Exploring the Website

by Don Webb

A reader noticed the “help wanted” advert in issue 209 and very kindly offered to lend a hand:

Hi, I’ve only just found this site, but I’ve got time on my hands, and will help out if I can. What needs doing?

Thank you for volunteering! We have a number of projects, but they mostly involve proofreading. Fortunately, the Reviews index was only about ten weeks behind, and it’s been brought up to date pretty easily. However, I can offer something of a general nature that might be fun.

Since you’ve just discovered us, my advice is simply to enjoy the site. If I had it to do, I’d page through the current Readers’ Guide to see if the issue has anything of particular interest.

A number of readers start at the bottom, with the departments, considering them something like news headlines. That’s okay, but sometimes people read only the shortest fiction and non-fiction. That’s a pity: they miss out on a lot of very good writing in the longer short stories and serials.

If you find an author that catches your fancy, you can explore further with the author’s bibliography in the Biographies & Bibliographies.

Beyond that, the best starting places are in the editors’ choices (in “Anthologies”), the Contests, and Special Features.

Along the way, if you find yourself thinking, “I wish we had...” or “This might look really nice if it were...” by all means let me know. Reader feedback is, as the saying goes, priceless, and we always listen.

Hoping to hear from you again soon,

Don