Active writing forums?

April 12, 2009 1:57 PM

Anyone know any active writing forums they would recommend?

The last time I had time to devote to writing, I was a member of Writers Write but it appears they have since closed down their forums. I enjoy the forums at NaNoWriMo but they're not as active this time of year as I would like. Google results are overwhelming. Any suggestions for active discussion boards? I'm mainly interested in fiction (novel-length), but also in memoirs.

Bonus question, there was a forum I was part of at some point which had the author of Look Me in the Eye as an active participant. At the time, his memoir had been picked up, but not yet released. Anyone know which forum this might have been?

posted by Ugh to Writing & Language (5 answers total)

Best answer: I used to post at writingforums.com. and it was quite active at the time. Just popped on, and it still seems to be alive. It was a handy place to get some feedback on your fiction (and it tends to be more honest when it's anonymous) and just generally discuss writing.
posted by Relic at 2:25 PM on April 12, 2009

Best answer: There are some good suggestions in this prior thread, including my recommendation of Forward Motion, which is still my favorite writer's forum.
posted by snowleopard at 3:10 PM on April 12, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks for your suggestions. Here's a couple more websites I ran across for anyone else who may be interested:

101 Best Sites for Writers
Absolute Write - I'm pretty sure this is the forum I was thinking of above.
Authonomy - A cool idea. Upload a portion of your book for critique; those best received will be reviewed by Harper Collins. Also has a forum.
posted by Ugh at 5:04 PM on April 12, 2009 [2 favorites]

Best answer: John Elder Robison is still reasonably active on AbsoluteWrite.com, as are some other recent bestsellers (Patricia Wood, author of Lottery; Jamie Ford, author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet; and some YA bestsellers including Carrie Vaughn and some other people whose names now elude me because I don't follow YA that closely).
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:35 PM on April 12, 2009

Best answer: John Robison is also a sometime poster at Backspace (www.bksp.org), and I met him the Backspace conference, held yearly in New York. If you're interested in writing forums I recommend Backspace. It's a decent-sized community (1000 members), over a quarter of whom are published, and includes a number of best-selling authors as well as forum-active agents and editors. There's also a guest program where writing luminaries participate on the forums for a few days; past guests include Lee Child and Neil Gaiman.
posted by Wyrmspace at 9:37 AM on April 13, 2009