Young Writers Society

by alliyah

There’s been something a bit strange about YWS this month.

Back in February, @Lucrezia gave us an update on how chickens were taking the site by storm. In March, however, it appears some birds of a different feather have been flocking to the site. Yes, that's right: I'm here to formally address the penguin situation—or at the very least, give you all the latest information about it.

On March 4th, I made the innocent observation that @Liminality and @ForeverYoung299 appeared to be sharing the same penguin avatar. Well, we never got an answer for what caused the matching avvies, because shortly after that, penguins started invading the site. @Mageheart, @Snoink, @BluesClues, @yosh, @Dossereana, and @starshipgirl had their profile pics penguin-ified while a series of cryptic penguin posts and penguin-confusion erupted from the People tab.



Claims were made that perhaps the penguins had something to do with the ever-mysterious YWS faction "Classified" (always a possibility in my book!), but no solid evidence has linked the penguins with this group's activities . . . yet. In fact, some people sporting penguin avvies deny the presence of these flightless birds on YWS altogether. Still others tried to pit the penguins, chickens, and goos against one another, along with their respective teams. But there is nothing to suggest the penguins oppose other popular YWS birds. All that can be said for certain is that the penguins seem to be multiplying!

What does this mean? Well, it's too soon to know quite yet. But you may remember last year when a few stray goos sightings turned into an all-out April 1st Goos Invasion of the site, so one can never be too cautious. For whatever reason, YWS actually has a strong history of bird takeovers—for instance, August 2020: Blue-Gold Macaws & Chickens.

We may never know why this March has brought us the march of the penguins, but nonetheless choose your bird team, or throw your weight behind more than one! It's certainly not too late to change your avvie to a penguin or any other beloved bird if you want to join the fun. And as you're debating where your allegiances lie or simply wondering if this is all too silly for you, please do check out my Poetry & Art contest currently accepting any poems or artwork that relate to the prompt "chickens, goos, and penguins"—with a first-place prize of 500 points!

Oh! And Team Chicken all the way!

by Lucrezia

We all know and love the YWS Literary Spotlight. With the recent change allowing us to upload custom-designed cover images for our work, the spotlight’s been looking better than ever. And even though I’ve been on this site for nearly a decade, it still thrills me whenever I see something I wrote featured on the site’s homepage.

With that said, the spotlight has obvious limitations: it can only showcase five works at a time, and there are a lot of great pieces—especially longer works—that don’t accrue likes as quickly or as easily, regardless of how well-written they are. So allow me to introduce you to the Unofficial Literary Spotlight! In this article, we’ll be showcasing a selection of pieces we feel are exceptional and worthy of a spotlight all their own.

Let’s start with ”The Return” by @Mashenka. This short story is a gripping read, important and impactful. The premise itself will command your attention, but so will the writing, which is beautiful and haunting. It’s well-paced and well-composed, an expertly-written story that will make you think, leaving you with plenty to ponder.

Then there’s ”Beauty in the Macabre” by @KocoCoko, a short story which puts you into the mind of the narrator and allows you to see the world through their eyes. The style of this story is colorful and creative, with writing that sparkles: each sentence is imbued with life and personality, as well as imagery that dances off the page. It’s vivid, unique, and memorable.

Finally, we have @noahfencebut’s ”boyhood kommos,” a heartbreaking, devastating, sumptuous poem. The emotion is intense, riveting—a raw nerve—while the writing is striking and sophisticated. The style and voice are reminiscent of Rachel McKibbens. Like McKibbens’ work, this poem is a tour de force, a masterclass in poetic writing which makes superb use of language.

I hope you check out these phenomenal pieces and show them some love! And if you know of any other stellar literary works that are underrated—whether it’s a piece you wrote, of which you’re quite proud though it hasn’t yet connected with the YWS community, or a piece someone else wrote that you think deserves far more attention than it’s currently receiving—feel free to send me a PM with the recommendation. Who knows, it might just end up in the next Unofficial Literary Spotlight.

by Liminality

Flow. What is “flow”? For poets, flow is a vague yet desirable thing. We want our poetry to flow well: to sound good when read aloud, to sound good when read silently, to feel good on the page—even if the poem isn’t necessarily about good feelings.

A couple of Knowledge Base articles have been written about flow, including this and this. But what I’d like to suggest in the following article is that flow can come from a variety of places.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was an English poet who wrote during the Victorian period. One impression a lot of people have about such poetry is that these poems all have regular meter and very strict forms. (Meter is discussed in brief in the first article linked above!) That is, to some extent, true. However, keeping to a pattern does not mean there are no variations for effect.

Because there needs to be some deviation, at times you can’t put all your flow eggs in one basket, so to speak. One of Tennyson’s short poems I’ve always liked is ”Break, Break, Break.” When I first read this poem, I thought it had a completely regular meter. It just sounded regular, and so I assumed the meter was doing it. Taking a closer look, though, you can see that not only is the stress pattern different for each line, but so are the number of syllables. This means the poem does not follow a strict metric pattern like iambic pentameter, and what I was hearing was the flow of the poem, not a regular meter.

Let us look closely at Tennyson’s poem. Even though there is no fixed metric pattern, there are similarities in syllable counts and the number of stressed syllables. The importance of consistency to flow is suggested in that first Knowledge Base article I linked. In Tennyson’s poem, most lines have between 7-11 syllables, never something like 5 or 15. Perhaps one would notice the irregularities more if there were such a difference.



We could imagine a variation:

And the stately ships go on
To their halcyon haven there under the high and humid hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

My guess is that this modified stanza does not flow as well as the original, now that the second line has so many more syllables than you would expect, and not for any discernible reason.

Thus, for the most part, variations in the stress are not done at random. Sometimes the poet wants to use a more prose-like or speech-like cadence for a particular phrase and so deviates from the metric pattern. Other times, they do it to achieve a particular effect.



For example, the “break, break, break” stands out for being three stressed syllables in a row. It is not as consistent with the rest of the lines in its stanza as they are with each other. For me, these stressed patterns are more of a mouthful. I wonder if they produce the same sensation for you, like there is something very hard and heavy in the air which is difficult to make sense of, fitting in with the grief of the poem. If so, then it seems Tennyson might have gotten his money’s worth break-break-breaking the flow of the poem to make you feel this way!

Another thing that could give the poem its flow, despite the irregular syllable patterns, is its rhyme scheme, which is completely regular. “Sea” rhymes with “me.” So do “play” and “bay,” “hill” and “still.” Regular rhymes can be satisfying to read, like a bit of music that repeats itself. In Tennyson’s poem, they’re obvious since they occur at the end of lines and they’re perfect rhymes—i.e., words that rhyme fully, as opposed to slant rhymes, which may only rhyme the vowel or the consonant.

