Digital Scribes
By: JD DeHart
My own journey into publishing started in the age of expensive print and paper writer’s guides, and loads of postage. I had some modest successes, examples of glossy, professional journals, and others that were only photocopied and stapled together. There was a great trepidation in hurling your words out into the postal system, hoping for a return. Some responses took a week, others took years.
These days, my publishing successes have tended to the digital. I can’t tell you the last time I’ve put a stamp on a writing submission. Of course, you no doubt know about this world because you’re reading this on one such site.
What I have found is a small tribe of digital scribes who send their words to a variety of websites. Some of these sites are rather open-ended, like http://www.thepoetcommunity.com/. Others are more precise in what they are seeking, like http://theplumtreetavern.blogspot.com/. It’s not hard after a while to pick up on several of the same names on these pages, and then to follow their works on other sites. Sometimes, sadly, a site goes away and the words can no longer be found.
I have had my own brief experience hosting sites, and can tell you that it takes a great deal of work to sort through all of the submissions.
After several publications at a variety of poetic venues, I have decided (at least for a time) to make the shift to fiction and nonfiction work, chiefly prose. But I can’t help but look back fondly at the worlds of digital scribing that I’ve found over the years. Here is a small and very, very incomplete list:
- http://literaryyard.com/
- http://www.leaves-of-ink.com/
- http://eyeonlifemag.com/
- http://thestockholmreview.org/
- http://winamop.com/poems.htm
- http://www.indianavoicejournal.com/
- http://bluepepper.blogspot.com/
- https://revolutionjohn.wordpress.com/
- http://gadflyonline.com/home/
- http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/
I hope you check out these sites, and continue to explore the world of online publishing. Experts would call this an “affinity space,” a location or set of locations on the web where users can enjoy what they have in common. In this case, no doubt, it is the love of the written word.
