An Overdue Welcome and Update

It's been six weeks since we officially closed down the Meetup group, and it's all been a bit of a blur over here in OWC HQ. Getting our feet under us in this brave new world was an adventure, to say the least, but it went smoother than I was expecting. If you've followed us from Meetup, thank you! If you're brand new, welcome! We're so happy to have you.

The group, honestly, is pretty much as it was. You can find all our events listed on our Events Page and RSVP there. When you click through, the event description will hopefully tell you everything you need to know! If you've signed up for our mailing list (or are a member of this site), I've been sending out a "monthly digest" at the beginning of the month about what's going on. Things will always be added throughout the month, though, so be sure to check often!

The newest addition is our Discord server. If you haven't joined or are new to Discord, it's like a forum where people can chat with each other on different channels, separated by topic or event type. That's where we've been hosting our write ins and prompt parties so far. Mostly it's text-based, but there are voice channels as well! You can hop on there any time, whether there's an event on or not, and connect with your fellow writers.

COVID has us stuck inside our homes for a little longer. We're keeping an eye on the news, just like everyone else, and the OWC isn't going to host any in person meetings until it's very clear it's safe to do so. All our events are currently online, either Skype or Google Meet, and that information will be sent out via email when you RSVP to an event. If there are any issues, we'll usually post in the Discord and on the Wix App, see be sure to check those places!

We're constantly updating the Frequently Asked Questions page as we get more emails, so we strongly encourage people to head over there to see if your question has been answered before giving us a shout. Chances are, it's there.

But otherwise, drop us a line at ottawawriterscircle@gmail.com, via our Contact Form, or leave a comment below if you have anything you'd like to ask or let us know about!

On a final technical note, there is one weird thing happening when some people are creating their member profiles. For some reason, they are being created as Private Members and these people don't show up in the Member list on the community pages and in the Event RSVPs. I don't know why this is happening! I cover this in the FAQ, however if you go to your My Account in the upper righthand corner of any page on the website where you're signed in and on your Account page, in the lefthand column under your picture, there should be a button that says "Make my Profile Public". Click that and we can see your wonderful profile among us! If you button just says "Edit", you're already public. Not sure why this is happening, but our membership is much bigger than the counter on the Member page----there are almost 50 Private Members right now in addition to our 200+ public members.

All that to say, thanks for being here, and we hope to see more of your lovely faces soon!