Additionally, the poem contains a decent amount of repetition. You’ve probably noticed the most obvious one: “break, break, break,” a refrain which occurs twice in the poem. Besides this, the repetition of “o sea” in the last stanza echoes the general pattern of the first stanza. It creates a circular ending, or a bookend, as we might say for novels. This goes to show that the feeling of “flow” or a sense of uniformity in rhythm can come from a variety of techniques!

To find out more, visit the Poetic Devices index in the Knowledge Base forum for a variety of articles exploring different aspects of poetic rhythm and language, including the two articles that were previously linked. If you have an interest in poetic history, why not also read this longer KB article? It covers the ideas of some poetic movements from the 20th century, including ideas about poetic rhythm.

Thanks for reading!

by Lucrezia

This past Review Day was a unique one: there were no teams, meaning it was every reviewer for themselves, and—for the winner and runner-up—there would be physical prizes. It was an exciting 24 hours, but ultimately, @KateHardy won first place while @Thediffident came in second. It makes sense the two would be victorious: Kate’s the all-time review champion of YWS, sitting at the top of the leaderboard with a grand total of 3920 reviews. Meanwhile, at the time of February’s Review Day, Thediffident was Featured Member of YWS, a prestigious title which she earned, in part, from her reviewing skills.

So what did the two of them have to say about their Review Day victories? And how about Kate’s feelings on being the number-one reviewer of YWS, or Thediffident’s experience as Featured Member? Write On caught up with them to find out.



KateHardy: I think I was feeling oddly confident that day. I had perhaps the most motivation I've had that entire month for reviewing and it worked out pretty well. I did have a little bit of a strategy which was to just review the biggest works that I could find. It let me take my time on those reviews without feeling like I'd fall too far behind.

Thediffident: To be honest, I was more excited than confident! I wasn't able to help much the last Review Day and really wanted to make up for it by trying my best this time. As for the strategy part, I didn't really have one. It was all thanks to the updated review point system that I was able to win second prize!



KH: "The Steadfast Sandcastle" by @simpleJ. It was the work that stuck out to me the most. It’s heartbreaking and that was mostly because of just how well it was written. Unfortunately it does seem to have been set to private recently.

TD: I came across lots of amazing stories, writing styles and unique plots while reviewing! Some authors/poets I read on Review Day whose work I’d like to recommend are @4revgreen, @Horisun, @yamatri, @Ari11, @Lucrezia, @vampricone6783, @LadyBug, and @Echo924 (I'm not sure if they're still on this site but their work is terrific). There are a lot of other people I'd like to mention but I’m afraid I may get carried away and tag the whole site. Everyone here is so talented, and it's a great experience to read and appreciate new and creative ideas on a daily basis!



KH: I think I missed the teams. A lot more puns emerge when you work with a team, and with that, not every review rampage has you scrambling to stay on top. You can take a moment to relax and cheer your teammates on.

TD: I don't mind either! The main objective was to reach the review goal, which we were very close to in both the last and current Review Days. And there are advantages with each style—for teams, we get more participation, and we can hype up and motivate each other to do our best. As individuals, we get to focus on our own performance, and in a way, it works as a self-motivation as well as self-improvement boost. So to sum it up, both options are great!



KH: Well, I was asked to choose whatever I wanted from the store and I picked a coffee mug because it was the item I'm likely to find the most use out of, given my 3AM writing habits. It is currently still on the way. I didn't really end up thinking about it too much. It was certainly somewhere in the back of my mind that there was something to win, but I was mostly very caught up in this strange rush of energy I had that day to review, which I'd been missing all month.

TD: I got an amazing Amazon gift card for the prize, which I am planning to spend on a journal/ notebook! I usually type my work/pieces in my Notes app and really wanted them written somewhere physical for safekeeping. So to answer your question, the prize was a huge motivation for me!



KH: One thing that's helped me a lot is to review pieces I genuinely want to read, or where I feel like I have something to say. And it’s also about taking your time and knowing when you're just not in the mood for writing a review. As for Review Day, I think the trick is not to feel too pressured about winning. That puts a little too much stress on you and you’ll end up feeling overwhelmed. Oftentimes on Review Day, it’s just nice to have fun and enjoy what you're doing. This month I turned to the larger works because of the points system, but normally what I do is pick a novel that I like the sound of and try to get through multiple parts of it. Honestly, there are some amazing novels on YWS that you simply can't stop reading once you’ve started, and you hardly notice the time pass until suddenly you've just done fifteen reviews.

TD: Well, I'm pretty new to writing reviews myself and this advice may or may not work for others, but from what I've deciphered from my amazing time on this site, writing a review doesn't mean reading it once and writing whatever comes to your mind. It's about analyzing the piece, taking a good look at its strengths as well as its flaws, handpicking the important parts to mention, and leaving an overall motivating and useful review for the writer.



TD: I was thrilled, excited, elevated, delighted, overjoyed, plus thirty other synonyms for being over the moon! Getting FM was honestly something I didn't even expect. I saw a really cool green guy dancing GIF on @RandomTalks's wall and pushed it because I love green, only to find out that I was Featured Member! It was the highlight of my day. <3



KH: Thank you! I did, actually. It wasn't immediate but after writing a decent number of reviews in my first month here, I was really drawn to the idea of stars. I was quite fascinated by the thought of just getting the highest stars possible. That led me to eventually find the all-time leaderboards and spot Snoink. Perhaps I was riding high on the confidence of how many reviews I wrote in my first month here, but it put me in a headspace where Snoink seemed kind of reachable, and even though there were months where I had no time and my goal seemed so far way, I managed to not get discouraged and somehow achieved it.



KH: It was almost oddly bittersweet. I was absolutely riding a cloud that entire day because I was so happy to have about two and half hours pay off, but at the same time, it felt so odd to not have a goal to aim for. I may or may not have also been kind of irrationally paranoid that Snoink would just suddenly write a barrage of reviews and leave me in the dust. As for someone passing me someday, I think so. I'm sure someone will come along that has even more free time than I do.



TD: I was originally here to improve my writing skills, but the thing I'm proudest of would definitely be my reviews. I had never once considered writing one in any of the previous writing sites I joined, but lately, all I've been writing are reviews! I even joined a few review-writing contests and workshops. Joining this site was probably one of the best decisions I ever made!



