Online Resources

Below you will find an introduction and links to various online resources available to Stonecoast students.

The Stonecoast Listserv

Alumni, current students, and faculty utilize listserv to exchange information regarding contests, publication prospects, and a variety of literary events. The Stonecoast Listserv is a perfect opportunity for Alumni to stay connected with the Stonecoast community.

You are not automatically subscribed to the list; each member needs to subscribe independently. Please contact the MFA office for instructions and the subscription address.

Once you have been successfully subscribed to the list, you can begin posting to it immediately. Listed below is some general advice about the listserv, as well as information about your subscription, how to manage it and how to unsubscribe.

Introducing yourself

As soon as you subscribe, or as you are comfortable with the climate of the listserv, please send a message to introduce yourself. This can be as simple as "Hi everyone, just wanted to say that I'm here," or it can include as much personal and professional information about yourself as you want. Since people don't get a chance to talk with everyone at residencies, you can assume that many people on the listserv would like to know more about you as a writer and a person.

What to post

After your introduction, anything is fair game for posting except for personal insults (known as "flaming"in listserv-land). You may want to post questions about academic issues, announcements of literary opportunities, (harmless) gossip about Stonecoast, comments and questions and rants on literary issues of the day, your own writing for comment, solicitations for workshop companions, reading series, retreats, publications, or reviews. PLEASE REMEMBER THAT POSTING IS A FORM OF PUBLICATION and that it is theoretically possible your comments may be found through search engines by people searching the net, so don't post anything unless you are comfortable with the rare chance that it may be made public. If you are unsure about whether to post something, ask the list moderator, Rachael Raffel, at stonecoastmfa@usm.maine.edu.

Posting etiquette

Heeding these two tips will make life much happier for all the subscribers:

1. Clean up garbage: As a courtesy to Digest subscribers who receive one long message, please make a habit of cleaning up garbage (old messages unnecessary for understanding your post) from the bottoms of your posts before you send.

2. Use helpful headers: The archives are most useful and messages easiest for people to organize with accurate, specific subject headings for each post. If you change your headings as the content of your messages changes, to keep them timely and informative (even entertaining!) you will do the list a real service.

News

It's always OK to share your own good news, such as announcements of publications or awards, on the list. But please remember that there will soon be links on the Stonecoast website for literary news about Stonecoasters, and we want to make sure to brag about your accomplishments there in a more public fashion as well! It is even more important to send such news items to us at stonecoastmfa@usm.maine.edu, so they will be posted on the site.

Managing the posts

There are two ways to subscribe to a listserv: mail (which means you get individual messages as soon as someone posts them to the list) or digest (which means you get one large message a day with all the messages on it). Generally, the mail version arrives more reliably than the digest version. Most people find that it is most convenient and reliable to subscribe to the mail version and use the filter or mailboxes function of your email program to funnel all the messages from the listserv into a special mailbox until you are ready to read them.

However you subscribe, we are happy to welcome you to the listserv, and we look forward to hearing from you online.

For general troubleshooting and computing assistance, USM Students have access to the USM Help Desk.

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