Young Writers Society

Welcome to Squills, the official news bulletin of the Young Writers Society!

What will you find here? Tons of interesting news about YWS, including but not limited to: articles about writing, art, and the world of humanities; interviews with YWS members; shameless plugs; link round-ups; and opinionated columns.

And where will all of this come from? Take a look at our fantastic creative staff!





Of course, our content can’t come only from our staff. We also depend on you to help keep Squills successful. You’re all a part of a writing community, after all. If you’re interested in submitting to Squills, pop on over to the Reader’s Corner to find out how you can get involved by contributing an article or participating in other Squills activities.

Well, that’s all I have for now. So, what are you waiting for? Enjoy!

1. UNBELIEVABLE USERNAMES
2. ADVENTURES IN WRITING
3. WRITER OF THE WEEK INTERVIEW WITH THE SHAUZER
4. INGREDIENT OF THE WEEK
5. LIBRARY LOVES
6. NEW ARRIVALS
7. THIS WEEK'S ROUNDUP - 4/27
8. SHAMELESS PLUGS
9. SUBSCRIBERS

UNBELIEVABLE USERNAMESwritten by OliveDreams < PM: >



WillowPaw1: I chose my username for two main reasons.

1) I use it for almost every account, so that way it is sooo much easier to remember.
Willow is my name. 

Also, I liked the names for the Warriors series so I thought it'd be cool to have a user like that, even though I don't enjoy the books that much.



Zontafer: Well, I wish I could have given you something interesting, but I just found this name on a site and liked it.. :/



PiesAreSquared: PiesAreSquared is a pun on the mathematical formula for the area of a circle, hitch is /pi times the radius squared.

*evil laugh*



Demeter: [i]When I joined YWS, I was going through a serious fangirl phase with Cats (the musical). I couldn't stop reading about it and listening to the songs as you do when you're obsessed with something like that! Anyway, my favourite character in the musical was a cat called Demeter, so that made it quite easy.

That's the only explanation for the name, unfortunately! Most people think I chose it because of the Greek goddess Demeter, but actually I wasn't even aware of her until I joined YWS and people started asking me about it! I guess it's sort of a base for my username as well, though, because I think T. S. Eliot (whose book the musical is based on) must have named his cat character after the goddess.

Also, there is a disturbing number of people who think it actually says "Dementer"…
[/i]



GoldFlame: I guess mine does have a little story behind it. When I was but a wee YWSer, my username was SilverFlame, and I submitted a low-quality work. Suddenly I had zero points. I wiped my reputation clean by creating another account ... which I named GoldFlame. Then people figured out @GoldFlame and @SilverFlame were the same member, so for fun I created @BronzeFlame and @IronFlame. That even developed into a club (@Dragon99): "GoldFlame's-Many-Flamey-Names".

Why'd I choose SilverFlame in particular? Well, other fiery usernames inspired me, and I have this file of dragon pictures on my desktop.

And that is the long and boring history of the Flame family.

ADVENTURES IN WRITINGwritten by BlueAfrica < PM: >

I grew up in a rural area so lacking in diversity that I can count on one hand all the people of color (POC) who went to high school with me. I don’t need one finger to count how many POC worked at the store where I got my first job. (Zero, kids.) And a year after I graduated, my high school drama director coerced all six of the African-Americans in school by then into doing theatre just so he could put on his favorite play—To Kill a Mockingbird, which he was afraid he’d never get the chance to do again because the school was that white.

With that in mind, you might not find it surprising that it took so long before I started writing characters who were POC. It took a move to a much more diverse area to realize how much I was leaving out.

(And I do apologize, because I know how horrible that is. I’m learning.)

Toledo is pretty good for diversity. There’s a little old Indian man who goes around town in a peacoat and a fedora, wishing people a happy Sunday (or Tuesday or Friday or whatever day it happens to be). There’s an elderly black gentleman who always wears a hat and buys lots of cat food for what must be a well-loved and extremely spoiled army of felines. There’s a middle-aged woman from Africa who speaks almost no English and pays for her groceries in change but has a beautiful smile that she doesn’t hesitate to use. Two of my coworkers are Iranian; one of them bought me groceries on her way out from work one night this past summer, when my grandfather died and I ran out of money and I was too depressed to keep down anything heavier than the sandwich and yogurt she bought for me.

