Maybe you don't have access to a writers' group in your area. Maybe you have no one you can talk to about your writing, to toss around story ideas, or even have your work critiqued.

No problem. For the past five years, with the exception of attending writers' conferences, I've received every bit of my "support" from the Internet.

If you subscribe to a service such as Prodigy or AOL, be sure to check out their bulletin boards or forums for writers. Many of them have genre-based support groups which you can join. In any event, you can participate in their message boards.

Here are some additional support groups for writers:

The Alabama Writers Forum

Fictech for Novelists' Inner Circle -- a free Internet-based club for writers that has over 700 members from all over the world.

NovelDoc -- a list for writers to provide mutual support in revising completed novels of over 60,000 words. It also offers tips, primers and talk on plots, technique, and marketing.

Painted Rock Writers and Readers Colony -- provides free and fee-based services to non-published writers, published writers, and readers.

Inkspot and the Writer's BBS offers discussion forums in topics like jobs, beginning writers, publication, and general writing.

The Writer's BBS features chat rooms for writers.

Inkspot offers a listing of IRC and other chat rooms for writers. You need an IRC program, like MIRC, in order to chat.

Southern Writers Mailing List

Follow these links for additional pages from the workshop:

You Can Find *THAT* On the Internet?!

Back to Beginning of Workshop on How Writers Can Use the Internet

Back to Contests for Writers

Back to General Writing Resources

Back to Genre Resources

Back to Markets for Writers

Back to Newsletters and Lists for Writers

Back to Publishers

Back to How Writers Can Research on the Net

Robin Nobles is a freelance writer who can be reached at robinnobles@robinsnest.com.

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