Resources
From Category: Literary Forums
[Spoiler Alert]
[Spoiler Alert] is the online book club of The American Scholar, a well-respected magazine of literary criticism and essays. "We're a forum for swapping book recommendations, meeting editors and authors, and connecting with other readers across the country, culminating in regular livestreamed discussions about our book of the month." Read the forum guidelines and submit a request to join their private Facebook group.
81Words
81Words began as a flash fiction website hosted by Adam Rubenstein and is now curated on author Christopher Fielden's writing resources blog. Submit your 81-word short stories for online publication and possible anthology inclusion.
ABC Tales
Visit the discussion forums to post poems, chat about literature, and exchange tips for getting published. Now offering free webpages for all its members, sponsored by eTribes, a leading UK blogging service.
Absolute Write Water Cooler
Absolute Write's Bewares and Background Check forum is invaluable for discussions of questionable agents and publishers.
Allpoetry.com
Friendly amateur poetry forum allows authors to comment on each other's work, advertise their websites and host contests on their pages. Basic membership is free. For an additional $4.95, you can add graphics to your poem. Most useful for beginning writers. Some of the featured poems on the homepage are quite entertaining.
Archive of Our Own
One of the first and most comprehensive sites for fan-fiction and artwork, the nonprofit Archive of Our Own ("AO3" to fans) is home to over 5 million creative works spanning 30,000+ fandoms.
BookRix
BookRix is an online community where authors of poetry and prose can upload their work and receive feedback. Membership is free. The site is based in Germany but has an English-language section. BookRix offers several free contests throughout the year, with prizes up to $1,000; winners are decided by members' votes.
Christopher Fielden’s Links to Writing Critique Services
Fiction writer and digital marketing expert Christopher Fielden's blog features a list of links to services, both free and paid, where you can get feedback on your writing.
Corona Virus WTF Blog
Journalist Jenna Orkin created this forum for sharing our real-time reactions to the 2020 pandemic. Orkin's published works include The Moron's Guide to Global Collapse. She is also the co-founder of the World Trade Center Environmental Organization.
Critique Circle
Critique Circle is a free online forum for writers of literary fiction, genre fiction, essays, and articles. Members can give feedback on each other's work, either on the public site or in a private group. The site includes tools for plot outlining, storyboarding, keeping track of submissions, and writing prompts.
Disability Writes
Online forum for disabled writers to post poetry, fiction and articles, and receive feedback and news of writing opportunities. Website is managed by Just Services, with funding from Arts Council England.
Eratosphere
This discussion forum hosted by the literary journal Able Muse is a place where writers can share work in a variety of genres, including free verse, formal verse, literary criticism, fiction, humor, and translations. This community is most appropriate for experienced writers (i.e. not an amateur poetry forum).
FanStory
Online forum for poetry and short fiction offers frequent contests for members, with creative and offbeat writing prompts.
Flash Fiction World
British site for writers of short-short fiction includes advice for writing in the genre, listings of markets and contests, and a peer critique forum.
Getting Along with Grief
Author and artist Ysabel de la Rosa launched this blog in 2011 to collect poetry, prose, brief essays, book reviews, and artwork on the theme of living with loss. She writes, "Grief is more a recovery process than a traditional 'healing' process. It is not something we get over, as much as it is a set of experiences and emotions that we learn to live with, as we live on in our own lives." Check website for monthly themes for submissions.
Internet Writing Workshop
The Internet Writing Workshop is a free online forum for writers to exchange critiques of their works in progress. There are groups for short fiction, novels, poetry, nonfiction, and young adult literature. There are minimum participation requirements for each critiquing list representing approximately one half-hour per week. In addition, there are discussion forums to share ideas about marketing, literary craft, and favorite books and movies.
Litopia Writers’ Forum
Litopia advertises itself as the oldest writers' colony on the internet, with members in the UK, US, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Germany and the Caribbean. It was founded by literary agent Peter Cox of Redhammer Management. Free to join, Litopia includes critique and discussion forums, podcasts about publishing industry news and book reviews, and craft essays.
More Odds Than Ends
More Odds Than Ends is an online community for writers of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Weekly blog posts offer a selection of quirky photos and one-sentence prompts, some provided by the site editors and others submitted by members.
MosaicMusings
Online forums to post your poetry and prose, as well as several contests per year for the best work on the site.
Mr. Africa
Site focusing on poetry by African-Americans includes general-interest and Christian-themed poetry forums, as well as profiles of notable black poets.
