The Front Page Welcome to The GAzette! On this page you will find links to the rest of the newsletter content as well as important news and announcements of interest both to members and authors. Page 1 |
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In this edition...
GayAuthors- A Year In Review and A Look Ahead
The Editing Process: From the Writer’s Point of View
Page 6: The Back Page |
Welcome to the fourth edition of The GAzette! I’d like to say a special thank you to everyone that helped out with this month’s Newsletter. It was my first issue as Editor and I hope this edition lives up to the high standards that were set in previous issues. For the time being the Newsletter will go from monthly to quarterly until such time that we have more volunteers. I’d like to say a special thank you to Jsmith who helped out last minute buy laying this all out for us. It is very much appreciated. We are also proud to announce a new story hosting site. The site is for GLBT Fan Fiction. If you have a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgender Fan Fiction stories you would like to post, please do so. The site is new and the categories are limited right now, but if you don't see something that you'd like to see, please contact Myr and let him know. The site can be found here: http://glbtfanfiction.com
Vlista20 (Vance) Editor-In-Chief |
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QUARTERLY STORY ANTHOLOGY FOR SPRING 2007 We're beginning our 2007 Quarterly Anthology series with the Spring Anthology. All members are invited to participate; you don't need to be an official GA "author" to submit a story. The submission deadline is April 1, with a projected "online" date around April 15. The theme of the Spring anthology is "Endings & Beginnings", and the Submission Guidelines have been posted in the anthology forum. Themes
and submission deadlines for the Summer, Fall and Winter anthologies
have also been posted in the forum, so if you want to work ahead,
make sure to check them out. |
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GayAuthors- AYear In Review and A Look AheadGA has seen many changes over the past year. The community has grown in leaps and bounds. It has gained several new authors between Hosted, Shared, and eFiction as well as a slew of new members ready to devour the stories and post their comments, thoughts and anything else from jokes to recipes in the ever-expanding forums. GA also went through some physical changes with the new board software being implemented near the end of the year. The most obvious changes being the new profiles, the statistics page and the gallery where members can post photos of their favorite stars, pets, landscapes, even pictures of themselves. We would like to take this opportunity to remind the minors on the site to be very cautious if you should decide to post a picture and if you do decide to, be sure and report any unwanted advances should they occur to staff immediately so that protective actions may be taken. Our administrator, Myr, and his thoughts of the past year are summed up in one sentence. “I’m surprised at some of the twists and turns that we have taken this past year. Some good, some not. I am confident about moving forward.” The coming year has lots of changes in the works with several new features to expand the site and community. In the works are some brother sites. One very recently launched GLBTFanFiction.com that focuses on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Fanfiction stories. It is hoped to develop as a place to find a large variety of non-straight FanFiction stories. It is encouraged if anyone has any FanFiction stories to add them to the site. Your help is needed to get the site growing. There will also be a site for original fiction with a tentative name of GLBTstories.com again once this site is up and running all writers are encouraged to post there. Another addition includes a writer’s resource site that will focus completely on helpful writing tips and articles. Myr says, “By diversifying our site family, we bring in a larger audience. By placing ads and other such things on the site, we provide a larger revenue stream for Gay Authors that we can use to grow our site and do new and exciting things. Yes, there are some very cool things on the long-term scope. But we need to grow more to get there.”
Recently two new positions were incorporated here at Gay authors.
As many of you have probably noticed Trebs is now the official GA
‘Member advocate’ he has stepped forward to help provide an outside,
ombudsman type outlook for the staff. A liaison of sorts that gives
staff more time to expand the site but lets members have their opinions
heard. For more information on this position, see the member interview
with Trebs! Therefore, if the members get an advocate, authors need
one too right! Of course! Dan Kirk will be fulfilling this role
bringing forward issues an author may have such as Trebs will be
doing for members. |
We're sad to see a great author leave us, but Hosted Author RHawes16 (author of Replay) has moved on. He will have his own site up soon and will post the link in his GA profile when it's ready. GA is currently the online home of 17 Hosted Authors and 8 Shared Member Hosting authors, many of whom are "homegrown" from among the GA members who started out posting their work in eFiction and the anthologies. During 2007, our goal is to double the number of Hosted and Shared Hosting authors, while maintaining the quality of stories that you've come to expect. However, for the next couple of months, we will not be adding many new authors, as our focus is on consolidating the new features we've added to the site and deciding how we can best serve our community of members and writers in the coming year. Stay tuned for more news in next month's GAzette. |
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New to the Forums area is our
Gallery. The Gallery is an area where members are able to post images
that are rated PG-13 or less. We would be pleased to see pictures
of you, your pets, vacation, people, or places that are important
to you. Posting your own scanned or electronically rendered art
work is encouraged! Pictures of nudity and sexual activities are
strictly forbidden and will not be allowed in the Gallery. When
posting an image, visit here
and click on the icon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen
labeled “New Album”. From there follow the instructions on posting
an image. All images uploaded to Gay Authors must be approved by
a moderator. Images submitted for inclusion in the galleries will
usually be reviewed and processed within 24-hours. If an image is
rejected, it will simply not appear in your gallery. Gay Authors also has a new Links section available to members. The link section includes links for Gay Culture and History, Gay News Sites, Gay Story Sites, Gay Writer’s Sites, Health and Wellness, LGBT Advocacy Resources, LGBT Religion & Spirituality, Sports and Recreation, Teen Support Sites, and Writing Resources. Members are encouraged to add links to this area if they know of a site that isn’t listed. To view the links area, please visit here or click the link in the upper right hand corner of the Forums labeled ‘Links’.
In early December our Top Site List was taken down after repeated failures with the software. The company discontinued the software and support for the program and it began to fall apart. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused anyone, but there is good news. The administration purchased another program that will replace the old system. It was launched on Friday, December 29th and is available here | |||||
| Volume Two, Edition Four |
February 2007 |