Young Writers Society

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1. FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: CHIKARA
2. NAPO RECAP: SQUILLS EDITION
3. VHFUHW FRGHV... AHEM. I MEAN, SECRET CODES
4. GREEN ROOM GALLERY
5. SHAMELESS PLUGS
6. SUBSCRIBERS

FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: CHIKARAwritten by LOOSELEAF< PM: >

On April 20th, @IcyFlame announced that @chikara would be YWS’s newest featured member. Having joined in August of 2020, chikara has already done 116 reviews and published thirteen different poems! They can be found everywhere, from participating in @Magebird’s The Lunar Plains roleplay and open write-ins. I had the pleasure of interviewing chikara for this Squills edition about their experience as featured member and on YWS in general!


chikara: I remember I took a nap before and left YWS open, and then when I checked back, I had over twenty notifications. I thought I did something wrong, and people were outraged for some reason? Then I actually looked at what the messages were for, and it was just !!! because I think I totally forgot that Featured Member existed.


C: It's apparently cliché to say reviews and general presence, but that's most likely it. Oh, and all of those NaPo poems, maybe.


C: The community, I think. It feels like I've known some of these people for years, and it hasn't even been a year. I believe that's really fascinating in a way, especially for a writing site and not a traditional social media.


C: It was nice! I did have an intention to write thirty poems when I probably didn't have the time for it though, and that made writing become more of a task than something fun. I don't regret doing it, though.


C: I'd say just be yourself and try to be as active as you can. I wouldn't try to be FM because then, it just gets rid of the whole point.

Unfortunately, chikara is no longer featured member, but if you want to check out their NaPo thread, you can do so here: everything that falls down eventually rises .

NAPO RECAP: SQUILLS EDITION

written by alliyah < PM: >

It's been a few weeks now since National Poetry Month wrapped up and you've probably been able to read the 2021 NaPo Recap in the forums. I thought I'd give a little overview of the main features of this year's NaPo and ways it was different than previous years!

So first just numerically, we've had a steady increase of participants in NaPo in the last few years - last year I was curious what the exact numbers were so counted up threads and here's what I got! In 2017 and 2018 we had around 60 participants, and then in 2019 we were able to jump up to 70, and this year we increased again to 82 participants! That's actually pretty awesome - not only to ancedotally say "a lot of people wrote poetry this year on YWS" but as an indicator of YWS's health / activity / life and people's comfortability engaging in sharing poetry. More participation is good all the way around!

Here's some other observations about activity this year - a trend that I really saw prominently this year was the prominence of themed threads. A few years ago un-themed threads were the norm and there were just a few that tried to keep up with a common thematic thread. (My first NaPo thread was actually called "A Collage of Mismatched Contemplations" which I think demonstrates my own take on themes that year - everything was just put together. ) In 2018 Poetry Crew put out a March event called Inspo for NaPo where we encouraged users to try out different NaPo preparation exercises - and one of them was to consider theme planning. I think this may have prompted a few more folks to consider thematic threads - though it was still not the "norm". There's definitely benefits to both types of approaches. This year however I really saw a real emergence of people fostering a theme throughout their NaPo threads - where each poem was really part of a larger whole - some that stand out as examples would be @Liminality's robot themed thread and @Arcticus' heart-scripture thread.

Another trend I noticed this year differently than previous years was that there seemed to be fewer people commenting throughout the threads - from just observing how many folks were going for the Comment Badges. On the flip-side it seemed like people were more generous than "likes" in threads this year, so I don't know that people were reading less, in fact they may have been reading even more but just didn't pause to comment!

Threads also seemed to be much more stylized this year than previous ones with an abundance of formatting, different background images, colors, fonts, and concrete poems - there have always been a few poets trying this sort of thing, but I think that both of these developments are indicative of poetry trends on the rest of the site too - that YWS poetry is becoming generally more reliant on form and image than previously so. I've written before about how Poetry Communities can become insular bubbles or create a culture of their own and I don't necessarily think it's a bad or a good thing, but something to be aware of certainly and something I find interesting to follow!

A few topical themes that I noticed coming through in threads too were that a lot of poems touched on time passing, mental health, nature and celestial themes, writing, loss, hope, love, and growth. I regrettably didn't have time to do my NaPo Shoutouts Squills series this year - but I did notice again this year a certain symmetry between NaPo threads. Poems that lifted up the same ideas almost like everyone's NaPo journey was part of one singular thread. Were there themes or trends you noticed this year? I'd love to hear what your observations were over at my Squills Author Corner .

