6 Great Places to Get Feedback on Your Writing

I previously wrote about places to get feedback and give reviews to other writers in '5 Alternative Sites to Visit After Triggerstreet', after the Triggerstreet website was discontinued. However now some of those sites are no longer in operation.

Here are some other great places I have tapped into for reading our fellow writer's work and giving feedback, as well as places to submit our own work for peer review.

• Talentville:Talentville is an online community specifically created to give a voice to screenwriters and playwrights everywhere who may lack insider connections but still share the dream of being produced. By bringing together writers from all over the world in a collaborative environment, by banding together as a whole to help each member be the best that they can be, they aim to create not just an online community but in fact a city of writers, where each member can work on their craft, gain valuable exposure and ultimately benefit from their own hard work.
  
• Create50: Create50 is an initiative and creative process that platforms the work of emerging screenwriters, filmmakers, short story writers and allied artists. They want to get YOUR work out there and seen by the public AND the people who matter within creative industries. And they also want everyone to benefit from the collaborative process that Create50 offers so they can learn more about their art, craft and creative discipline.
  
• NYC Midnight: Since 2002, NYC Midnight has hosted hundreds of inspiring competitions for storytellers around the world.  Participants are challenged to create original stories, screenplays, or films using assigned elements under time constraints. There is a section on the forum open for providing reviews of submitted work.
  
• Amazon Studios: Amazon Studios is developing feature films and episodic series in a new way, one that's open to great ideas from creators—and audiences—around the world. You can review works that have been submitted through the Amazon Studios forum.
  
• WeBook: They bring together tens of thousands of writers, published authors, avid readers and almost 100 established literary agents, to create an energetic hub of activity where talented writing is celebrated and undiscovered gems can be rooted out and polished into literary diamonds.  They do this because we want to give talented writers a genuine opportunity to be celebrated by readers who care, readers who love to help and readers who can encourage WEbook’s community to strive towards literary perfection.
  
• Writers Cafe: WritersCafe.org is an online writing community where writers can post their work, get reviews, befriend other writers, and much more..

Also Christopher Felden put together a very comprehensive list of places to submit and share, as well as review, in his article 'Free Critiques'.

Submitting and Writing Contests

Here are some recent places I came across to submit to:

• Bare Fiction Magazine
  We do not charge a reading fee for submissions to the magazine.
  We read work in the English language all year round, therefore we aim to respond quickly (usually within 28 days). Though we do accept simultaneous submissions, please do keep in mind this time frame when submitting and ensure that you contact us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere. 
• Narrative Magazine
  WE WELCOME SUBMISSIONS of previously unpublished manuscripts of all lengths, ranging from short short stories to complete book-length works for serialization. Narrative regularly publishes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, including stories, novels, novel excerpts, novellas, personal essays, humor, sketches, memoirs, literary biographies, commentary, reportage, interviews, and features of interest to readers who take pleasure in storytelling and imaginative prose. We look for quality and originality of language and content. 

A great piece of advice I heard is why not look at submitting to a literary magazine as a kind of contest and submit there. It is full of competition and the reward is great if you succeed at getting published.

Beware

For submitting to contests there is a bit of warning, that some contests (especially ones with an admission fee) are just looking to make money and not help writers at all. Read these warnings.

3 Cool Places to Submit Short Stories

Shotgun Honey

http://www.shotgunhoney.net/

Needle Magazine

http://needlemag.wordpress.com/

Crime Factory

http://www.thecrimefactory.com/