There are Muslims and Christians and atheists, Middle-Easterners and Indians and the occasional Australian or German, people with mental or physical disabilities, women and men and people who may or may not be otherwise gendered, queer people and straight people.

But for those of you who a) are living in the kind of area I grew up in, rather than the kind of area I live now, or b) want advice on writing diversely or c) haven’t thought much about this yet, I interviewed @Rosey%20Unicorn on diversity in fiction. Here’s what she had to say on the subject.



Rosey Unicorn: I am majoring in anthropology. Its main application is studying indigenous/marginalized peoples and using the knowledge to give them more rights. And when I first started writing, my mom got me two "how to write fantasy" books. One of them is wonderful, The Writer’s Complete Fantasy Reference. While it's 80% Europe, there was one blissfully inspiring section on non-Western fantasy worlds. I got that when I was like 12, and I’ve been writing non-Western worlds ever since.



R: Because I have spoken to people who feel so disillusioned with media because they never see themselves. It’s heartbreaking to hear somebody say “that’s not me.” 90% of my friends are queer, and they can’t really look at a character and go “that’s me.”



R: Google. Tumblr. YWS. TV Tropes. Talk to people. Always, always, always listen when you’re being called out. Tumblr’s a good one because people vent, but it’s also HARSH because it’s one of the only places that’s actually safe to vent. If you dive into Tumblr tags for research, you will get venting. But when I say “use Tumblr,” I do mean “tag dive.” Both ask people willing to answer questions and read venty posts (Without. Stealing. Their. Ideas!!!!) to get more micro aggressions.



R: Fantasy has no rules. I am completely on board with the idea that fantasy needs to reflect the diversity, because it’s so often whitewashed in the name of "historical accuracy" when that is the farthest thing from the truth. Asia and Europe are on the same landmass. Spain was given most of its technological advancements by the Moors, who were black. Japanese diplomats made it to Spain. Rome was not white; it covered Africa and the Middle East and Europe. Egypt was not white.

People apply modern ideas about what society is like to history, and. It. Doesn’t. Work. That. Way. There was a time white privilege didn’t exist. There was a time straight privilege didn’t exist. People need to wrap their heads around that concept, that this world we live in is not static. Women weren’t always oppressed, men were not always dominant. I think what blows my mind the most is that archaeologists just now learned that women hunted. These super-decorated graves they found, archaeologists had identified them by grave goods. So these men went, “Oh! Hunting gear! Men hunt! We have a man!” Then they ran DNA tests. “These are biologically female skeletons.”

Our history has been written by white men who thought that only white men contributed anything of value. And that’s really the bottom line about history. Start looking into the number of things Europe didn’t invent. Surgery was invented in the Middle East. University was invented by a Muslim woman. While Europe was in the Dark Ages, Islamic scholars were studying and learning and preserving. They were far better than the Greeks at science. Not to mention the number of rulers who had lovers of the same sex.



R: Write two of them. Which sounds like odd advice. The first step is often cited as “write them as a person” or “research like mad.” But, if you only have one person of a certain type—say a gay guy. All of a sudden, he’s the token gay guy. He’s the guy readers look at and go, “They just threw him in for diversity’s sake.” But if you have two or three or more gay guys, then all of a sudden, you have representation. You have room for multiple types of personalities. Not to mention, most of my queer friends have lots of queer friends. You’re more likely to have one straight person in a group than one gay person. Let’s be perfectly honest here. Similar deal with race. Make more. Don’t have tokens; have a population.



R: Intersectionality, please. Queer POC. Disabled women. POC women. Basically a character who is two marginalized groups at once. Because you can end up with a POC, a queer, and a disabled. It gets really tiring to see only disabled white men or queer white men.

