Help / About

Online Writing Community

Help FAQ

If you have any questions that are not answered here, please contact trAce at
trace@ntu.ac.uk

What is trAce?
Where is trAce based?
How did trAce start?
Should I join?
What do you mean by "community"?
What do the Writers-in-Residence do?
Why does the site have so many cookies?
Do you know of any good web sites for writers?
What do people get out of trAce?
Can you recommend an Internet Service Provider?
Can I have a trAce email address or webspace?
Do you have meetings in real life?
How do I find what I want on the World-Wide Web?
Is there anyone who can answer my questions about writing online and using the Net?
Where can I get free stuff on the Web?

What is trAce?
trAce is a busy 24-hour online community for writers and readers across the world. We write, share our reading, critique each others' work, discuss our favourite books and talk all the time. We communicate by email and conduct live meetings and events via the internet. Occasionally we even come together in Real Life at conferences and workshops.

Where is trAce based?
At Nottingham Trent University and everywhere in cyberspace!

How did trAce start?
trAce began in 1995 as a research project to discover writers' sites on the Web. Our first web site went live in 1996 and in 1997 we won a lottery grant from the Arts Council of England for a three-year project to build a community of writers and readers worldwide. The original search for writers' sites carries on, with an expanding collection of reviewed sites in the trAced Resources section.

Should I join?
You can join using this web form.

This is the place to be if you want to play a part in how the future will look. We have members in countries around the world, from Singapore to Venezuela and all points in between. Many are professional writers, and plenty more are busy learning the skills. Quite a few prefer simply to read and love to share their reading with others. If you enjoy literature you'll always find something of interest and quality on the trAce website.

Membership is free and open to all.
For more information on joining and leaving trAce, see our Privacy Policy.

"I keep forgetting that trAce is 'international'. It feels so close!" (trAce member)

What do you mean by "community"?
We're more than just a website. You can join email conferences; submit your writing for others to read and discuss; chat together online, or go to our virtual meeting room for events and live conversation. If you have a good idea for a project you'll always find someone eager to participate. /more about the trAce community

What do the Writers-in-Residence do?
Our resident authors specialise in writing or in developing the relationship between writers on the Internet. They work with trAce both online and offline to build a lively and interactive literary community. Send them your writing, meet them for tutorials and discussions in virtual or live space, and learn new techniques and skills. At least one Writer is in Residence at any one time. Our Writers-in-Residence are Bernard Cohen, Alan Sondheim, Alan McDonald, and Christy Sheffield Sanford.

Why does the site have so many cookies?
trAce uses cookies to gain information about our visitors, such as country of origin and browser use. We DO NOT collect any information in this way about individuals. /more about cookies

Do you know of any good web sites for writers?
Try the trAced resources section, where we research and review web sites of interest to writers from webzines to writing competitions, from poetry to scriptwriting. You'll also find sites there by trAce members themselves as well as links to conferences and events.

What do people get out of trAce?
"I've learnt a lot from trAce and all the writers I've listened to on this list, no matter how experienced or how long-standing a member of trAce they are. It's the freshness of the ideas and enthusiasm that I like." (trAce member)

"Voices, unified, ConCordant, Confident in reCreation" (trAce member)

Can you recommend an Internet Service Provider?
There are so many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in each country that we can't recommend a particular one. We suggest you choose a provider which does not limit your online access, and which charges a flat rate fee per month (not dependent on your online time).

In the UK, there are now lots of (almost) completely free ISPs available. You can often pick up their software on CD-ROM from shops and magazine cover discs. These include Freeserve (from Dixons), Virgin.net, Waterstones, Sky, WH Smith, Tesco, Top Shop. These are completely free to install, give unlimited time online *but*

you will still pay for phone calls and
installing more than one ISP may result in none of them working unless you know a lot about your computer and
they will charge about Ł1 a minute to call the helpline

So it’s worth thinking about whether you’ll need a lot of support with installation, and then choosing between a pay per month ISP or a pay per call ISP. Try searching Yahoo for free ISPs (Internet Services).

Any good computer magazine will also give you a list of ISPs – and a lot of them rate the different types for ease of installation, whether the helpline is any good, how fast they are, and so on.

Can I have a trAce email address or webspace?
trAce does not offer email addresses at present. Webspace is available to writers with a formal arrangement with trAce: for example, Writers-in-Residence, wired poets, writers on attachment and some trainees.

Do you have meetings in real life?
We hold our conferences in virtual as well as real space. The educational community LinguaMOO hosts our virtual meeting room, where formal and informal discussions regularly take place. The first live Day Conference was 'Writers and the Internet' in Nottingham, England, in October 1998. An international conference, Incubation, will take place in July 2000. For an up to date list of events, conferences and appearances, see the Events page.

How do I find what I want on the World-Wide Web?
Some search tips:

Be as specific as possible, or you will get millions of hits!
Not poets but Robert Frost
Don't include unnecessary words (e.g., papers about bacteria) unless they are part of the search term.
Use plus (+) and minus (-) signs to force a word to be included or excluded, and use quote marks ("") to look for a phrase.
e.g., to find the English writer called Elizabeth Taylor, search for
+"Elizabeth Taylor" -movie -film -actress
The other way to find information, especially if you're not sure what you want, or have very general needs, is to surf: that is, to start with a web site and use their links page to move to other related sites. For example, trAce has a list of links to other writing websites.
A good search engine to use is www.Google.com, but results are different on all: Yahoo offers a directory-based search, Altavista is extremely comprehensive and metasearch engines like Dogpile search several search engines at once. Experiment to see which one suits you best.

Is there anyone who can answer my questions about writing online and using the Net?
trAce's volunteer mentors offer advice and support whether you're trying to make the most of the trAce site, explore the Internet for the first time or create your own web-work.

Where can I get free stuff on the Web?
The most comprehensive sources of free and shareware software include sites like http://www.tucows.com, http://download.cnet.com, and http://www.zdnet.com/swlib/ but you will find many others too.

Remember that although you can get many applications for free, most graphics on the Web are copyright. To use them on your own website you should obtain permission from the site or its owner. There are collections of free graphics which are stated non-copyright. Try searching for free graphics. One place to start is http://www.freegraphics.com/