Mystery Writers Forum
This free online forum for mystery writers includes boards for writing advice, the publishing business (agents, conferences, and trends), and crowdsourced research about how crimes are committed and solved. Wondering about courtroom procedure, legal ethics, or how various weapons and poisons work? Ask the forum.
New Play Exchange
New Play Exchange is a site for playwrights, lyricists, composers, librettists, devising artists, adapters, and translators to read and share scripts. Find your next collaborator or dramatic work to produce at your arts organization, and network with other creators in your genre. Annual fees are just $12 for early-career members and $18 for professionals.
PenTales
Online writers' forum PenTales strives to empower people to share and discover stories through live events, collaborative books, and a curated online platform. They publish narrative poetry, flash fiction, and artwork. See website for currently open themes.
Poetics Listserv
High-level poetic debates abound at this listserv populated by published authors and professors, which was launched in 1993 by Charles Bernstein, a founder of the avant-garde Language Poetry movement. As of January 2014, the forum is no longer accepting new posts, but the archives are worth reading.
Poetry Cooperative
Poetry Cooperative is an online forum to share your poetry and win prizes. Basic membership is free, and Gold Tier membership is $10/month. Gold members have the opportunity to be paid $50 for work that is accepted for the Poetry Cooperative Magazine. The site also offers a monthly contest whose prize is one month of Gold membership.
Screech Poetry Magazine UK Forum
Created in 2017 by poet Sue Benjamin, Screech Poetry Magazine UK Forum is a free online community for poets of all experience levels. Topic threads include love, politics, humor, erotica, and verse for children. Free themed contests offer prizes of Amazon UK book tokens (gift certificates), usually 15-25 pounds.
Storyhouse Weekly Reader
The nonprofit Preservation Foundation was born in 1976 to encourage and preserve the "extraordinary stories of 'ordinary' people." Anyone can submit a personal life story or short fictional work for posting on their website. Their e-newsletter, the Storyhouse Weekly Reader, highlights one of the 1,000+ anecdotes in their archives.
Survivor Stories: It’s On Us
Survivor Stories is a project of It's On Us, a national movement to end sexual assault, and the group End Rape on Campus. This free online forum offers a supportive space to post personal stories of sexual abuse and trauma recovery. Stories are searchable by theme, gender, and orientation. The site includes grounding activities to help with the emotional impact of reading the stories.
The StoryGraph
The StoryGraph is a social network for sharing book reviews and recommendations. Created in 2019 by Nadia Odunayo, the app grew in popularity in 2024 as an alternative to Amazon-owned Goodreads. Unlike its larger competitor, The StoryGraph allows half-star and quarter-star ratings. It also includes content and trigger warnings for books; the option to leave a check-box review rather than a written paragraph; and a journaling feature to take notes on books as you read them. Goodreads users can export their data to The StoryGraph so they don't lose their wishlists and reading history. Read an interview with the creator in The Huffington Post.
The Unsealed
The Unsealed is a free online community for people to write and exchange inspirational open letters that reveal strength and encourage compassion. Sports journalist Lauren Brill founded it to provide a space where people of all races, genders, sexual orientations and socioeconomic backgrounds can be heard and supported, while also motivating and educating others. The site offers contests, free workshops, and pen pal relationships to seek advice on personal topics.
Wompo - A Women in Poetry Listserv
Wompo is a listserv devoted to the discussion of Women's Poetry. Membership is open to all individuals who are interested in discussing poetry written by women. The discussion covers women poets of all periods, aesthetics, and ethnicities.
YeahWrite
Founded in 2011, YeahWrite is an online writing community that offers weekly themed challenges in the genres of fiction, poetry, personal essay, and micro-story. The YeahWrite Coffeehouse is a discussion forum where members can share inspiration, ask questions, find out about publishing opportunities, and post their successes. There are also quarterly fiction and essay contests with modest prizes.
Zoetrope Virtual Studio
In 1998, acclaimed film director Francis Coppola launched a website where writers could submit their short stories to his magazine, Zoetrope: All-Story. A community of writers quickly formed around the website. It became so popular so quickly that a few months later he created sites for novellas and screenplays. The Virtual Studio, which launched in June 2000, brings together the original sites as departments, plus includes new departments for other creative endeavors. Members can workshop a wide-range of film arts, including music, graphics, design, and film & video, as well as access some of the best e-collaboration tools.
