Zoetrope.com was created by Francis Ford Coppola as a way for writers to submit their short stories to Zoetrope: All-Story, a literary magazine. It quickly became a hot spot for new writers to submit and evaluate other writers creative works. I was a part of the excitement and found a lot of excellent authors to converse with. The premise was to submit a short story for others to critique but you had to critique 5 stories to your 1. I learned a lot about critiquing others work but the side benefit was that I became a better writer by reading and evaluating others work. But as all things in nature change, so did the writing community at Zoetrope. Creative people are also confrontational and egotistical. The flame wars were entertaining and creatively fought but they eventually caused a chasm, with 2 opposing sides that ultimately split the community apart.

I wasn’t a part of the war but I did take sides and when the under-dogs ventured out on their own, I went with them, though not right away and I never did fully incorporate myself into their community. I was involved with several other online communities that took up more than enough of my online time. Both communities are alive and apparently doing well. I’m not actively involved with either one because frankly, I’m not writing, at least not creatively.

Zoetrope Virtual Studio is still offering free memberships and while it may appear that they are more interested in film making and screenplays, they still offer a place for fiction writers, songwriters, poets and photographers. Also, there magazine has a yearly short fiction contest, which was closed as of Oct. 1, 2005 for this year. The next contest will be announced in May, 2006.

I’ll write a shot piece on where the other half of the original Zoetrope writing group end up in a few days, maybe sooner.