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Happy April (Fool's Day)!

The new piece of art we are showing off this month features, of course, the Weasley Twins.  I fell in love with this when I saw it.  Not too many artists have captured the true bond the twins have even though they no longer share the same physical plane. You can still feel the camaraderie, the power of two in one, when you look at this picture.

What makes April extra special is that TPP was brought into being a mere two days after the twins celebrated their birthday. Sometimes I think it was a particularly clever prank of theirs, sort of like a Portable Swamp that's not likely to disappear anytime soon. Anyway, here's to another wonderful year of writing and reading and reviewing!!

Ten Stories ◦ Ten Months ◦ Ten Years

The Petulant Poetess is celebrating its 10th anniversary by shining the light of Lumos! on stories that have been featured through the years. 

Through 2015, every month--beginning with March and 2005--will feature ten stories representing some of the best each year had to offer.

Celebrate with us - may TPP continue to nurture writers and offer some of the best HP fanfic around for another ten years!

Search Engine

As many of you know, I am constantly tweaking the site, fixing things aesthetically or fixing bugs and glitches.  Here is what I accomplished today:

• I fixed a bug in the search page so now you can successfully search by word count.


• I added a list of 'Top Tens' that can be accessed through the search page.


• I added a feature for authors so they can see who chose their story as a favorite.  Authors could already see which members chose them as a favorite author, but I made that easier to read.

I hope you enjoy the new stuff and the improvements.  As always, if something is not working properly, please e-mail me! 

Attention Saturnight Drabblers

We have now our own section in the TPP forum, which you can access here: TPP Forum

Please read the Guidelines post (here) and keep the link handy for any new drabblers joining us.

The Saturday night drabbling has been growing amazingly! If you've never participated, feel free to do so! Come to the chat room (link at the bottom of the page--click on the Chatzy button), choose a prompt, and write away. Or if you're not in a writing mood, cheerlead the drabblers!

See you tonight!

Shrimpcast ? a podcast designed in anticipation of Phoenix Rising

The next Harry Potter convention-type event is going to be Phoenix Rising. While TPP isn't going to be represented officially, a few of our admins will be going. If you attend, you might just run into one of us. (An official link may be found on our Links & Affiliates page.)

For those of you attending Phoenix Rising, you might be interested in the new podcast that's floating about – Shrimpcast. There are fan interviews, information about the goings on within the Houses of L'Universite des Arts Magiques, fic and website recs, fic excerpt readings, and some handy information about things within New Orleans, where the convention will be taking place. You can find the website here – www.shrimpcast.com. Listen, e-mail the makers, and find links to the websites mentioned on the cast.

Even if you won't be attending Phoenix Rising, it is a lot of fun to listen to!

Thank you and a Friendly Nag ...

This weekend I saw the number of total reviews jump to over 5000 on the site, and that made me smile.  I feel like The Petulant Poetess has come a long way since we first opened our doors last April. Yes, it has been nearly a year.

I want to thank once again all the wonderful authors who have posted here (over 150 now), and I want to encourage those who might be thinking about posting here.  True, in the last month, I've had to stick to our submission rules as far as what we accept and reject (due to the number of submissions going up), but I always encourage those we need to have their story betaed and try again.  I wish SW and I had more time in the day to read and validate, but I know I, myself, struggle to get enough computer time.  We try very hard to get the stories that are submitted posted in a timely manner.

Now for the nag.  While our readership levels are now quite competitive with, and nearly equal at times, with a couple of the other high-volume sites, our reviews are at much lower levels. I want to give all of the readers a challenge of sorts. When you are through reading a story, think of something good you liked about it and write a quick review, or ask that question that was niggling at the back of your mind while you were reading the chapter.  Of course, we always encourage constructive criticism on TPP (which is best given with a compliment as a side dish).  I know I used to be very shy to review before I started writing.  My shyness disappeared with the posting of my first story.  Let me say that we authors thrive off reviews.  Most readers are not authors, and we really do care what the reader thinks regardless of his/her experience in writing.  Everyone has something valuable to say.

Okay.  Now I'm going to stop nagging.  All I want to add is that it would be a wonderful birthday gift for the site if we could offer the authors a few more reviews.  Thank you! 

The State of TPP

Together, we did it!

We are overwhelmed, astounded, and – most of all – grateful to the efforts of this community to keep TPP alive. Whether you gave a little or a lot or your best wishes or good adivice, we are humbled to learn just how much TPP means to so many.

Because of your generosity of spirit and pocket, we have reached our goal far more quickly than we expected.

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank each and every one of you.

February 2009 Site Stats

Hi, there!