The big takeaway from this interview, as I see it, is this: Let diverse characters become characters, people, rather than tokens who are only there so people won’t accuse you of racism/sexism/bigotry/ablism/whatever.

You shouldn’t want to write them for that reason anyway. You should want to write them because all kinds of people are interesting and worth writing. Bug Rosey, who in addition to being able to talk a lot about diversity is a font of knowledge when it comes to history and linguistics. Bug @Isha, who wrote an amazing article on writing characters who are not like you (linked below). Talk to people. The world is a diverse place—why shouldn’t your writing be?

Here are some links to check out to find out more about diversity in fiction:

The Mako Mori Test: ‘Pacific Rim’ inspires a Bechdel Test alternative
Writing a Character From a People Group Not Your Own by Isha
Historical precedent and fantasy writing
Fantasy survey infograph: diversity in fantasy

WRITER OF THE WEEK INTERVIEW WITH THESHAUZERwritten by Messenger < PM: >

Well once again a new Writer Of The Week has been chosen. @TheShauzer was picked for his great writing skills in the realm of short stories. You can find them in his portfolio right here: Shauzer's portfolio I'm sure you will enjoy them. This week I got to sit down with him and have a quick chat about his reaction and thoughts on receiving the honor.



TheShauzer: I was in shock!



TS: No! I didn't even know there was a WOTW.



TS: Yep, just write as much as you can and take your criticism well



TS: Sorry but no, I haven't had the pleasure.



TS: I guess the only way to get better at writing is to keep doing it, and keep reading a lot too because that helps greatly... That's all I guess, happy writing and thanks again!


Well there you have it. Another interview with a good writer! Shauzer made some very short, but important points. Criticism will always be handed out, but it's the writers job to take that criticism and use it to their advantage.
And as he said, reading will really help in your life of writing.

Hope you enjoyed the interview! This will be the last Writer Of The Week interview in the Squills Column Starting next week it will be included in the Weekly Writer an E-Zine written by the WOTW Academy members!

So keep writing! You may be the next person I interview!

~Messenger

INGREDIENT OF THE WEEK

Written by whitewolfpuppy < PM: >

Dill

Dill is an aromatic annual herb of the parsley family, with fine blue-green leaves and yellow flowers. The leaves and seeds of dill are used for flavoring and for medicinal purposes. Mainly for culinary purposes, we use it as seasoning. If you ever taste dill, it does have a strong taste. The taste not crazy but distinctive. So when cooking with dill, extra amounts are needed to get the flavor of the dill into the food that you are creating. Small amounts of dill do not truly get the full flavor in there, so a little more than normal will help you get there! Always remember to taste while cooking, no one wants to add too much dill. For example, when cooking Salmon with Dill, you are needing a fourth of a cup.

Cedar Plank-Grilled Salmon with Garlic, Lemon and Dill


Dill is a seasoning that goes amazing with garlic and lemon, not even just with salmon! Dill can be used in soup, on chicken, and even in burgers. Dill is a tool that most should work with if they are wanting more of a distinctive taste that is like a combination of fennel, anise and celery, with warm, slightly bitter undertones, then dill is right for you! If you find any wacky recipes, share them with the Food Lovers Club

LIBRARY LOVESwritten by OliveDreams < PM: >

This week, the lovely @Lapis has done YWS the honour of letting us into their most treasured library loves.

Let’s get this show on the road!

Something New:

Seeker by William Nicholson

Lapis: It's the first book of one of my favourite series ever... It was highly creative and innovative, and inspiring overall  I will never forget it.

Something Familiar:

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

L: XD Wonderful books... Quite realistic in a way, which is a surprising change, and it explores many themes, such as betrayal and how appearances mean little.

Something Loved:

Necronomicon by H.P. Lovecraft

L: It's a collection of his stories. It is so big, and features such diverse works, that I'll probably never get tired of it XD Each time you read a story, you see twice as much as before. It's truly amazing.

Thank you Lapis!

I’ve read The Seeker by William Nicholson so I’m in total agreement with your recommendation there! I think your Something Loved is also Something New for most of us!

