UKA and ABC

I posted this on UKA - thought you might like to see it.

Unfortunately my good intentions were, sadly, unfruitful.

Perhaps I might have better luck here...

'I felt the need to say this because it’s something that’s really starting to upset me and I wanted to make things a bit clearer.

It’s to do (surprise, surprise!) with UKA’s relationship with ABC, which I wanted to explain a little.

I became a member of ABC on the same day they launched the site. About 3 years ago I think it was. Saw it on the Beeb news. John Bird stepped out of that black cab and introduced a fabulous new website which encouraged the free participation of all writers, published or not, to post their work. Giving people like you and I a chance to get our stuff out there and read. I joined straight away and have never regretted it.

Since then, I’ve regularly posted my stuff on ABC and participated in the forums. Still do, although not so much, as my time is somewhat limited these days. Either way, ABC gave me a lot of confidence, for which I’m very grateful. I might even go so far as to say that, without ABC, there might not have been a UKA :-)

And the point of all this? Well, it saddens me no end to see the sniping that’s going on between the two sites. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – we are NOT in competition with each other, there’s plenty of room for both. Yes, we may have different agendas and different ways of doing things, but surely this is good? Choice is always good, no? True, there are certain people who do their best to stir up trouble between the two sites, but I want to say that this is not the spirit of ABC, nor that of UKA.

The guys who run ABC are doing a difficult job, as we are here, and doing it brilliantly. I’ve met Tony Cook personally, and he’s a great bloke, totally dedicated to his site, as I am to mine. We exchange links and info and try to help each other as much as possible. Ivoryfishbone (Alison Dunne) is not only a great poet, but has stayed in my flat in A’dam (the jam was delicious, Fish:-)) Liana is a lovely person with whom I’m in regular email contact. I consider them all to be friends.

All these guys, the REAL spirit of ABC are working damn hard, as we are at UKA, to provide somewhere for you guys to display your stuff and, at the same time, have as much fun as possible.

I’m not pointing any fingers here, I just think it’s high time we recognised that we need to help each other, not be at each others throats. As I mentioned in another thread, if you want to exclusively post on UKA, fine, if you want to exclusively post on ABC, also fine. But (and I know Tony would agree with me on this) if you want to participate on both sites, even better. Just don’t slag each other off, ok? It’s not only unnecessary, but totally pointless as well.

So please, please, just ignore the troublemakers, they are NOT, as I said before, acting in the interests, or spirit, of either site.

We both (Tony and I) have the same goals, so let’s just all try to get along. There’s absolutely no reason why we can’t, and we’d both be awfully grateful if you gave it your best shot:-)

I don’t know how many of you have seen this interview, which’ll be appearing on the ABC front page as soon as they’ve updated it, but it might give you some idea of the cooperation between us. Hope so, anyway.

Now that Thought Caff's gone, UKA and ABC are the two main UK writers’ sites, so let’s get our shit together and do what we all really want to do…write.

Well, that’s about it, really. Needed to get that out, it really was beginning to get to me.

So we’re all gonna be nice, right? And make me a very happy (Easter) bunny…

Anyway, here’s the interview…

'