Welcome to WriterMag.com's new forums!

Welcome to our new forums!

As we’re sure you’ve already noticed, we’ve upgraded our forums. They have a new look and more functions that will allow you to better connect with other writers and share your thoughts online. Here are a few key things we want you to know to help you become familiar with the new WriterMag.com community:

• All of your previous forum topics and threads are still here. We transferred everything from the old forums to our new forums, so you’ll be able to pick up discussions right where you left off. Just look for your areas of interest under “Browse Discussions.” If you want to look at the most recent posts, you’ll find those toward the bottom of the forums home page.

• Your profile is your online presence in the community. On the right side of the page, you’ll see links to view your public profile, to edit your profile, and to choose an avatar. To change settings on your forum account, go to “Edit Your Profile.” Within that section, you’ll can set up or change your avatar, tell more about yourself in your biography, and make selections about who can contact you within the forums.

• To communicate directly with other forum members, just click on that person’s user name from within a post and then choose “Start a conversation.” This is the same function as the old e-mail and private message buttons within the posts.

• You can “friend” other forum members to create your own personalized community. If you want to be friends with someone, you may send them a friend request by visiting their profile and clicking “Add to friends.” Once they accept your request, you’ll be able to communicate with your friends on a one-to-one basis or as a group.

• Inside the forums, you can choose to subscribe to discussions that interest you. If you subscribe to a forum or thread, you will receive an e-mail notification each time there is new activity in that section. You'll find a shortcut to “Forum Subscriptions” on the right side of the page, or when you’re in a thread, click the “E-mail me when someone replies” at the top of the thread.

There are many more great new features in our upgraded forums. To read about everything that’s new, check out the “Forum Help” link at the top left of the forums home page. We've also posted an article explaining more specifics about our new forums.

If you have any questions or problems, feel free to contact customer service, and we’ll get a response to you as soon as we can.

We hope you enjoy the new forums!

-- The Writer staff

Martha Lundin, editorial associate for The Writer