How does this place work?

New stories or new sections to ongoing stories are first posted on the Message Board. They are then manually transferred to the archives, usually within a few weeks.

The archives are in two main sections.

• The Epilogue Abbey contains stories that take place in the same time period as Jane Austen's novels and generally stay relatively true to her work.
• The Fantasia Gallery contains modern stories, time-shifted stories, stories with fanciful elements, or more irreverent stories.

Stories in both sections of the archive can be searched by title, author, date of last update, novel, and keywords from the story blurb.

If you would like to contribute a story, please read the Contributor Guidelines to see what is appropriate for this web site. We do have many young people visiting this site, and it is our intention to keep things acceptable for them. Our general rule is to keep our stories rated G to PG-13. Non-Jane Austen-related stories can be shared on our sister site, A Novel Idea.

The default format for the Message Board has true threading--meaning you can get from the one message in a thread to the next, without returning to the main index. Other features include:

• The ability for each person to customize the page into the format that they like.
• A preview option so you can see your post before you actually post it.
• The option to "Follow Topic" and receive an e-mail every time someone has posted a new response to a thread.
• RSS feeds to follow the latest posts on all the message boards from your mobile phone, PDA, or any other device that has an RSS reader. For more information on RSS, see here. Our RSS feed addresses:
  • DWG message board, all posts: http://www.austen.com/phorum/feed.php?5,replies=1,type=rss
  • DWG message board, stories only: http://www.austen.com/phorum/feed.php?5,type=rss
  • Tea Room, all posts: http://www.austen.com/phorum/feed.php?4,replies=1,type=rss
  • A Novel Idea, all posts: http://www.austen.com/phorum/feed.php?6,replies=1,type=rss
  • A Novel Idea, stories only: http://www.austen.com/phorum/feed.php?6,type=rss

For more information about how to use the board, please read the tutorial, Using the Board. If still you have any questions or comments, please post them in the Jane Austen's Tea Room. We ask that you do not post using aliases.

The Derbyshire Writers' Guild was created in Feburary 1997 as an offshoot of the Republic of Pemberley's Bits of Ivory board. The site is run by volunteers and paid for by donations from our community. We hold one fundraiser a year in November, when our web host Paul Terry Walhus from Spring.net presents us with our bills. In November 2008 we raised over $1500. Thank you to everyone who contributed!

Crysty, TheresaS, and Amy I. archive DWG stories. Amy I. also archives for A Novel Idea. Margaret D maintains the code for the web site and message boards. We thank Jimmy, Kathlyn, Peg, and Spring for their previous assistance. And a very, very big thank you to Ann Haker, the founder of the Derbyshire Writers' Guild, who dedicated many years to developing and running the site.

For comments or problems, or if you have any suggestions (which are always welcome around here!), contact Crysty (crysty.janeite@gmail.com) You can send IT/technical problems directly to Margaret D (margied@gmail.com).

  Last Update 6/18/09