E-zines and Community

One of the hardest things about being a creative writer is breaking into print. There are a large number of literary journals out there dedicated to the publication of poetry and fiction, but it is not easy to get a piece accepted by one of these journals. There is an alternative to these journals, however, and that is online literary e-zines. An e-zine, like a regular print magazine, is a publication dedicated to reaching an audience interested in a particular topic&emdash;in this case, creative writing. E-zines, however, are published electronically via the Internet, often by people who are not professional journalists and are fanatic about the subject in question. As a result, e-zines run the gamut, from professional to amateur quality, from objective to subjective. They all, though, attempt in their own way to bring certain types of people together to create community. Eternal Voice is an e-zine dedicated to creative writing, particularly poetry, and it strives to create community by offering a variety of links that would be of interest to many writers. 

Why is there a need to create community among writers? Many creative writers&emdash;myself included&emdash;will tell you that there are very few things as valuable to their work as feedback, particularly from other writers. While feedback from any reader is helpful, other writers understand the technical aspects of writing and can address particular problems of a piece. Outside of a university setting, though, it is difficult to find a group of other writers who can get together and form a workshop. E-zines such as Eternal Voice alleviate that problem by bringing writers together. While it is not set up quite like a typical workshop, Eternal Voice does bring writers together by giving them a support system of people that they can contact for feedback on a particular piece or even an idea. 

As with any website, the viewer will notice the technical aspects of the website before anything else. With Eternal Voice, the server is unreliable and is occasionally unavailable for periods of time. When the site is available, the graphic files, particularly the background images, take a while to load, and on some pages they function mainly as a distraction. Also, there are no frames, which makes navigation something of a hassle as it is necessary to keep returning to the main page in order to visit all of the links. 

Beyond that, the reader finds a site that is astonishingly comprehensive. First and foremost, there is the creative work, which the webmistress "Cassia" selects from submissions she likes. The e-zine professes to focus on poetry, but there are also fictional and nonfictional pieces available. Along with the current pieces, readers may also view an archive of past work. However, although this is what the site probably wishes to focus on, it is the weakest of what it has to offer. The poets focus more on what they are saying than how they are saying it, and the result reads strangely like prose with random line breaks. The stories, particularly "Want to Dance?" by Angel, seem to be little more than thinly-veiled expressions of their author's own angst. However, in these creative pieces is where Eternal Voice's dedication to "dark" work shines through most clearly, and while they did not appeal to me, I would assume there is a certain audience for pieces like these. 

What seems most dominant, however, are the links to other pages which take up most of the main page. There are links to writing resources&emdash;a dictionary, a thesaurus, a rhyming dictionary, and a grammar guide&emdash;as well as copyright information, tips on writing and publishing, Internet searches, and other e-zines. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of all this is that most of the links actually work, unlike on a great number of sites which post links and do not maintain them after they become inactive. The ones that do not work are links to other zines which have gone down since Eternal Voice was last updated. The most useful links all work, though. In particular, I found the copyright information to be helpful, and I have also used the dictionary and thesaurus sites provided on occasion. There is even a link to a page of tips on overcoming writer's block, which I'm sure would be helpful for any number of frustrated writers out there. 

Eternal Voice has a wide variety of content and uses it to bring together an assortment of people interested in writing. For a site that claims to be interested mainly in "darker works" of poetry, it is amazingly broad&emdash;anyone with an interest in writing can find something here that will appeal to them. For those who like mainly to read, there are the submitted creative pieces, both poetry and prose. For beginning writers, there are tips on writing. For beginning and established writers, there are resources and tips on publishing. 

To make the site complete and truly bring a community of writers together, the e-zine is interactive. There is a discussion board available for readers to discuss any topic that interests them. Furthermore, there is a list of e-mail addresses available for a group of the site's "regulars" for anyone who wishes to correspond with them personally. These two features allow the site's readers and writers to get in touch with one another, to find out what is on the minds of fellow writers. This, I feel, is where the site can be truly helpful to a writer. By contacting other writers, either via the discussion board or e-mail, it is possible to seek out opinions and help. Even if a writer gets back only comments that are not helpful in and of themselves, I have found that even those type of comments can get me to look at a piece in a new way and perhaps take it in a new direction. In this way, contact with other writers is particularly valuable. 

As for submitting work to an e-zine, not just Eternal Voice, there are some considerations. For one, since e-zines are not generally professional publications, being published there does not have the prestige that comes with being published in a regular print journal. Secondly, a literary e-zine may not be seen by very many people. However, the same can be said for many small print journals, which have a circulation of only a few hundred yet are considered quite prestigious. For a writer that is simply looking for a way to get his or her material out into at least a limited market, an e-zine may be the way to go. After all, you have to start somewhere. 

Eternal Voice is an e-zine that uses a broad spectrum of content in an effort to build community among a great number of writers and readers. While there are a few minor details that detract somewhat from the experience, the e-zine is a well-designed and highly useful site that writers in particular would do well to check out for links to resources if nothing else. Then as they explore the site and discover some of the other features, they can discover how easy it is to get in touch with other writers and come together as a group.