by Dana Guthrie Martin, director and founder
It is with regret that I inform the membership that Read Write Poem will not be moving forward under new leadership. My only option at this time is to close the site down. The community’s editorial, maintenance and technical needs have grown exponentially, to the point that instating another all-volunteer team with the skills and time to lead the site is impossible.
The site will remain live through April for NaPoWriMo and will post a member-authored writing prompt every day during the month of April as part of the Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Challenge. In late May, the Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Challenge Anthology will be published and will include work by those who complete the challenge.
The final editorial piece will be published on the site May 1. It will wrap up the Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Challenge and detail how to send in work for inclusion in the anthology. At that point, the site will be closed in terms of new editorial content and news items. When the Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Challenge Anthology is completed, it will be posted on the site, as well as at issuu.com.
After May 1, Read Write Poem will remain open as an archival record of the work that has been shared here since 2007. The social networking elements of the site will be removed May 1. Between now and then, members should retrieve any private messages or group posts that they want to preserve.
Thank you to everyone who took part in Read Write Poem over the years. Again, I am sorry that the site must close. If anyone has any questions, feel free to email me at info (at) readwritepoem (dot) org. I look forward to seeing other online communities and collaborative workspaces come into existence that build on the mission of Read Write Poem and expand that mission far beyond the groundwork laid here. Though this is the end of Read Write Poem, it is neither the end of poetry, nor of community.
Dana Guthrie Martin founded Read Write Poem in 2007 as an extension of her work as co-founder of the Poetry Thursday site. She writes poetry and prose, and lives in the Seattle area with her husband, her robot and her two hermit crabs.
