This news article has been written for Project Educate, a gallery-wide campaign to help deviants understand their galleries better. This week the Literature Gallery is in focus and the Gallery Directors have decided to write informative articles about the different kinds of writing you can submit to deviantART and where to post them.

Simply enough, the literature community does not function simply through work that GD's do. On the contrary, you have taken great initiatives to keep alive the art (and craft) of writing through contests, projects, challenges, news articles, forum discussions and who know's what else! This is something we enjoy and appreciate, so keep it going. (But also, keep us informed. More below.)

We recognise that newcomers often find it hard to reach the literature community, to be involved in a project, so this is an attempt to highlight some of the work done by us all, GDs, lit seniors, but most of all, just anyone who likes to be part of this internet world of ours.

Contests and Month-long Projects

The latest trend has been to host month-long projects, which provide a larger focus to our writing and reading activities on deviantART. The three major projects in March are:

Read More in March is ^GeneratingHype's way to get us all reading. The project is focusing on the literature forums in its second week, but there are three month-long contests as well, which you can find in the news article.\

In celebration of spring, *Iscariot-Priest is hosting a Spring Bash Haiku-thon. Participants are writing a haiku a day, and it's not too late to join in.

It's also time for spring cleaning, or as ^StJoan and `Beccalicious put it, time to Clean up your Lit! The purpose of this project is simply to go through our literature galleries and report miscats. Details are in the news article and you can find the list of participants here.

Some other fantastic contests going on at the moment:

One Foot Forth Challenge by *jack-cade (Deadline: March 12)
Luck O'The Vampire by *VampireWriters (Deadline: March 17)
Love Poetry Competition by =Flutterings (Deadline: March 21)
Contest: cathARTsis by *ItDoesNotHaveMe (Deadline: March 28)
Write a story! by *AppleCherry (Deadline: March 31)
March Limerick Contest Ahoy! by *fllnthblnk (Deadline: March 31)
Bees - An all Genres Contest by *Mollinda (Deadline: March 31)
Prose Contest! by ~Scribblers-Anonymous (Deadline: March 31)
Tots and Teens: A Lit Contest by *ThornyEnglishRose and *batousaijin (Deadline: April 30)

But where's my contest?/What should I do if I'm hosting a contest? Well, we try our best to keep track of everything, and I apologise sincerely to anyone if I've missed their contest even after noting me about it. It is not intentional. That said, the only we can plug your contests is if you tell us. Please note one, or preferably all three, Literature Gallery Directors (^StJoan, ^GeneratingHype and ^lovetodeviate) with a link and a short description of your contest. We would also like knowing about your contest before it is launched, if possible. Don't forget to note *litNEWS either, as they regularly update their journal with contest and other lit news.

Writing Resources

A number of club accounts are dedicated towards articles, essays and editorials on forms, genres and devices of writing. Whether active or not, you can still access many of their writeups. At the risk of missing a few important ones (do let me know if I miss anything out so I can update my list), here are a few whose galleries are worth visiting: `poeticks, ~poetic-forms and ~PoetryLibrary for poetry; ~Wudang-mountain for Japanese poetry; and *ProsePlease and *WordCount for prose; and ~onewordatatime for both prose and poetry.

Individual deviants have also written some excellent articles. You can find a list of some of these, and other dA and non-dA writing resources here, here and here.

Writing Groups/Clubs

If I were to list all these, I would need three or four news article at least! That's how active you are, and we like it. There are clubs for mentoring, critique, prompts and workshops, features, writing resources, specific forms and genres of writing, and even for writing in a specific language. Some literary magazines also have deviantART accounts and you can find out about submissions through them.

I will only mention two clubs/groups/resources, which will certainly help you get to other clubs:

*litNEWS holds the most up-to-date information possible regarding contests, projects, and lit mags within the literature gallery, as well as highlighting clubs and chats monthly. Watching this account is one of the best ways to get to know what's going on in the lit world. The journals are updated fortnightly. Here's the latest: Literature Gallery Update (2 March).

~Lit-Source has possibly the most comprehensive list of literary groups and clubs on deviantART, which is regularly updated by the owner.

I'm looking for a group/club to suit my interests. What do I do? *litNEWS and ~Lit-Source are the best bet. Go through their journals and/or gallery and you're bound to find something that interests you. You can also note a Gallery Director (^StJoan, ^GeneratingHype and ^lovetodeviate) or go through their journals; we try to keep in track of projects and are willing to suggest clubs for you to try.

I have a project and no one knows about it. What do I do? Simply note *litNEWS, ~Lit-Source and the Gallery Directors (^StJoan, ^GeneratingHype and ^lovetodeviate).

I have a great idea for a project! What do I do? Sometimes we end up having more than one project with a very similar focus. This is all right and you are perfectly free to go ahead with the idea. However, it's better to work with something different, something new and exciting. Going through *litNEWS and ~Lit-Source resources is a great way to find out what's already out there and what isn't. In case there's already an active group with the same concept, you can either think of something new, or note the already existing group to see if you can join. Some clubs publicly advertise for staff applications in their journals. Please also note ^StJoan, ^GeneratingHype and me, ^lovetodeviate about your project. We're not control freaks, I promise, but sometimes we have suggestions that you may like to use.

Almost done!

That's pretty much it. Look out for *getLIT; the owner is still constructing the journals and chatrooms, but something interesting is bound to happen soon.

This is the last Project Educate article. Thank you ^shell4art for all the support. As for the literature community, we're a bunch of eccentric folks, but we mean well, don't we?



List of Previous Project Educate Articles

Poetry, Prose: Who Knows?
Truth & Lies: Nonfiction Prose
Who needs reality? We have fiction!
Poetry Pickles
Unreal City: The Lit Forums