Dear  Writers Forum Members and Guests,

Welcome to our new Writers Forum website!  I hope you’ll like the new features of our sparkling new digs.  One noteworthy feature is the ability to subscribe to the site using the gray button over to the right that says Follow Writers Forum.  See it over there?  By subscribing to our site, you’ll automatically receive new posts in your e-mail inbox.  Posts will include some of your favorite things like Messages from the President and The Spontaneous Pen.  We’ll also begin Member Mondays wherein members in good standing can have original work published on our site each week.  Mondays just got a whole lot better, didn’t they?  In addition to all of that I’ll be posting reminders of upcoming events, not to mention scads of photos after the events.  Did I mention e-mail subscriptions to our site are free?  So go ahead and take a minute to plug in your email address and click that Follow Writers Forum button on the right.

I’ll wait for you.

Now that you’ve subscribed, let me point out a couple of other features you might want to explore.  At the top of the site just above the Welcome to Writers Forum banner, you’ll notice several pages.  The About Writers Forum page gives you some details about our fine organization.  The Become a Member page gives you-yep, you guessed it-information on becoming a member.  The Calendar of Events page features Writers Forum events and other local writing events of note.  The Contact Us page lists the best ways for you to contact members of the Writers Forum Board of Directors.  Next is the Critique Groups page where interested writers can leave their contact information and link up with others interested in being a part of a critique group.  The Links page will feature helpful links and also links to member sites.  This feature is reserved for members in good standing.  And because we like you so very much and want to get to know you better we’ve got a Meet the Board of Directors page complete with mugshots, er, photos.  We’ve also got a Newsletter page where I’ll post color PDFs of past and current issues.  Last but not least is our Scholarship page, where teachers and graduating students can download the application for the annual Writers Forum scholarship.  Take a moment to click around on the different pages.

I’ll wait right here for you on the Home page.  Don’t be shy.  No, really, it’s okay to snoop around a bit.  In fact, I encourage it.  Then again, I always was a nosy kid.

Now let’s take a look at some more of the site features over on the right. We’ve got a Search bar up at the top.  When you’re looking for a particular topic on our site, you can just type it in and go.

You’re on Twitter and Facebook?  Hey, we are, too!  Click the ‘t’ or the ‘f’ underneath the search bar and come follow Writers Forum on Twitter and Facebook.

Just underneath that we’ve got the Follow Writers Forum button, but you’re already an old pro at that section, aren’t you?

Beneath that there’s a list of Recent Posts, just in case you miss one, which you won’t of course, because you’ve already set them up to wait patiently for you in your inbox, right?  But just in case you do miss a post, the most recent ten posts will be lined up all pretty in the Recent Posts section.

Wait, did she say only the TEN most recent posts will listed be there?!?  I sure did, but before you fire up your printer and start printing out every post because you want to keep all of them, take a breath.  The older posts can still be located by clicking on the small gray older posts arrow down at the bottom of the screen.  Plus all posts are stored in the Archives where they continue to live out long and happy lives, even after their time on the front of the Home Page has passed.  Feel better now?  Good.

Underneath the archives you’ll see a Category Cloud.  As I post about different topics like Monthly Meetings, Screenwriting, Poetry, etc., you can access those posts through the Category Cloud.  I picked this feature out for people like me who might be just a tad forgetful.  For example, if a member posts a really great poem and you want to go back and read it again and leave the author a nice comment, but you can’t remember the author’s name or what month it was posted in, you can just click on Poetry in the Category Cloud and it will show you all the poetry posts.  Really I can’t be the only forgetful one out there, right?  Right?

And speaking of leaving comments, with every post there’s a little orange speech bubble that says Leave a comment.  I do hope you’ll leave comments for each other, especially for members who are brave enough to share their work on Member Mondays.  I also hope you’ll leave me comments on the different pages.  For example, if you know of a great writing event happening locally and would like me to add it to our calendar, leave me the details in a comment on the Calendar of Events page.  If you’re a member in good standing and would like your own website to be listed as a link, drop me a comment on the Links page.  However, my mom always said, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” and I’ll be applying that rule here.  Should you choose to leave any sort of negative comment, not only will your comment never see the light of day, but I may also pass your contact information along to my mother who will be more than happy to give you lessons on how to put the ‘kind’ in humankind.

I want this site to be our site, so please be in touch with suggestions and features you’d like me to add.  Oh, and one last thing, be sure you bookmark this new site and tell your Writers Forum friends to do the same because the previous site will soon no longer be accessible.  I look forward to seeing you around our new online home.

Fondly,

Alicia McCauley,

Webmaster & Director at Large