We've had another fun month here at TPP!

During this month, we saw 110 new stories uploaded to the site. There were also 77 updates. Of these, 100 have been completed and are ready for our reading pleasure!

We gained 340 new members! Welcome to the site. Enjoy and let us know if you need anything. We are happy to have you.

New authors who've joined us in February are:

alliean
Amita
caughtinblackseyes
Ceredwen
gersknightlady
helenesnape
keske
Nout
Past
sevs_starsisters
Sevvy
snarkysagewitch
veruslumen
WinterTwilight
Xani

Readers left a total of 4356 reviews.

Of those, authors responded to 3238. Remember, a good way to meet new people is through review leaving (and responding)!

Our Top 20 Reviewers this month are:

sunny33 (247 reviews posted)
kimjo2 (196 reviews posted)
HermioneJeanSnape (178 reviews posted)
rhiannon113 (167 reviews posted)
beaweasley2 (166 reviews posted)
debjunk (133 reviews posted)
braye27 (120 reviews posted)
snitchette (117 reviews posted)
MollysSister (111 reviews posted)
Muggline (96 reviews posted)
sinbad (72 reviews posted)
morgaine_dulac (71 reviews posted)
irishredlass (69 reviews posted)
EverMystique (60 reviews posted)
mom7knox (59 reviews posted)
pookah (52 reviews posted)
makaem (52 reviews posted)
Nessa (52 reviews posted)
salvamea (48 reviews posted)
luvsev (48 reviews posted)


Great work, all! I'll have a banner made for you and posted at our forum very soon! We appreciate the time you take to read and review at our site.

Authors responding to the most reviews:

sunny33 (260 reviews answered)
lulabelle72 (200 reviews answered)
Southern_Witch_69 (109 reviews answered)
beaweasley2 (109 reviews answered)
ladyinthecloak (100 reviews answered)
livvy6 (96 reviews answered)
HogwartsClassof91 (90 reviews answered)
grangerous (89 reviews answered)
debjunk (88 reviews answered)
brandy01 (88 reviews answered)
luvsev (82 reviews answered)
morgaine_dulac (80 reviews answered)
Good_Witch (78 reviews answered)
neelix (77 reviews answered)
grugster (77 reviews answered)
sc010f (74 reviews answered)
chivalric (71 reviews answered)
Muggline (65 reviews answered)
lyn_f (61 reviews answered)

The Hidden Before Voting authors who are writing for the current Potter Place Challenge (Variety Challenge) have a combined total of 182 reviews replied to! Well done, all.

Keep up the good work! :)

We're looking forward to another great month!

SW69 and the gang at TPP

February Stats

Welcome to the new authors joining us in February!

belle4life
bellus_extraneus
DanaPAH
duniazade
Elise_Wanderer
Freya Da Noch
Gelsey
kizzy7
klschmidt
LadyTuesday
LinZE
lulabelle72
machshefa
Queen_of_Stars
shellsnapeluver
snitchette

~Let us know if you need anything! Keep up the posting, friends!~

On the whole, there were 361 new members. Welcome as well!

Top Reviewers of February 2008

ladyluv (364 reviews posted)
CharmedForce (164 reviews posted)
Shadow (153 reviews posted)
blue artemis (124 reviews posted)
sinbad (121 reviews posted)
helshez (120 reviews posted)
snitchette (104 reviews posted)
emmeline33 (98 reviews posted)
DanaPAH (84 reviews posted)
MollysSister (82 reviews posted)

You guys rock! Thank you so much for reviewing. The authors appreciate it so much!

Other Stats:

There were a total of 4550 reviews written.

Of those, 3148 were responded to.

~Come on, authors! Whoot! Say thanks! :)~

It's That Time Again

Two years ago TPP was in crisis. We hosted an auction, and generous people offered the fruits of their creative labors for the good of the community. Generous people bid and won those labors, and we were able to pay for two years of hosting for the site.

Kyria continues to be remembered each chat night, as her donation to keep Chatzy ad-free is still going (for how long, we don't know).

Next month we are faced with a bill. We have enough left over from the auction to get us started, but we're short more than half of the fee.

What are we facing? Losing the site and everything archived here. Watching the community we've all built and the stories that brought us together--by authors who remain (and by those who have moved on)--the old favorites and new discoveries, all will be gone.

What can we do? As always, if we work together this archive and its community will survive (at least for another two years). If we can give a little--if many, many of us give just a little--we can do this.

We can do this.

We can do this.

Our PayPal Donate button (and Not So Saintly's old message, back from the days when our benefactress was able to support the rising cost of servers herself) is here: http://thepetulantpoetess.com/donation.php