TD: I'll work more on my writing skills and my reviews, participate in contests, and I will try to utilize this hobby as well as I can! As for the portfolio part, I have a few poems and an art piece that you can check out. I have also been working on a short story that I'm planning to post shortly and I would love feedback on it!



KH: Oh, that is quite the question. I have honestly thought of this more than once, and I think the answer I always circle back to is the little smiley face I’ve put at the end of pretty much every review I’ve written since the day I discovered I could do that. I really like the idea of five smiley faces because I think it does represent what I hope for with every review I write, which is to leave the author with a smile.

---

Well, there you have it! While it might be a wrap on February’s Review Day, KateHardy and Thediffident will no doubt continue their winning streak as two of the finest reviewers—and most active members—of YWS. We couldn’t be happier. Congratulations to them both!

by Lucrezia

I can’t remember the last time I had a happy birthday.

I am not, by nature, a particularly cheerful person. On the contrary, I tend to be dark and gloomy, overly analytical and anxious. When I was very young, before my anxiety disorders took hold, I remember having parties that I enjoyed, surrounded by smiling faces and beautifully-wrapped presents. But then I got older, and as my happiness melted away like candles atop a birthday cake, so too did my delight in all the things that once thrilled me.

When I was eight, I had my last birthday party. I didn’t know it was my last—not until, after it concluded, my mother declared I was “too old” for birthday parties and I wouldn’t be having any others. I don’t remember how I reacted. Maybe I was sad, or maybe I was indifferent. The fact that I’d hardly enjoyed that last party probably made the news sting less.

I’m 23 now, and I’ll be 24 on the last day on this month. In the 15 (almost 16) years since my mother made that proclamation, I have not had a birthday party. When I was younger, sometimes I’d find an alternative way to celebrate. But since becoming an adult—and especially in the last few years, after the pandemic hit—my birthdays have always passed me by. It’s not just that I don’t throw a big party or do anything grand to mark the occasion: it’s that I am deeply, inconsolably sad whenever March 31 rolls around. I don’t think of my birthday with excitement, I think of it with dread.

I can barely recall last year’s birthday, because I was lost in a grief-like haze. The year prior, I spent my birthday alone in an apartment I hated, eating takeout and contemplating every mistake I ever made. And the year before that was 2020, the great unraveling. My birthday arrived right after everything shut down, when all the curtains were drawn and the world went dark. I drove around the Bay Area—my home—and saw a land that looked post-apocalyptic. All I could do was wait and wonder when life would resume. Three years later, even after the vaccine’s arrival and the worst of the pandemic is seemingly behind us, I’m still wondering that same question. It feels like I’ve been in a nonstop holding pattern, waiting for my life to begin—to finally act and feel like an adult who knows what she wants. But the truth is that I don’t know. My future is uncertain; my goals seem daunting and unachievable. I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the way, I lost faith in myself. My birthdays feel empty and meaningless because they are. What am I celebrating? Getting older? Well, for one thing, none of us love taking a step closer to the grave. It’s easy to mourn the loss of your youth, even under the best of circumstances, even when your life is swell. But what about those of us who expected to have done more by now? Those of who were sure, when they reached 24, they’d have started to build a nice little life for themselves, with a nice little job and a nice little car and a nice group of friends? But instead, we find ourselves directionless, alone, unclear on which path to take or which career to strive for, a million questions—and a million worries—swirling through our heads. For those of us in that boat, without a map, birthdays are a rocky time on a restless, angry sea.

This year, March has been a weird and difficult month. I officially pulled the plug on my relationship with my father—although, if I’m honest, that relationship had already been brain-dead for many, many years. Funnily enough, he was born in March too: March 13 to my March 31. The cynical part of me wonders if that’s the only way he was able to remember my birthday, because it’s just his own in reverse. Anyway, with my dad now a ghost to me, that’s one less person to get a card from, one less obligatory gift card to receive. I don’t know how I’ll spend this birthday, but I do know I’ll be alone, sequestered inside my house, thinking of everything I could and should be doing. Fretting about my future. Agonizing over my age (24!) and all the things I still haven’t done, haven’t tried, haven’t completed. Wondering if I ever will.

There’s a song I love, by Aimee Mann. It’s called “Thirty One Today,” and it’s about all the messy, unhappy, complicated feelings that a birthday can bring. She sings:



If I was going to summarize how I feel on March 31—if I had to put into words the dark cloud that hangs over me—I’d borrow those lyrics. Because that, ultimately, is the gist: I thought my life would be different and better by this point, yet it’s not. Now what do I do? How do you fix a problem you can’t name? How do you make yourself into someone else, into the person you want to be? Can you?

These are the thoughts that run through my head on the last day of March, as I reflect on the life I’ve lived so far and all the years still ahead. There’s no cheer, no cake, no streamers, no pile of presents. Just a girl in her twenties who’s trying her best but sometimes doing her worst, an adult who still feels like a child, a person who’s struggling to build a life for herself and pave a path she’ll be able to walk—a path to a future that’s as lovely as all those dreams she once had, a million birthdays ago, before she learned just how hard and cruel the world could be.

But hey, it’s my birthday—I’ll cry if I want to.

by yamatri

Before I stumbled upon Schoolgirl author Osamu Dazai's Wikipedia page, I was almost certain this book was the work of a female author—someone who must have written the slim volume when she was fairly young—but boy, was I wrong. Shūji Tsushima, better known by his pen name Osamu Dazai, was thirty years old when he wrote this book in 1939, describing a day in the life of a Tokyo schoolgirl. Despite being an older male author, he got the essence of a girl's experience reaching adulthood quite right: from the moody childishness to figuring out your life’s purpose, hardly anything in this book reminds us it was written by a man from a different century.

From a plot perspective, you could say that nothing much happens in Schoolgirl. The titular character—our narrator—wakes up and bewails mornings (“mornings seem forced to me, so much sadness rises up”). Then she continues with her dark thoughts as she readies herself for the day, goes to school, gets a haircut, comes home to houseguests, talks to her mother and goes to sleep—the end. Yet in a single day, a whole world of complex emotions, ideas, and social critiques overflows each passage.

Nothing much is known about the main character, other than what we read of her thoughts: her exact age is not mentioned, nor her name. However, she’s a whimsical narrator, stuck at a time in her life when she is no longer a girl but not yet a woman: at the end of childhood and edge of adulthood, her life may seem normal and boring, mainly ruled by imagination. She goes from one train of thought to another, her mind always working and never stopping to give the girl a moment's peace! Which Dazai got exactly right.