VHFUHW FRGHV... AHEM. I MEAN, SECRET CODES

written by Spearmint < PM: >

Hello hello, and welcome to this new secret-code-themed column! ^-^ Quick disclaimer: I am by no means an expert on cryptography, but hopefully you'll be able to learn something from this, or just have fun making and breaking secret codes!

So, I'll be spotlighting different ciphers and code-breaking techniques each article. But first off, let's start with the difference between a code and a cipher. This might not seem super relevant, but I find that it's nice to have precise wording sometimes. C: All right, so codes tend to represent meaning, and a code can be shorter or longer than the word/phrase it represents! For example, if you set up a system with someone where the number 1 means tomato, 1 would be a code for tomato. A cipher, on the other hand, tends to have the same length as the message, and is more like an algorithm: you do a certain operation to each letter. For example, shifting it forward three places! Then tomato would become wrpdwr (which is rather difficult to pronounce @.@). But anyways, that's a quick overview of a code versus a cipher!

One of the most famous ciphers is called the Caesar (or Shift) cipher. In this particular cipher, you shift each letter forwards a certain number of places. For example, Caesar used a shift of 3, meaning that A becomes D, B becomes E, and so on. The letters at the end of the alphabet wrap around, so Y is B and Z is C. To decipher a message, you can shift each letter back the same number of places! Then D goes back to A and C goes back to Z.

Fun fact: the Caesar cipher is named after Julius Caesar, who used it to send secret messages to his soldiers! It's considered a rather easy cipher to crack now, but back in Roman times, many of Caesar's enemies were illiterate (and they didn't have Google :P). And while there are tons of free online websites that can quickly crack the Caesar cipher now, it can still be a pretty useful way of keeping your information safe from prying eyes! Especially if those eyes belong to a person who doesn't know much about codes or ciphers. Cough cough... any nosy people who might want to sneak a peek at your diary... But of course, enciphering your journal or diary is probably only a good idea if you remember what cipher you used, and how to reverse it!

Okay, time to put those new (or not new!) cipher skills into practice. Here's a modified quote from Julius Caesar, encoded with the Caesar cipher:
L fdph, L vdz, L frqtxhuhg (pb whuuleoh iluvw gudiw). :P

Did you solve it? Here's the answer:

Try enciphering other quotes too, or any other text you find or write! Have fun with it ^-^

All right, so that about concludes this article~ =D I hope you enjoyed reading it, and see you next time! Brx duh DZHVRPH <3

GREEN ROOM GALLERYwritten by IcyFlame< PM: >

This week, I'm bringing back the Green Room Gallery to share some green room works that could use some love. It's so important to take the time to review work from our new members as well as our oldie but goldies because that's what will make them keep on coming back for more.

This time of year is busy for us all, with many people finishing up at school or going into busy periods at work but even twenty minutes of your time can make a difference to our cluttered green room (it'll also give you a chance at winning that May Review Challenge )

For extra points, you can also review some older works by clicking this link and sorting works by the oldest ones posted.

Longing of a Maiden Rose - Chapter I: Unforgotten Murder 3 (Reworked) by @MailicedeNamedy

Our recent FM has been posting the reworked chapters of their novel. If you like mysterious old villas inherited by quirky characters this one's for you! As the chapters are being reworked, it wouldn't take long to read it from the beginning. It's also posted in nice digestible chunks - great for reviewing!


Chapter One: Lyrthelion's Guard by @SoullessGinger

A short but sweet chapter one the will set you up for the rest of the story. Our protagonist longs to sing like a bard by finding a master.


The Mountain (6) by @zekcede

One for all you poetry reviewers, this is a series of posts where zekcede has been given the title of a poem they've never read and told to write it. The lines come from The Mountain by Elizabeth Bishop and there are 7 poems to read so far (and 2 of those are in the green room). A super interesting concept!


The Sorcerers of Hisderat Chapter 8.1 by @HarryHardy

Two adventurers quest to retrieve a suitcase, solve some riddles and get into some hair raising scrapes along the way! We've already had a fight with the Dirt King and a visit to a hospital... what more action could you need? Also posted in short manageable posts that are easy to read and fun to review.

Rae's Notaphinies (chapter 1) by @Blak

A realistic and dramatic coming-of-age novel. Young-fatherhood. Psychological. Mental health.

If none of these take your fancy there are plenty of other works in the green room just waiting for a review! Happy reading!

SHAMELESS PLUGS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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SUBSCRIBERS

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