I guess I could go on and on like this for ages, but on the premise that less is more, and the sites I've mentioned above are the best I've come across, I'm going to stop at this point. If I've missed any ace AG sites, then I'm quite happy to add more - please get in touch with me.
If you'd like to get in contact with other Gothniks, there are four places to check out:
* The Mailing List. This is a great and friendly place to meet other American Gothic fans from around the world. Conversation is always rich and lively. You post mail items to a common mailbox, and they are relayed to everyone else who subscribes to the List – you write to everyone! People then read your mail item and reply – again – everyone can see the reply – hence the conversation builds. There are two versions of the List – on one you get every mail item as and when it is posted to the List; on the other, you get periodic summaries of all items posted to the list. This is called the Digest. It really depends if you want to receive 20 mail items a day, or one long one. In the body of your message, type "subscribe agothic" without the quotes, for the full version. If you don't like getting lots and lots of mail, type "subscribe agothic-digest" instead.
*The Forum is a web-based discussion group. It's part of the MCA website, and may need saving. Please check this site out.
*The UNDERNET Chat Forum.
Place: Undernet
Channel: #agothic
Time: every saturday after 5pm PST
IRC Teacher: Alien
To find out all about Undernet and IRC, point your Internet browser at http://www.brunel.ac.uk:8080/~cs93jtl/Undernet.html. You'll need to download an IRC client on the net. Search: IRC. From PC you could use mIRC (there are others), from Macs I've heard of Ircle (but again there are others). Once you have the client, install it via its instructions and login to an Undernet server (a list of them and others should come with the software) by the instructions. Once on an Undernet server join chatroom #agothic.
* The AOL Chat Forum (America On-Line users only). Go to People Connection which will put you in the Main Lobby. There should be an icon that says "Private Room". Click on the icon and enter "american gothic" without the quotation marks and no capitals when it asks for the name of the room. Monthly chats are generally the first Sunday of the month at 5 p.m. (EST) unless someone posts otherwise.
There is a lot of very good American Gothic fan fiction out there and in production. A good example is Ryan's site. There is also a Writer’s Round-Robin. For further details, send an e-mail to Alien.
Well folks, that's about it - I guess the Buck stops here.