She is frequently sickened by her own childish habits and thoughts, due to her awakening desire for maturity. She secretly embroiders flowers onto her underclothes, sneaks off to get her hair done with a friend, sings a silly song and plays pretend, all of which hint at the innocence she still possesses. Yet she also exhibits cruel behavior toward her crippled dog (“I can't stand how poor and pathetic he is, and because of that I am cruel to him”) and bad-mouths her mother’s friends, leading her to worry over her own “impurity and shamefulness.” (“I’m such a horrible girl,” she says. “I want to try to be a good girl.”) Her harsh opinions of the faces she sees on the train remind us the end of innocence is fast approaching—especially when she says, “It made me miserable that I was rapidly becoming an adult and that I was unable to do anything about it.”

In her interior monologue, over the course of a single day, we see her drift from dreamy, whimsical thinking to sharp social and self-critiques. One moment she’ll be “distressed like there wasn’t any reason left to live,” then she’ll be fixated and uplifted by a gorgeous sky, thinking to herself, “I want to live beautifully.” Having suffered clinical depression from an early age, I can understand these emotions, which seem to bleed over from the author's personal life: After multiple attempts to take his own life, Dazai killed himself at the age of 38, with his last novel No Longer Human featuring a number of autobiographical details.

There are many topics—such as human nature, mental illness, and social relationships—discussed in Schoolgirl. There is also a commentary on purity and a depiction of misogyny, which has irked some readers who found it to be the work’s biggest (or only) flaw. And there is indeed some internalized misogyny going on in the main character’s head. It’s expressed by her disgust for women’s bodies which are no longer childlike, and her hatred of the women she sees on public transport. At one point, she muses: “Being female, I am all too familiar with the impurity found in women. It sets my teeth on edge with repulsion.” There isn’t much of a positive outlook for women in this story, but Dazai also used the book to examine women’s lack of independence, such as by writing, “A mere smile can determine a woman’s fate. It is frightening.” It’s acknowledged that women are not safe, and that their lives could be flipped upside down at any moment when “dragged off … into the chasm of compulsory marriage.”

For me, all this added a sense of realism to the character. As a woman myself, I am aware of the male gaze and how we internalize it, judging other women based on their adherence to male-dictated beauty or purity standards, especially when we’re young and haven't yet developed a sense of ourselves. For that reason, having the female narrator say these things, which I know are wrong but which I also know most girls have thought at some point in their lives, added authenticity to the narration. But, of course, I cannot comment on Dazai's view of women.

The main character also discusses a desire to devote her life to something larger and greater than herself, such as when she ponders religious and military servitude: “It must be easier to relax,” she thinks, “when someone always tells you who you are and what to do.” This speaks to the urge in all of us to be part of something that will direct us, give us certainty as we enter adulthood, and to know our calling. In childhood, everyone tells us what to do, and it’s easy to miss or to crave that simple system when we become adults.

As much as the narrator wishes to break free and rebel against society, she also desires to be a “good girl” and frequently bends herself to fit the role society has prescribed for her. Additionally, she tackles her love for her mother, constantly mentioning the obligations she has to her: “In my heart, I worry about my mother and want to be a good daughter, but my words and actions are nothing more than that of a spoiled child.”

There are many things I love about this book, but if I mention them all, there won't be an end to this review. As the narrator herself says: “There I go again—pondering the purposelessness of my day-to-day life, wishing I had more ambition, and lamenting all the contradictions in myself—when I know it’s just sentimental nonsense.”

To some extent, Schoolgirl can seem depressing. However, for me, this book reminded me that when we’re young adults trying to make sense of everything, we want to believe that we, as individuals, are different—we want to believe our thoughts and problems are unique, something that only we experience—but they’re actually universal.

From an early age, I have always tried to differentiate myself from others. I have always thought that nobody would understand the things I’m going through, that I have to endure it alone—but we must understand that as humans, we are much more similar than we are different. Even a 30-year-old man from a different century can write a book which is like reading my own mind.

In the end, we can either mourn the supposed loss of our uniqueness or we can find comfort in the fact that there are others just like us in this world, and we are never alone in life.

I would recommend this book to everyone, or at least those above the age of 16 (it deals with mature subject matter that can be upsetting—I already suffer from depression, so it didn't affect me, but it’s probably best to wait until you’re 16 or older). Especially for young adults, you will learn many things about yourself when you read this. It can feel like, Oh my god, these are my exact thoughts. And it's under 30 pages, so it can be read in a single sitting. Yet it’s a book you will ponder for days to come.

by Lucrezia

On March 10, YWS announced three new Junior Mods: Quillfeather, Lovestrike, and DreamyAlice. As you might’ve surmised by the fact that I’m not any of those people (and there’s no green slime coating my username), I was not selected.

I wish I could say I didn’t care. I wish I could tell you that I only felt joy for the three who were chosen (all of whom are lovely, deserving people!) and not a shred of envy. I wish I could tell you that becoming a Mod was never a goal of mine, never something I set out to achieve with the ruthless determination and laser-focus of Tracy Flick or Rachel Berry. But the truth is that, since I first joined the site back in December of 2013, I have really, really, really wanted to be a Mod. I’d love to tell you I’m so cool as to be indifferent to the idea, but let’s face it: I’m a try-hard, an overachiever, and someone with a fondness for the color green. Of course I’m dying to join the Mod Squad.

Over the many years I’ve been a member of YWS, I’ve seen countless announcements about mold-spread. Each post had made my heart sink, my stomach pang. I’m left wondering, Why not me? The question haunts me. Even as I celebrate and congratulate the newly-moldy YWSers, there is always—in the back of my brain—some envy, some sadness. Every time I see one of those announcements, I can’t help but wonder why I wasn’t good enough or popular enough to be picked. Where did I go wrong? Was my name floated by anyone, or did it never come up? Did they consider me at all, even for a moment? Or was I never on their radar, because something about me, or my past mistakes, has ruled me out from consideration entirely? I wish I had the answer. Honestly, I wish someone would tell me outright, “You will never be a Mod.” Because if I knew for sure it wasn’t ever going to happen, then I’d never get my hopes up again, and maybe those mold announcements wouldn’t hurt.

I’d be the first person to admit that I haven’t been a perfect member of this site. When I first joined, at the age of 14, I broke some rules. I’ve always wondered if my immature behavior back then nixed me from all future Mod consideration. If that’s the case, I’d find it a bit unfair: yes, what I did was wrong and stupid and very much what you’d expect of an insecure, solipsistic 14-year-old, but it was ten years ago. I’m not that girl anymore: those mistakes are not indicative of my current personality or my character, and I’d like to think the Mod Squad would agree.

