Our Penniless Write began in Spring 2010 as a writing group based in the cafes and tenement flats in and around Glasgow’s West End. The site was created as a means of reading and responding to what the members of the group were producing in the sessions. With the original members of the group all moving to greener pastures, the website became the vehicle through which we continued to develop our practice and communicate our ideas across distance. Because the group no longer met in a definable geographical location, we thought it made sense to start inviting submissions.

In the quest to become a writer, there is a danger that one’s writing can verge on becoming merely a means to this end, rather than an end in itself. With the publication of a story, one gingerly takes another step towards one’s metamorphosis into a fully fledged, rainbow-winged, credible ‘Writer’ - almost as though getting published is an initiation ceremony. One has a shiny badge affixed to their lapel and receives a firm handshake of validation from those who deal in ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘success’ and ‘failure’. Sometimes the importance shifts from the practice of writing itself, to trying to write what others want to read. And we try to bend our pieces to fit the wills/whims of others, or the ‘character’ of a journal, or the expectations and stipulations of an editor. We want the site to be a space where people can actually develop their writing practice, and so ideas and enthusiasm take precedence over perfection or completion. We want the emphasis to be on process, rather than product.

We do not want the polished stories that you would submit to other magazines, but welcome the rough hewn notes or the ideas which perhaps spawn your stories; the chippings left behind once the story has been carved into a figurative shape; the writing on the scraps of paper that you never do anything with; the pieces of writing that can’t be categorised. We want the things you write when you’re supposed to be doing something else; the things that are fit to burst in your head and so you commit them to paper in a frenzy of frustrated bloodlust and passion. We want people to take chances and risks with their writing. And we want to encourage you to submit the pieces of writing that you don’t know what to do with, that you’re maybe not 100% happy with. We don’t necessarily want your best works, but the works that don’t fit in.

We want the site to be an online writing group; a place where people can be influenced by and respond to one another’s work. We want the site to be interactive. This emphasises its experimental nature, as it acts as a forum where people can try out new ideas without the fear of failure or rejection.