It seems strange and wonderful!

NEW ARRIVALS
written by KnightTeen < PM: >

I am proud to announce that we have reached 29,965 users!
You know me, I'm a snoop! I have to know everything about every new member on the site. (Don't hate me, it's all part of the job!)

Take another look at the numbers for this week. By the end of the week, our counter will be over 30,000! (Three times as many posts as Heather (@Rydia) has done!) I want to take this moment to reflect on just how much YWS has impacted us all.
.
.
.
Moment over!
These new users represent another generation of YWSers. Welcome them all!




@Sylar14 • @thebluegemini • @IridescentGrace • @YewandeAwonaike • @DisneyIsAnOpenDoor • @thozhasharo7 • @townzy95 • @MoonlitSlumber • @bluedragon • @mrnobie2013 • @ialreadydiedtoo • @impersonator • @radburn • @smilekid • @MeTheKing • @KingOfNothing • @mantha19 • @Cody616 • @Sylvester • @Hasi • @Percybeth • @writingismylife3 • @Blackenmist • @passionatewriter23 • @asadderandawiserman • @• @thelonewriter • @Kelpies • @Giraffe • @franklin • @allymorgan13 • @Jackalcat • @GrumpyHippo • @theshaybay4 • @pinkymustachio • @ayancey23 • @swagqueen • @Abaddon • @MichaelFishbag • @WimpWriting • @AliCat • @Xanthia • @ChasinGrades • @maxbriston • @RATANVARSHNEY • @bigsow • @ronnie1 • @ronnie • @yaseradnan • @cheesecaaake • @Savvy • @whatsonyourmind • @JSFord97 • @musicandbooks • @Charlie793 •@nikolapivac • @Handsqueazy • @Gingahcakes • @tallygirl • @Tiaradyson • @Nevermore140813 • @LailaMaged • @Charcoal • @ryangibello • @FerrumCorde • @EdenPhoto • @TreesaLouis • @sky767 • @ronaltorto • @xLovex01 • @Zeddya • @MonkeyMushroom • @Skylarembers • @sonyawolfblood • @CyberScout • @moonulv • @nathfash • @AmethystOceanPearl12 • @reneeakrobbi • @erinasher • @lozzyloo123 • @Brunnera • @LucidInsanity • @melodypond46 • @francesnut12 • @BioHaphazardess •

THIS WEEK'S ROUNDUP – 4/27written by megsug < PM: >

Smile for the camera! Say “Round up!”


The two in charge of all of this, may put a bounty on my head, but this is too fantastic to keep to myself. Some people want to gather a group picture. Which means that some people want to draw YWSers in their YWS image. The idea was started in 2011, but it’s been restarted which means that the link leads to the sixth page instead of the first. @steward knows what he wants to look like:







So, what do you want to look like?


@Hasi (she’s new, so you should go say hi and be friendly) has got a pretty cool plot going on, and she wants to see what other people feel about it. Part of her plot goes like this:







Read the rest of her story and let her know what you think she should do!


@Bellator has been working on her NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) thread and has some great stuff. I really like this one:







There is a lot of great poetry hiding in the NaPoWriMo thread . I think you should check it out.


I have found a club for my YA readers! @Laure created a… well, YA club. People can talk about favorite YA books, rants and fangirling, or even discuss the definition of YA fiction. @Laure even has a mission for you:





I would get to joining and reading if I were you…

SHAMELESS PLUGS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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Got some cash burning in your pockets? Got a fiery burning passion of love for YWS? Then why not donate to it and help keep it running? Read this to find out more.



Calling all knights and squires:
There's a new order to join. Meet monthly challenges and earn points. Check out the League of the Tortoise !



Write an original fairy tale and submit it to the Fairy Tale Campfire contest, located under the Contest forum. (Or here at this link )
Over 3000 points will be awarded to our winners, but the contest ends midnight GMT on May 8th. May Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs lead you to victory!

That's all folks~ Now send us yours.

SUBSCRIBERS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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