There’s also the possibility that I’m just too flighty: I’ve come and gone from YWS over the years, taking long sabbaticals in between visits. It’s hard to nominate someone for Modship when you’re not even sure they’ll stick around. However, I’m committed to staying on YWS long-term now: no more breaks, no more sabbaticals, no more revolving doors. What’s more, I’m committed to being a very active member of this site. I want to do good work on here, to contribute to the community in positive ways, and I believe I’ve been successful—not only since I returned to the site, but also back when I first joined. In 2013/2014, I did a lot of good work for YWS, despite my mistakes. In 2023, I’m trying my best to continue that legacy and do my part in keeping YWS a beautiful, vibrant, thriving respite from the rest of the Internet, a place where young people can work on their writing and have wholesome fun. I love getting to create projects, like this magazine; I love starting threads and clubs and roleplays, writing reviews and designing cover images and welcoming new members. Since returning to YWS last month, I think I’ve already accomplished a lot, and I’m proud of that. To be clear, I didn’t do any of those things with the end goal of being made a Mod—I did those things because I wanted to—but the thought did cross my mind that my flurry of activity could lead to me finally nabbing that brass ring (or, I should say, that moldy-green ring).

Maybe the reason I wasn’t selected is just because, even though I’ve been a member of YWS for nearly ten years, I only just returned full-force to the site at the start of February. Maybe I need to be on here longer—to prove my devotion and intention to stick around—before I’ll be considered. Or maybe I’ll never be considered at all. Maybe when JMs are chosen, the process is entirely different than what I’m imagining. Maybe there are reasons I’m unaware of that will always prevent me from moving on up in the YWS world and earning that gorgeous green promotion. And ya know, I get it. I know I’ve messed up. I understand why, if ever my name was suggested, someone else might be quick to shoot it down. I realize there’s a chance—a very strong possibility, I suspect—that I will never be a Mod. Not now, not six months from now, not in a year or five years . . . never. And once again, I wish I could say I was indifferent to that. I wish I could say it makes no difference to me whatsoever. But the truth is that it breaks my heart. Why? Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that I’d be a great Mod. Even if the powers-that-be don’t think so, I know in my heart of hearts that I could do it, and I could do it well.

Then again, maybe that certainty—that self-confidence (a rarity for me)—is a victory in and of itself. Still, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that one day, my impossible dream might come true.

by Lucrezia

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! March is a fun month, because not only is it the time of year when we celebrate all things Irish, it’s also the time of year when we celebrate all things women: March, in case you didn’t know, is Women’s History Month. So it only seemed appropriate that I combine the two topics for the March edition of Write On. How, you ask? Well, by writing an article about the women of Irish mythology, of course! I’ll be honest, you didn’t have to twist my arm much to get me to write this piece: anyone who knows me knows that I love mythology—whether it’s Celtic, Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Native American, Japanese, et al—and I particularly love the female figures of those legends and lore. Having said that, without further ado, let’s meet the wondrous women of Irish mythos!


In order to understand the women of Irish mythology, you should probably know a little bit about the Tuatha Dé Danann, a pivotal part of pre-Christian Gaelic legend. Encyclopedia Britannica sums them up like this:

Tuatha Dé Danann (Gaelic: “People of the Goddess Danu”), in Celtic mythology, [were] a race inhabiting Ireland before the arrival of the Milesians (the ancestors of the modern Irish). They were said to have been skilled in magic, and the earliest reference to them relates that, after they were banished from heaven because of their knowledge, they descended on Ireland in a cloud of mist. They were thought to have disappeared into the hills when overcome by the Milesians. The Leabhar Gabhála (Book of Invasions), a fictitious history of Ireland from the earliest times, treats them as actual people, and they were so regarded by native historians up to the 17th century. In popular legend, they have become associated with the numerous fairies still supposed to inhabit the Irish landscape.

Delightful, right? You might’ve noticed that Gaelic translation: “Tuatha Dé Danann” means “People of the Goddess Danu”—so who, then, was this goddess Danu?


Surprisingly, very little is known about Danu. She is an enigmatic figure without a concrete origin story or list of associated traits or specific powers. But the fact that she is the queen goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann is, itself, pretty cool: this magic race worshipped, above all, a female deity—not a man. Additionally, some believe the Irish goddess Anu is the alternate name of Danu. The way that Anu is described, in the Sanas Cormaic (aka Cormac's Glossary), is as the “mother of the gods of Ireland” who kept those gods well-nourished.



The goddess Brigid (whose name means “exalted one”) might be particularly beloved or meaningful to the members of YWS, because she’s the goddess of poetry and poets. A member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, she is also a sage associated with wisdom. The Sanas Cormaic calls her a protector, as well as a "goddess of poets … whom poets adored" and "woman of wisdom." Brigid was said to have two sisters—one of whom was a healer, the other a smith—making her a triple deity. The Irish folklorist Lady Augusta Gregory said that Brigid was "a woman of poetry, and poets worshipped her, for her sway was very great and very noble. And she was a woman of healing along with that, and a woman of smith's work, and it was she first made the whistle for calling one to another through the night.” Aside from poetry, wisdom, and protection, Brigid was also associated with domesticated animals. While she is a pagan goddess of pre-Christian Irish legend, there was an effort to syncretize her with Christianity via the figure of Saint Brigid of Kildare. Medievalist Pamela Berger wrote that Christian monks “grafted [Brigid’s] name and functions onto” Saint Brigid, who shares many associations with her pagan forebearer, being that she is a patroness of poets, healers, blacksmiths, and domesticated animals as well. According to The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, some hagiographies of saints “are deeply rooted in Irish pagan folklore.”



The Cailleach—from Irish, Scottish, and Manx myth—is, well, a hag. There’s no polite way to put it. Even her name means “old woman/hag” in modern Irish (though it comes from a word meaning “veiled one” in Old Irish). But while she might be a hag, at least she’s a divine one, associated with Ireland’s landscape (especially its mountains), weather, and the season of winter. (In fact, in Scotland, she’s considered the queen of winter.) She’s also known by the name The Hag of Beara, a figure who is a hooded/veiled, winter-bringing crone. There are some high-profile literary works associated with her, specifically "The Lament of the Hag of Beara,” a medieval poem which the Cailleach narrates. The poem is not a happy one: it’s centered on the loss of her youth, the idea that her best days are behind her, and how she is a “wretched … old hag,” according to a 1919 translation by Lady Augusta Gregory. The piece continues:

Amen! woe is me!
Every acorn has to drop.
After feasting by shining candles
To be in the gloom of a prayer

I had my day with kings,
Drinking mead and wine;
Today I drink whey-water
Among shriveled old hags

Patrick Pearse, a poet and revolutionary, wrote a poem in 1912 that uses the Cailleach’s tragedy to bemoan the state of modern Ireland. Translated by Lady Gregory, it reads:

I am Ireland,
Older than the Hag of Beara.
Great my pride,
I gave birth to brave Cuchulain.

