PURPOSE TAB

The primary purpose of the fourm is to provide a roundtable for Affiliates to exchange peer-to-peer reviews.

While this is designed designed as a roundtable rather than a full workshop, it does share some of important features with a workshop.. Members can post a public list of items for which they are seeking reviews. Other members can see and review these items. Members can develop review partnerships with sympatico members. Roundtable participants can discuss the craft and art of writing. A feature of this roundtable is that the author's list of review requests is self-managed--once it's set up, Affiliates can add, subtract, or otherwise modify this list.

This is supposed to be an excbange. That means that if you post here asking for reviews, we also expect that you will do reviews of posted items. You don't have to review everyone, but you should strive for some balance between the reviews you recieve and the reviews you give.

In our experience, review exchanges of this type sometimes result in authors finding critique partners--another author with whom they have a particular rapport. These can develop into long-term relationships and, sometimes, even collaborations. When this happens, it's an awesome experience for the authors involved. Everytime you review someone on here, keep in mind that it could be the first step in such a relationship. The founders of the Crossroads Author Consortium have been partners of this type for over fifteen years.

We encourage reviewers to post copies of their reviews to the forum, unless the author has requested they not do so. Posting copies makes the Roundtable a learning tool as well as a launchpad for discussions. This is an important feature of a full-feldged writing workshop.

While we we encourage such posting, authors need to remember that this forum is open to all Affiliates. In fact, that's the main difference between Consortium roundtables and a workshop. Ordinarily, a workshop is a small, select group of authors--usually fewer than a dozen--who share works and critques with each other. Publishsers encourage this kind of activity, and it doesn't jeopardize an author's ability to sell first rights to their work since it's not been published to a general readership. Right now, the Constortium membership is small enough to qualify as a workshop, but that won't always be the case. As the Consortium grows, authors should consider whether or not to permit such posting of reivews in any Consortium roundtable.

Authors desiring a true workshop experience should consdier applying to "Novel Workshop-temporarily closed"  or any other genuine workshop on Writing.com that is closed to larger groups.