and over.

Are you a storyteller or artist? If so, we would love to hear from you! Please email us for consideration at info@abpositiveart.com by March 31, 2025. In your message, include the following information:

Short bio (third person) + link to your website.
Work samples: 250 words maximum (writers) and/or 2 images maximum (visual artist). PDF documents or JPG files only!
Explain why you think your work would fit our PoArtMo Anthology.

Please note that the samples you send us will help us determine if you are the right fit. They will NOT be used in any of our anthologies.

Submission guidelines are only accessible to selected participants.

We cannot wait to read you!

Cendrine & David

The Warm Mug of Cozy Anthology: Focus on Sam Morris

By Auroras & Blossoms

On August 27, 2024

In Latest book releases, The Warm Mug of Cozy Corner

Welcome to our mini-series on A Warm Mug of Cozy Anthology, which celebrates the writers whose stories are featured in Volume 2 of our yearly anthology.

Today, Sam is sharing what inspired his story “A Terrible Murder.”

The main inspiration for “A Terrible Murder,” was to tell the story from the murderer’s perspective. Like everything, it’s been done before, but I hoped it would be a novel and interesting approach for me at least. After all, surely one reason we all love crime fiction is the fascination of what goes on in the killer’s head. Why do they murder people and how can they justify it? The immediate problem with this approach was, if this was to be a cosy crime tale, the murderer couldn’t be a nasty or vindictive person, because that wouldn’t be fun or cosy at all. The murderer had to be mostly likeable, have a good reason for their actions and be able to provoke at least some sympathy from the reader.

The solution was to make them a thoroughly incompetent murderer and for everything to go very wrong for them right from the beginning, despite their best efforts. The story proved fun to write. I hope you enjoy reading it too!

Sam Morris is a UK-based writer who also happens to have a day job and a family. His work was recently shortlisted in the English Heritage Ghost Story competition, and highly commended in the Essex Book festival’s Crime Short Story Competition.

Thank you for sending us your story, Sam! We know people will love reading it as much as we have!

Today’s post completes our series for this year. See you in 2025 for the third volume of our Anthology! In the meantime, don’t forget to order your copy of Volume 2.

CLICK TO GRAB YOUR COPY

Cendrine & David

The Warm Mug of Cozy Anthology: Focus on Ian Tucker

By Auroras & Blossoms

On August 20, 2024

In Latest book releases, The Warm Mug of Cozy Corner

Welcome to our mini-series on A Warm Mug of Cozy Anthology, which celebrates the writers whose stories are featured in Volume 2 of our yearly anthology.

Today, Ian Tucker is sharing what inspired his stories “Whispers in Bars” and “The Old Book.”

Both the stories entered are intended to be classic whodunnits with a traditional cozy sleuth living in a modern but largely sanitized world. The stories are therefore essentially golden age structures taking into account how the world has moved on in 80-90 years. They are intended as puzzles where the pieces are all available (no ‘psychology of the individual’ insights, dependence upon confessions or last minute telegrams from Somerset House allowed). James Hamilton Ross himself is no prodigy of a Sherlock or Marple type, because I’ve never met any people who are actually like that. Instead he is a common sense thinker, who could be anyone, provided they take the time to tot up the clues. If Hamilton can solve it, then the reader can too.

Hamilton is also no flag carrier for the law or doctrines. There are no worthy speeches from Catholic priests about criminals saving their souls, because that would seem anachronistic now. For the whodunnit set in a world where morals don’t have the hard edges they had during the golden age, the sleuth necessarily operates in a more flexible and shifting context. Hamilton himself feels no confidence in traditional interpretations of justice or loyalty to them. He is a modern cynic, a free actor who takes action as he sees fit and applies his own judgement to the consequences. He consequently resolves rather than solves crimes and he does so as he sees fit. He is as likely to let the culprit go as he brings in the police and he certainly isn’t going to try to reform or change anyone.

Overall, however, these stories are intended to be entertaining rather than having any message or world view to impart. They are apolitical. And sometimes, I hope, they are funny.

Ian Tucker writes crime mysteries and humour with a focus on the puzzle to be solved. He has completed three full-length novels and numerous short stories and continues to write for fun.

Website: http://tilebury.com

Thank you for sending us your stories, Ian! We know people will love reading it as much as we have.

In the meantime, don’t forget to order your copy of A Warm Mug of Cozy Anthology: Volume 2.

CLICK TO GRAB YOUR COPY

Cendrine & David