Modern Ireland
Great my shame,
My own children killed their mother.
I am Ireland,
Lonelier than the Hag of Beara.

The Morrígan is a goddess of war and fate, whose powers are said to include the ability to foretell the outcome of a battle, and to influence warriors’ actions, whether by inciting them to combat, giving them courage, or—the opposite—striking their opponents with cowardice. Fitting with her ability to prophesize war outcomes, she is said to appear frequently as a crow, or a badb in Irish. Other tellings present her as a general shapeshifter, raven-caller, and, in later folklore, connected to banshees. Her name is variously translated as “phantom queen” or “great queen,” while some believe it’s derived from words meaning “nightmare, terror, monstrousness.” Sometimes she is presented as a triple goddess, one of three sisters: the others being Badb (aka Badb Catha, or "battle crow"), a goddess of war and death who (like the Morrígan) takes the shape of a crow, and Macha, a goddess of war and land. This trio of battle goddesses are called “the three Morrígna.” Badb, who is very similar to the Morrígan, is often depicted as actively involved in war: someone who can cause doubt, confusion and fear in soldiers, and whose appearance may mean that death is imminent—an omen of bloodshed and harbinger of doom. Since she would sometimes telegraph messages through wailing screams, she also, like the Morrígan, is associated with banshees.

Though the Morrígan might seem dark and frightening, some view her in a more positive light. Maria Tymoczko, a scholar of medieval Celtic literature, wrote, "The welfare and fertility of a people depend on their security against external aggression [and] warlike action can thus have a protective aspect." Similarly, Celtic scholar Proinsias Mac Cana wrote that the Morrígan is "primarily concerned with the prosperity of [Ireland]: its fertility, its animal life, and (when it is conceived as a political unit) its security against external forces."


And now we arrive at a proper villain: Carmán, the sorceress-warrior from Athens, who invaded Ireland and used her magic to destroy all its fruit. And she didn’t come to the country on her own: instead, she brought along her three sons, Dub, Dother, and Dian—whose names mean “darkness,” “evil,” and “violence,” respectively. Ultimately, Carmán and kids were challenged by four members of the Tuatha Dé Danann, which resulted in the sons being forced out of the country while Carmán was imprisoned alone. Celtic historian Peter Berresford Ellis summed up her story by saying she and her boys “laid Ireland to waste but were eventually overcome by the Tuatha Dé Danann. Carmán died of grief and it is recorded that death ‘came upon her in an ungentle shape.’”



Clíodhna is not just another member of Tuatha Dé Danann, nor is she simply a banshee: she is, in fact, Queen of the Banshees, ruler of the sidheog (which means “fairy women of the hills”). Although not universally agreed upon, she is, according to some myths, also a goddess of love and beauty. A trio of birds serve as her animal companions, but—much like Clíodhna herself—these aren’t just any regular birds: they’re able to sing songs that heal the sick, and they feast on apples from a mystical tree. Clíodhna is said to have originated in Tír Tairngire ("the land of promise"), which is the Celtic Otherworld, but she left in order to be with Ciabhán—the mortal man she loved. Sadly, as with many Irish legends, Clíodhna’s story has a tragic ending: she didn’t get to enjoy life with Ciabhán, because she was swept out to sea by a wave. The question of whether or not she survived depends on the version of the story being told. She does, at least, have a lasting legacy: since she was supposedly hijacked by a wave in County Cork’s Glandore harbor, the tide there is called Tonn Chlíodhna, or "Clíodhna's Wave."


In some versions of her story, Ness (also known as Nessa) was raised by twelve foster-fathers, who gave her the name Assa—which means “easy and gentle”—due to how well-behaved she was. But all that changed once the druid Cathbad led a group of fianna, or landless warriors, to attack her home and kill all twelve of her father figures. Understandably, Ness wanted revenge, so she assembled her own team of fianna—27 of them, to be exact!—to seek out Cathbad and make him pay. It was during this time that she earned the name Ní-assa ("not easy, not gentle"), aka Ness. Unfortunately, Cathbad caught her unawares one day, when she was without her crew of fianna, and he insisted that she become his wife. She was unable to refuse. But, ever the rebel, she carried on an affair with Fachtna Fáthach, the High King of Ireland, and with him, she had a son named Conchobar. Later, when her son was seven, another king—this one named Fergus mac Róich—fell in love with Ness. He wanted to marry her and she agreed, but with the contingency that he abdicate the throne for a year and let her son Conchobar rule in his stead. Fergus, thinking the boy would be king only in name, agreed to the arrangement—but Conchobar, thanks to the counsel of his mother, became such a beloved, generous, wealth-distributing king that when the year ended, the people of his kingdom refused to let Fergus reclaim the throne and Conchobar remained king.



Look, I don’t want to play favorites. I find all these women captivating and compelling. But having said that, if I’m honest, Melb is probably my favorite. She’s described as a warrior queen and a wolf queen, as well as a sovereignty goddess. She married a whole slew of kings. Her name (often anglicized as Maeve) comes from the Proto-Celtic words for “mead” and “intoxicating,” and so, appropriately, her name is said to mean "she who intoxicates." (It also might stem from a word meaning “the ruler.”) A fair-haired beauty, she was stated to be so gorgeous that men, upon seeing her, had two-thirds of their valor snatched away. Of the many kings she married, one of them was Conchobar. Yes, that’s right: Ness’s son, from the previous entry. Unfortunately, the marriage was unhappy and dysfunctional, with both Medb and Conchobar committing some egregiously cruel crimes against one another. After leaving him, Medb married Eochaid Dála, another king, but she insisted on three things: he mustn’t possess any fear, meanness, or jealousy. With regards to that last one, Medb was probably what we’d now call polyamorous: she had not only many husbands, but many boyfriends too. Monogamy and marital exclusivity were not of interest to her. So, after requiring zero jealousy from her new husband Eochaid Dála, she took her chief bodyguard Ailill mac Máta as a lover. But apparently Eochaid wasn’t serious about that whole “no jealousy” rule, because once he found out, he challenged Ailill to a duel . . . and lost. Thus, Ailill married Medb and became king.

Throughout all this, Medb was still holding a grudge against Conchobar, her first husband. Medb and Ailill had seven sons (Fedlimid, Cairbre, Eochaid, Fergus, Cet, Sin, and Dáire), and she asked a druid which of her boys would be the one to kill Conchobar. The druid told her it would be Maine. But the problem, as you might’ve noticed, was that she didn’t have a son called Maine. So her solution? Rename all of her sons Maine. And she did: her sons became Maine Athramail, Maine Máthramail, Maine Andoe, Maine Taí, Maine Mórgor, Maine Mílscothach, and Maine Móepirt. And to be fair to the druid, he was correct in his prediction: Maine Andoe did go on to kill Conchobar—except that he killed Conchobar, son of Arthur and son of Bruide, not Conchobar, son of Fachtna Fathach, the one that Medb was actually referring to. Oh, what a comedy of errors!

Perhaps the most well-known story about Medb is that of the epic Táin Bó Cúailnge, also known as The Táin or The Cattle Raid of Cooley, which is considered the Irish Iliad. In this tale, Medb wanted complete economic equality with her husband Ailill, but learned that he was richer than her by a single bull. And this wasn’t just any bull: this was the extraordinary stud Finnbhennach. So Medb, naturally, decided to seek out a bull as excellent as her husband’s, in order to achieve perfect parity with her spouse. There was only one stud as powerful and potent: Donn Cúailnge, owned by cattle-lord Dáire mac Fiachna. Medb was able to negotiate with the cattle-lord to rent his stud for a year, but then her messengers, while drunk, let it slip that she would’ve taken the bull by force if no agreement had been reached. Once he learned this, Dáire changed his mind and refused to give Medb the stud. And so Medb responded by starting a war, as one does. She raised a formidable army and a long, complicated, drawn-out battle was waged—but the good news is that she did, eventually, secure the bull. The two studs then faced off against each other in a fight, and Medb’s newly-acquired Donn Cúailnge was the victor: he killed her husband’s stud Finnbhennach. But it was something of a Pyrrhic victory, as Donn Cúailnge soon died of the injuries he sustained in the fight. (RIP.)

All in all, Medb is a tough-as-nails, strong-willed, determined, ambitious, crafty, cunning, flirtatious, rebellious figure. She lived large and did what she pleased, sought (and fought) for independence, respect, and equality with her husbands. I must stan.



Áine is the goddess of summer, sovereignty, love, fertility, and wealth. She’s often associated with the sun and midsummer, and occasionally represented by a red mare. She’s also said to have command over animals and agriculture. Her name means “brightness, glow, joy, radiance; splendor, glory, fame,” and in Popular Tales of Ireland, David Fitzgerald wrote that “Áine is spoken of as ‘the best hearted woman that ever lived.’” While there are multiple versions of Áine’s story, all of them are disturbing and tend to contain sexual assault. (Content warning: if you do not want to read about SA, skip to the next section.) In one such tale, a king rapes her, but Áine responds by biting off his ear. As a result, due to Old Irish law making it so that only an "unblemished" person can serve as monarch, Áine was able to strip him of his royal title, ensuring he was permanently wounded and permanently unable to reign. This makes sense: she is, after all, a goddess of sovereignty. Of course she’s able to take away a man’s power.



Fionnuala, aka Finnguala, had some bad luck: the poor girl was turned into a swan when a curse was placed on her by her stepmother Aoife, which forced her to wander Ireland’s bodies of water for 900 (!) years, until a man and woman’s special, magical marriage broke the spell. Speaking as someone who also had an evil stepmother: Fionnuala, girl—I feel your pain. Now let’s crack open the Irish whiskey, because you deserve a drink.

And that concludes our adventure through Irish mythology! Hopefully you’ve learned a thing or two, and perhaps even taken some inspiration for a future poem or story. But if you’re lacking inspo and experiencing writer’s block, don’t worry: just light a candle in Brigid’s honor and ask her to bless you with motivation and the vision to write.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day and Happy Women’s History Month!

by Lucrezia

One of the great things about the storybooks and roleplays of YWS is that you can hop in and join the fun at any point: there are always new projects being added, and you can also find some long-running, established stories that are still accepting participants. With that in mind, here are a few roleplays and storybooks that are welcoming new players!


In the Roleplay Realm, there are a couple brand-new RPs with exciting premises just waiting for you to sign up! First, we have @Lucrezia’s Dislandia, a story set in the Disneyland theme park, which invites participants to play as the Disney character of their choice. Should be a magical time, right? Well, there’s a problem: The characters were unwitting stars of movies they thought were real life, and they were not prepared to get dropped into a theme park as soon as the credits rolled, nor forced into a life of unexpected Southern California celebrity. What will happen? That’s for you to decide, as the roleplay is still seeking members and has yet to begin. Now go pick your Disney character and submit their profile here!

Also in the Roleplay Realm, @KocoCoko has launched Star Guardians. The name is fitting, because it has an all-star cast of players, with roleplay veterans and revered YWS members @Ari11, @Lovestrike, @WeepingWisteria, @KateHardy, and @ChesTacos all participating. The story is a creative and ambitious one, imagining a galaxy with a number of universes, each of which is supposed to follow a script . . . but, if someone unknowingly goes off-script, their universe will implode and they’ll be all that’s left. Good thing the plucky, powerful heroine Celeste wants to change that system! If you’re interested in joining, just go ahead and submit your character profile.

GOLDEN OLDIES

Over in the Roleplay Hollow, @Shady is running a futuristic, supernatural RP called Unique World. Set in the year 2100, this unique world is divided into two groups: humans and half-creatures. While the half-creatures were well-intentioned upon their arrival, one of them, in pursuit of power, killed off half the human population, starting a war between the two factions. But now, the younger generation wants to mend fences between the races. Will they succeed? Go join the roleplay to find out!

Also in Roleplay Hollow, @Ignorance’s Haunted Castle has one available slot left! The story’s centered on a group of people who venture inside a castle that’s been abandoned since the 17th century. And, as you might’ve guessed from the roleplay’s name, the intrepid explorers aren’t alone: the castle is already occupied by some ghostly residents. While all the ghost characters have been claimed, you can still play as the final explorer! Here’s the OOC thread.

Finally, nestled in the Storybook Sanctuary, there’s the Poppy Escape Facility by @KateHardy. This storybook is about master escape-room artists—the very best of the best—who’ve received a rare invitation to participate in the most difficult, elite, exclusive escape-room challenge in existence. With a grand prize of $100 million on the line, not to mention a whole lot of fame, you should have the motivation to make your grand escape—but do you have what it takes to pull it off? If you’d like to join, visit the OOC thread for instructions!

by Lucrezia

If you haven’t been hanging out in the forums this month, don’t worry. Here’s your guide to March’s hip and happening threads.

FROM THE LOUNGE

I’ve been on a roll this month—uh, I mean, @Lucrezia has been on a roll this month—with starting new threads. To begin, there’s MUSIC, the place to go to talk about your favorite musicians, bands, albums and songs.

Then we have "Best Supernatural Creature," which invites you to vote in a poll for your favorite paranormal humanoid entity. (So far, vampires are in the lead, followed closely by ghosts and aliens!)

On a semi-related note, you’re invited to stop by the thread "If You Had a Superpower, What Would It Be?" and sound off with your ideal heroic (or villainous?) ability.

And then there’s "Disney vs. Studio Ghibli," a thread in which Lucrezia—the resident Disney expert of YWS—admits to (gasp!) preferring Studio Ghibli. And she’s not alone: thus far, Studio Ghibli has four votes while Disney has two. If you disagree, exercise your democratic right and vote in the poll!

Lastly, @GengarIsBestBoy wants to know: What’s the best season? Fall has a vast lead, followed by winter and then spring. Summer, surprisingly, has amassed zero votes so far. Who’d have thought?

FROM RANDOMISITY

@Lucrezia has started a new game, via the thread "You Should Follow Me Because..." The idea is that you post a reason—any reason—why people should follow you: it can be as silly or as genuine as you want it to be, a random fun fact or an accurate overview of your personality. Then you follow the last person who posted before you. Now go declare to all of YWS why they ought to be following you!

@GengarIsBestBoy has also been prolific in the forums as of late, starting several fun new threads. One is ”Describe your favorite show very badly,” which asks you to do just what the title says.

Another media-related thread, courtesy of Gengar, is ”What type of character would you be in a movie/show/book?”, where you get to announce which trope (or trope-defying oddity) you’d be in a work of fiction. C’mon, admit it: this isn’t the first time you’ve considered that question.

FROM ART & PHOTOGRAPHY

Cover Art by Lucrezia offers free-of-charge cover images for your literary works. Just put in your request, then sit back and wait for the magic to happen!

FROM WRITING ACTIVITIES

Connotations by @Liminality is a fun game and a great writing exercise. Here’s how it works: the person before you will post an abstract word, like “ambition” or “revenge,” and then you’ll respond with three “concrete things [you] associate with” that word—and, after that, post an abstraction of your own for the next person. It’s a good way to get the creative juices flowing!


@GengarIsBestBoy is at it again, this time asking you to share the details of your cringe-y old stories. She also wants to know, in your opinion, which characters from underrated media would be very popular if they were less obscure and more well-known to online fandom spaces, e.g. Tumblr. If you’re a fan of abstruse media and adore a fictional character nobody else seems to know, now’s your chance to talk about it!

by Lucrezia

YWS is home to countless awesome clubs. They’re a great way to socialize, get to know other members, bond over common interests or traits, and get to geek out over your favorite topics. But there are a lot of clubs to choose from, so it can be overwhelming to find the right one(s). We’re here to streamline the process by introducing you to brand-new and long-running clubs. Without further ado, here are the newbies and the classics!

The Newbies

LadySpark's Cookbook, the eponymous club created by the lovely @LadySpark, is the place to go for an array of delightful, delicious dishes. She’s serving up recipes of all kinds, from a pulled chicken sandwich to “sides, sides, sides!” If you love food and/or are looking to gain more experience in the kitchen, this club is a great place to learn recipes and gain some inspo.

As a YWS old-timer, @Lucrezia felt compelled to create a club for the other adults of this site. If you too are a creaky-boned dinosaur who still remembers the days of flip-phones and video-rental stores, this is the club for you! Come on over to chat about adulthood, your writing journey, and what keeps you coming back to YWS.

Another club started by me @Lucrezia is Survivor Sanctum, a safe place for survivors of any and all types of abuse or mistreatment. You don’t need to talk about what you experienced (though you definitely can if you choose), but this club offers you the space to vent, to commiserate, and to heal alongside other people who know how you’re feeling.

Then there’s @Zyria’s club, intended for Myers-Briggs enthusiasts, appropriately titled MBTI Enthusiasts. This is the club to discuss your personality type and chat (or debate) about Myers-Briggs with others!

And Lucrezia, noted film buff, also started a Film Club to talk about all things cinematic. Go weigh in on your favorite movies, directors, actors, and/or your unpopular film opinions!

The Classics

Last month saw the Great YWS Chickening, as literary works from the chicken genre dominated the spotlight. But if you weren’t satisfied, if you still can’t get enough of our fine feathered friends, then you ought to subscribe to the Chicken Fan Club, the brainchild of @lliyah, and a place that welcomes chicken art, chicken jokes, and chicken literature.

In these difficult times, it seems like everyone’s mental health has taken a hit—especially those of us who suffer from disorders. Sometimes it can help to talk with others about what you’re going through, or even just rant for a while and get some grievances off your chest. If that sounds like what you need, the Mental Health club, created by @AvantCoffee, is a great place to share and connect.

@Nate’s PawPrints is nirvana for bookworms. This club sets monthly reading goals for everyone who elects to participate—and to sign up, all you have to do is post in the forum by the fifth of each month.

Created by @Jon and now managed by @Mageheart, Queer Inklings is a celebration of all things LGBTQIA+. Every shade of the rainbow is welcome in this club, which boasts a wide range of threads on all different topics, and a close sense of community, and a lot of activity!

@Zyria’s Autistic Pride is a club for neurodivergent people to discuss their experiences, share their thoughts, and have open, honest conversations about what it’s like to be atypical in a neurotypical world.

Book Club, created by @4revgreen, is yet another paradise for bookworms. There are threads dedicated to various literary genres, so whether you’re in the mood to talk about YA fiction or mystery novels, fantasy books or LGBTQIA+ literature, you’ll have a place to post your thoughts. What’s more, you’ll also find threads for book reviews, book suggestions, and general book discussion. It’s lit! (I apologize for the pun—I couldn’t resist.)

To check out even more great clubs, head on over to the Clubs tab and peruse the rest of the offerings. There are always plenty to choose from!

This month’s edition of Write On was brought to you by @Lucrezia, founding editor and lead writer/reporter, as well as our wonderful contributors: @Liminality, @lliyah, and @yamatri.

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If you’re interested in writing for the next edition of Write On (which will be published on April 21), just send a PM to this account or to @Lucrezia! We’d love to hear from you. And be sure to follow this account to be notified when the next issue is released!